Maynooth's Tommy Fay on family lineage and 70s successes

Tommy Fay began discussing his time with Maynooth GAA, and his lifetime spent there, very simply. He said, “Maynooth? Born and bred.”

The now club president and his family are etched into the history books of the club with his father, Jim, having won a Senior Hurling Championship with the club in 1924.

As well as his 1924 triumph, Jim also has a SHC medal with Celbridge for winning the 1921 Championship. Tommy still has both pieces of silverware.

The wins for each of the close rivals actually came just a year apart. Despite the medal being for winning the 1921 Championship, the hurling final was played in late 1923 because of The Irish Civil War. Tommy describes how his father cycled or hitchhiked a lift to Celbridge for his early hurling endeavours, but returned to Maynooth when the club took up the small ball game.

Tommy would follow in his father’s footsteps and turn out for the Maynooth hurling team in a variety of roles. However, he certainly found a home when it came to football and established himself as a key forward in Maynooth’s 1970s successes.

“I played mostly in goals in hurling, but I played outfield too because that time if you managed to have a team you would be happy enough,” Tommy explained.

“The year we won the Junior Hurling Championship, 1975, beating Moorefield, I was playing outfield. But we lost that due to an objection, we played an ineligible player.”

It wouldn’t be the first time a Maynooth team, like many others, would chance their arm for a big game. Tommy tells the story of the time his father won a Kildare Minor Championship with the club, at the age of 27.

“They went up to Newbridge to play Towers. Their manager, Keys was his name, had a look at the Towers team and said they seemed very big. He came back into the Maynooth dressing room and told a few of the older fellas to get stripped for a game,” Tommy laughed.

“There were a good few that did it too and they won in the end.”

Perhaps a touch easier to get away with in 1927. There would be success soon after the overturning of the ‘75 Junior hurling final. Maynooth beat Athy to 2-15 to 0-1 in the Junior ‘B’ final before upsetting Junior ‘A’ champions St Kevin’s in the Jack Higgins cup final.

The report in a Maynooth community newsletter from the time read “Terry Moore and Tommy Fay quickly put Maynooth two goals in the first minutes of the game. At half-time Maynooth were 2-6 to 0-0 ahead.”

Despite going on to score 1-2 in that Junior ‘B’ final, Tommy still wasn’t pleased that Maynooth didn’t achieve a shutout, which they were so close to.

“They got that point in the last kick of the game, the referee gave them a soft free,” Tommy recalled.

When asked about his own contribution, Tommy said, “Ah I could play, I wasn’t too bad now.”

The biggest achievement of that year was of course still to come when Maynooth lifted the Jack Higgins Cup with a victory over

St Kevin’s. Maynooth would continuously haunt the Staplestown club decades later winning the 1999 Intermediate Championship with a replay victory over St Kevins and beating them again in 2005 to lift another IFC.

“I loved it (winning) and loved Maynooth. I had taken on being secretary in 1973 as well and at that time I was working in CIE.

The way it worked out at one stage was that I could no longer play on a Sunday, I had to work on the weekend. So I left CIE after 14 years,” Tommy explained.

“I loved football. I was still secretary then and looked after the club.”

A man who’s commitment to his club could never be questioned, Tommy praised the squad of ‘76 for being one of the best he played in. He said, “We had a good team that year, there was no doubt there. Terry Moore and Colm Feeney were great players, the Mulhern’s too.

“There was a big session after that one alright. We went down to the local, Brady’s mostly. We done them all though and did a pub crawl with the cup.”

Tommy, like he had in the Junior ‘B’ final, scored 1-2 of Maynooth’s 1-9 tally when they beat St Kevin’s. But with responsibilities as chief scorer, secretary and caretaker, it was not long before he was worn out.

“Towards the end of it I got fed up because there were very few people to give you a dig out. I marked the pitch, put up the nets, put out flags and jerseys. Then to go out and play too. I got a hand off one man in particular, Paddy Tobin, we’d mow the grass together,” Tommy recalled.

“I always volunteered. We were on the committee of the bar then later. The club was going well then after that.”

Despite frustrations over time, Tommy’s commitment to the club he loved never wavered. He eventually hung up his boots to play golf with the aim of getting his handicap of five down to scratch, but the volunteer work always remained.

“I don’t know what kept me going, I just kept going. I felt like I had to look after the club,” he said.

“I played golf for a few years and was a member in Edenderry. I gave up the GAA eventually to do that, but at the end of the day it didn’t really work. It didn’t materialise and it ended in about 2009 when I got diabetes that set in on my feet. That was the end of that.”

In a spectator capacity, Tommy said some of the most fun that he had watching Maynooth in action came during the old seven-a-side game’s done with clubs in the surrounding areas.

“We had a good (seven-a-side) team down in Maynooth and you could see the senior players playing in this. We faced teams from Lucan, Meath or anywhere really. It was a great watch, but there was nearly more fighting in it than anything,” he laughed.

In the same year that he became club secretary, 1973, Tommy married Betty, his now wife of 50 years. Both remain ever present in his life as the club president continues to lead Maynooth forward.

The Leinster Leader is doing a feature interview with someone from every club in Kildare. If you have a suggestion for an article on someone from your club, send to daragh.nolan@ leinsterleader.ie.