Joe Carroll: Injury denied Jim McArdle a place on the biggest stage

Jim McArdle had a hugely successful career on the football pitch, but on its greatest day, injury denied him playing what would undoubtedly have been a central role.

Having played throughout a four-match 1957 Leinster Championship campaign, and again in the No 6 jersey for the All-Ireland semi-final defeat of Tyrone, the Roche Emmets clubman, who matched toughness with style whenever he played, had to look on from the sideline as his Louth team colleagues went about dismantling the Cork challenge on the third Sunday in September, bringing the Sam Maguire Cup to the Wee County for the first time.

Genial Jim, highly respected off the field as well as on it, died last week at the age of 91. His Requiem Mass, at St Brigid’s Church, Kilcurry, in his native Parish of Faughart and burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery, was attended by GAA followers from throughout the county. His coffin carried the Louth and Roche Emmets colours.

Recalling the injury that kept him from realising a dream cherished by every Gaelic footballer, Jim told ‘Heroes of ’57 author’, Eunan Whyte: “I remember the incident where I picked up the injury (in the Tyrone match).

“Eddie Devlin had been playing centre-half for Tyrone and coming near the end he was shifted up to the 40 yards, marking me.

“I went up for a ball behind him and I caught it. I came down and the cartilage went, just like that. I knew at that stage that I wouldn’t be playing in the final – nobody else knew, but I did.”

He was selected for the final, but although he had received treatment, it was well known in the Louth camp that he wouldn’t be playing. The No 6 jersey went to Peadar Smyth, from the Oliver Plunkets club, while McArdle watched the game from the sideline in his street clothes.

He didn’t hide his feelings in his chat with Whyte. “The day of the final itself was very disappointing. It was great to see the team winning, but it was tinged with regret that I wasn’t playing myself and being part of it all. It was a wee bit different as a sub. I didn’t even get togged out, and I suppose I should have.

“I could have gone on and played, but I would have been a fiasco, with me being the cause of the team losing the match; I couldn’t have that. I didn’t feel detached from the victory as I still felt I was part of it (the campaign), and a good part of it in the earlier games. I was lucky enough to be with a good bunch of people.”

It was the second time in his career that injury had deprived him of a place on a big stage. Having made his senior debut at competitive level in the 1951 Leinster Championship, playing on the right wing against Meath at Croke Park, he was a regular for the 1953 championship, playing against Westmeath, Wicklow and Meath in a variety of positions, Nos. 2, 9 and 5, respectively.

However, he had to relinquish his place for the final with Wexford, having fallen victim of injury, and was again an absentee from the team that played Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final.

The then-Young Irelands clubman won his first Leinster medal in ’53 and added another four years later. He’d have brought up the hat-trick had Louth won either the 1958 and 1960 finals, but defeat was the Wee County’s lot in both, losing to Dublin and then Offaly.

It was soon after the Offaly defeat that he ended his inter-county days, playing his last game against the same county in the National League.

In his decade in the county colours, he won many representative honours. At a time when the rest of Ireland’s meeting against the Combined Universities carried huge prestige, he twice lined out with the winning Universities side, and also won a Sigerson Cup medal with UCD.

But probably the greatest honour that could be bestowed on him came in 2000, when, in the face of stiff opposition, he was named at centre-half on Louth’s Team of the Millennium.

The line-out: Gerry Farrell (Cooley K); Jack Bell (St Mary’s), Eddie Boyle (Cooley K and Sean McDermott’s Dublin), Jimmy Tuft (Y Irelands); Sean Boyle (Cooley K and St Mary’s), J McArdle (Y Irelands, Stabannon P and Roche E), Stephen White (Cooley K and Y Irelands); Jack Regan (Dundalk Gaels), Jimmy Thornton (Cooley K); Kevin Beahan (St Mary’s and Sean McDermott’s, Dublin), Jim Quigley (Y Irelands), Frank Lynch (Geraldines); Ollie Halpin (St Magdelene’s), Jimmy McDonnell (Darver Volunteers), Frank Fagan (Young Irelands).