Kildare Senior Football team Kit Man Tommy Murphy awarded the Leinster GAA Presidents award for 2022

Tommy Murphy of Round Towers GAA Club and Kildare GAA Senior Team Kitman has won the Leinster Award in Gradaim an Uachtaráin (GAA President’s Award) for 2022. The ceremony will be broadcast TG4 on Friday 11 at 10.20pm. 

These prestigious annual awards allows Uachtarán CLG with an opportunity to acknowledge outstanding commitment and long service across the club and county network. 

The 11 awards are a cross-section of people who have shared the common theme of making an inspirational impact on their code and also their club and community.

Tommy Murphy has been a constant presence within Kildare Football since the mid 1990’s. He has been involved in various guises from Kit man to Caretaker and everything in between. However, to confine him to just these labels is doing him a disservice. The contribution Tommy has made to every aspect of Kildare football is probably one that can never quite be quantified. He is very often the first person a player meets when they join the panel and the last they see when they finish up. 

Former Kildare player and All-Star Johnny Doyle recalls just such an encounter "I remember my first night going in with the seniors, we had just lost a County Final the week previous and Tommy was the first person I met in Hawkfield. He spoke to me about the Final and seemed to know all about me and my club, the way he handled the situation for a nervous young fella coming into the panel is something I will never forget and am forever grateful for." This encapsulates all the unseen good that Tommy has done for Kildare down through the years.

Since he first came in as Kit man for the senior footballers under the famous Mick O’Dwyer, Tommy is the go-to person for everyone involved in Kildare. When called upon for anything Tommy’s answer is invariably yes without fail. On top of all this he has always been an ultra-positive person around a panel, no matter the result Tommy always finds a reason to be optimistic.

Kildare Football is extremely lucky to have someone like Tommy who has been the heartbeat of it all. 

Uachtarán CLG Larry McCarthy said: “The GAA is about Games, but it is people who make the GAA what it is. The GAA Presidents’ Awards is an opportunity for the Association to acknowledge a group of inspirational people who have made an outstanding contribution towards the success of Gaelic games.”

“They are, in many respects, ambassadors for the tens of thousands of volunteers who dedicate themselves to the promotion of Gaelic games at club, school and county levels and who we are so fortunate to call our own. Their work is not motivated by recognition – but that is why it is all the more important to appreciate the work that they do and celebrate the fact the GAA is the better for it."