Edenderry GAA Club to celebrate anniversaries of important championship wins

EDENDERRY GAA Club will take a trip down memory lane when they celebrate the 40^th and 30^th anniversaries of two of their most important and sweetest Senior Football Championship final wins this weekend.

The club have organised a reunion for the Edenderry sides that captured the Dowling Cup in 1985 and 1995 this Saturday, July 19 in the President's Bar at their own pavilion. The reunion will take place after they host Rhode in the first round of this year's Senior Football Championship.

It promises to be a great occasion and members of those excellent squads will be delighted to meet up again.

The 1985 win was a hugely significant one as it broke a long famine for Edenderry who hadn't won the championship since 1957. It was a long bleak, traumatic 28 years for Edenderry who were generally not at the races and didn't reach a final until 1984.

The wheel began to turn in the in the early 1980s. They won the league in 1983 and were beaten by a strong Gracefield side, 1-10 to 0-8, in the 1984 senior football final – that Gracefield team included three heroes from the 1982 All-Ireland senior football champions, brothers Mick and Pat Fitzgerald, and Padraig Dunne.

Edenderry had an 1982 hero of their own, the flamboyantly brilliant Gerry Carroll, though he had moved to America in 1984, returning home for the final and coming on as a sub as they just edged out Raheen, 1-7 to 1-6, in a tough, uncompromising and much talked about final. Raheen had two 1982 stars, John Guinan and Johnny Mooney, who had transferred to them from Rhode as he had a pub in Geashill at that time, in their squad..

Apart from Carroll, that Edenderry team included a veteran from the Offaly team that won the 1971 and 1972 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, Sean Evans - he scored the decisive goal for them in the final. He was at the tailend of a long career at that stage though he went onto play a pivotal role for his home club of Ballyfore (players from a junior club were allowed play with a senior side in the parish up until 1989) in a famous 1992 intermediate football final win – playing in goals at this stage, he saved a last gasp penalty goal from the late Shane Ryan to keep Ballyfore ahead of Belmont's predecessors, St Saran's.

It also included one of the most exciting emerging emerging prospects at that time, a young attacking protege Peter Brady. Brady was one of Offaly's star footballers for the next decade plus, outstanding as Offaly won the Leinster Senior Football Championship in 1997 and the National Football League a year later.

Edenderry then headed into another mini famine of sorts after 1985 as an unbeatable Ferbane emerged, winning five in a row from 1986 to 1990 and also collecting the Dowling Cup in 1992 and 1994. Again, Edenderry couldn't reach the final but they broke through to take the spoils in 1995, beating Clara by 2-10 to 1-10.

The 1995 team

There were a lot of sideshows to that Edenderry win. With Offaly playing Tipperary in the National Football League on Sunday, it was originally fixed for the Saturday. Edenderry, however, objected successfully as a young Cillian Farrell had been sent off in a junior hurling fixture a couple of weeks earlier and his suspension was only up at midnight on Saturday – at that time, a suspension applied to all games and was not specific to the code it was incurred in. It went ahead on Sunday with an earlier than normal throw in, with the league match on afterwards. After playing a starring role in the final, Finbarr Cullen immediately went to the Offaly dressing room, coming on as a sub in their facile win over Tipp.

Another tantalising titbit was the presence of Donal O'Neill in goals, one of the remaining links with the 1985 side. Goalkeeper on the Offaly side that won the All-Ireland U21 Football Championship in 1988, O'Neill was very young in 1985 and he drifted off the scene in the early 1990s. In 1995, Edenderry hadn't settled on a goalkeeper for much of the campaign and O'Neill came back late in the day, playing his first game in the final and staying there for the Leinster club championship. He had a famous long kickout and sadly passed away a couple of years ago.

That win sparked Edenderry's best ever era and it was their best ever side. With county stars, Finbarr Cullen and Peter Brady in sensational form, they had a host of excellent players and were a real force of nature. They won again in 1997, 1999 and 2001 when that golden era came to a halt and they didn't re-enter the winners' enclosure until 2011. They had some really solid club players, who performed and the injection of young talent kept them going for a few years,

They pipped Ferbane in a famous 1997 final, getting a winning score deep into long contested injury time – the referee of that final, Mick Mahon from Shannonbridge sadly passed away just recently. In 1998, Rhode ended their own long traumatic famine, defeating Edenderry to win the Dowling Cup for the first time since 1973. The rivalry between Edenderry and Rhode over the next few years was the outstanding feature of the Offaly football scene. Both played some great football and it was very intense, particularly among supporters who often made no attempt to disguise their animosity for each other.

Edenderry got the better of their arch rivals in the 1999 and 2001 finals, taking a replay win in '99. Rhode suffered some heartbreaking defeats for a few years in big games before emerging on top again in 2004 and embarking on the most sustained, remarkable, consistent run of success in Offaly club football.

No doubt some of the Rhode contingent at Saturday's game will drop in to the reunion to rekindle old memories and it should be a very enjoyable occasion.

Apart from Donal O'Neill, there were other important links between the 1985 and 1995 teams. O'Neill., brothers Michael Og and Peter Brady, Eddie O'Neill, Declan Farrell and Kieran O'Connell played in both finals while Greg Blong was a sub in 1985 and a rock steady full back ten years later.

The experience of those 1985 survivors was crucial to the 1995 win and Edenderry had a great mix at that time. The leadership shown by great club players such as Declan Farrell and Kieran O'Connell, along with Kevin Guing, was immense. Finbarr Cullen had played in the 1989 All-Ireland minor hurling and football finals, winning a hurling medal, and he only hit his peak around 1997-2000, but was super in '95 while the influence of their younger players such as Shane Bagnall, Cillian Farrell, John Mason and Declan Flynn was considerable.

It was an exciting time in Offaly football and the Edenderry 1985 and 1995-2001 squads are remembered fondly far outside their own area.

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The 1985 team was: Donal O'Neill; Frankie McGuinness, Eddie O'Neill, Pat Mangan; Andy Walsh, Michael Og Brady, Ken Corcoran; Liam Nugent, Christy McGlynn; Peter Brady, Declan Farrell, Kieran O'Connell; Liam Corcoran, Sean Evans, Declan Carroll. Sub used – Gerry Carroll. Other subs – James McDonnell, Dermot Coyne, David Coffey, Sean Farrell, Mark Kelly, Peter Hurley, Brian Evans, Greg Blong, Henry Ryan, James Mullen, Michael Keane.

The 1995 team was: Donal O Neill; Cormac Nolan, Greg Blong, Kevin Guing; Shane Bagnall, Finbarr Cullen, Eddie O Neill; Michael Og Brady, Peter Brady; Cillian Farrell, John Mason, Kieran O Connell; Declan Flynn, Declan Farrell (captain), Niall Comerford. Subs – Nicky Mullen, Tony Kenny, Damien McKeon, Pauric Ennis, Sean Farrell, Cathal Reilly, Michael Bryan, Liam Corcoran, John McKeon, Ray Lynch, Nigel Mooney, Paul Nolan, Paul Loughlin, Gabriel Gorman, Adrian Mahon, Gordon Mooney, Alan McNamee, Padraig Fitzsimons.