Mick O'Dwyer - The Uncrowned King of Kerry

Mick O'Dwyer has dominated the last decade of Gaelic football to a greater degree than any of the players who became national figures during that period. Naturally, most of them would be Kerry players. It is hardly necessary to remind readers that the county has won seven All-Irelands in eleven years -and lost two more - under his management.
But it is not because of this asstonishing achievemen t alone that he has become such a controversial figure, inspiring great allegiance and not a little suspicion. Mick O'Dwyer has taken certain well-preserved attitudes out of the top drawer of the GAA establishment and knocked the dust off them publicly. Indeed, he is more than willing to explain what it is he is about. This has led some observers to predict a head-on collision between himself and the establishment; usually referred to by the GAA rank and file as "Croke Park".

Now pushing fifty, after a lifetime of service as player, official, manager and coach, his enthusiasm for football and the GAA exceeds that of most players half his age. There is no sign of a decline in interest, or an end to the quest for even further successes. In a year marked by both success and controversy there is already a new preeoccupation ....

"I'm thinking of writing a bit of a book," he told me casually on the phone as we arranged a meeting in Waterville to conduct this interview. This I took to be Kerryspeak for, "I am going to set down my views on my life in football, coaching, training and all my considered opinions about what the GAA should now be doing. As well, of course, as giving a few skelps to critics who crossed the borrder of fair comment."

That turned out to be a reasonably accurate assumption. The book, when it comes, will be a very comprehensive account of a life spent in the service of the God of the G AA, locally and nationally, with Mammon putting in an occasional diversionary appearance. Unfortunately, there have been very few interesting books written about the GAA. Most of them consist of pious dribblings written in a style half-way between Kitty the Hare and Rory on the Hill.

One imagines that Mick 0 'Dwyer would break with that tradition with very little regret. The book is bound to cause a stir, not least among what a journalist described as "the shadow government" in Croke Park.

Yet O'Dwyer is very much a tradiitionalist and conservative in most of his attitudes. His language is singuularly free from the conventional proofanities and he views the world of commercialised sex and violence with a detached disdain.

His involvement with football beegan at national school and one of his earliest memories is of a teacher, a car and a trip to a match. The teacher was John McCarthy, and two Sundays after he arrived in Waterville, he packed fourteen boys into his Model Y Ford and drove ten miles inland to Reenard to play against another school. Young O'Dwyer was on his way to beecoming an addict.

Of course football ran in the family.

Seven uncles of his, Galvins, played on the Derrynane team and also for the Divisional team, South Kerry. It was, as he says, "a fair tradition", and after leaving Waterville Technical School he was picked for the Kerry minors. It was not a very auspicious start to a remarkable career.

He played against Waterford in the first round, and scored a goal and five points, but was dropped for the Munnster final. After that he began to desscend through the ranks of the substiitutes finishing eighth or ninth for the All-Ireland final.

"That was typical of the times in Kerry. People from the outlying areas, like Iveragh, had little chance. Foottball was dominated by Tralee, Killarrney and the other big towns. The big breakthrough came for South Kerry when we won the championship in 1955, after a lapse of fifty years."

That year Mick 0 'Connell and himmself got on the county team and an unusual career in inter-county football began. Mick O'Dwyer played in ten All-Irelands, between 1959 and 1972, winning four. He also won eight Naational League titles, which is a record. Although he always played as centre forward for his club, it was at wing half-back that he played for the county until his career seemed likely to end in 1964 when he broke his two legs.

The first break occurred during a challenge match in Sneem, when a player fell on him. No sooner was he out of plaster than his other leg was broken in a county league game. It was a mark of his tenacity that he was back on the county team later that year as centre-forward. He says that he was there because of a great shortage of forwards in Kerry at the time; he considers 1964-65 to have been the worst period for forwards that he can remember. The following year he played at full-forward, had noconfiidence, and after defeat by Galway decided to retire from county foottball but continued with his club.

In early 1968 the county team was doing badly, having been beaten by Cork in the two previous Munster finals. A game was organised between Kerry Past, selected by O'Dwyer, and the county team, to raise funds for pitches. The Past players won easily, and much to his own embarrassment, for he was a county selector, O'Dwyer scored a goal and seven points. He was asked to make a comeback and was joined by Mick O'Connell, Johnny Culloty and Seamus Murphy. They got to the All-Ireland only to be beaten by Down. However, he won two further All-Irelands and was on the losing side on the replay against Offaly in 1972. Not bad for a comeback.

In April, 1974, at the age of thirtyyeight, he played his last senior match for Kerry; a challenge match against Sligo in Killorglin. He decided to conncentrate on the hotel business he was building up in Waterville, having preeviously been in the garage business in a small way. But Kerry football was snaking out another tentacle for him.

Johnny Culloty decided to give up training and coaching the county team and Ger McKenna, Chairman of the County Board at the time, asked O'Dwyer to take over. He resisted all pressure at first but then agreed to do the job for a year. That was 1975 and what happened then and subsequently is basically the story of the Kingdom and the Dubs, Heffernan and Dwyer, as everyone in Kerry seems to call him.

With twinkling eyes he tells the story briefly. 1975 the young Kerry team beat All-Ireland champions, Dubblin, in the first seventy-minute final. The. following year Dublin hammered Kerry. 1977 and Dublin beat Kerry in the semi-final, "a great game of foottball that Kerry could have won."

"All round the county the talk started, 'This will not do. Dwyer must 'go and so must McKenna'. And there . was a fair bit of work put into removing us too but we weathered that storm. And into the team came Jack O'Shea, Sean Walsh, Mick Spillane, Charlie Nelligan and the Bomber. We had the team we were hoping to have and we won four All-Irelands in a row."

Some of the football played by Kerry during the winning of those four titles showed Gaelic football at its best, as well as emphasising the gap which existed between the three top counties - Kerry, Dublin and Offaly - and the rest of the so-called tradiitional football counties, not to menntion the weak ones. The GAA basked in the glow of Kerry's success and Heffo's Army swelled its coffers. The imperfections of Gaelic football, when played by non-consenting adults, were put out of sight and mind.

In Kerry, almost £100,000 was collected to send the team on a trip to Australia. It was a celebration as well as a pleasant preparation for the first five-in-a-row and a place apart in GAA history. And it almost happpened. Mick O'Dwyer was said to have taken the last minute defeat by Offaly even harder than the players. Now he has regained his usual detachment.

"The pressure really got to the players in the last six or seven minutes. I have looked at the video many times. They did things that juveniles wouldn't do. We lost chances, including a penalty, and had enough play to have won well. But, fair dues, Offaly kept on hammering away and got the break and the goal when there was no chance for us to come back. Of course there was a lot of controversy about the goal, but we won't say anything about that. We also got controversial scores in our time."

Kerry takes pride in not whingeing, apart from the fact that it is a futile occupation which will not change anything that has happened in the course of the game. They express reegret by emphasising the stoicism with which their crosses, made heavier by accumulated success, have been borne.

"People are inclined to forget that the Offaly team was around for about five years and by the law of averages they were due a win. Looking back now, and seeing what happened Matt .Connor, I'm delighted that he had the satisfaction of winning his All-Ireland medal, whatever about our fiverow. It was a terrible disappointment at the time but then my wife became ill and had to have open heart surgery. She recovered and things like that give you a different view of life. You can't have everything."

He maintains that had they won in 1982 it would probably have been the end of the road for most of the players and for himself. It was his great ambition. After two months of indecision he decided to give it another run, only to be beaten by Cork in the last thirty seconds of the Munster final. But Kerry being Kerry, its foottball a maze of tradition and symbolic anniversaries, Frank King, the Chairrman of the County Board, came with a new idea: "What about one last go for the Centenary Final?"

They started to train in October, 1983, for that one and won the National League as a bonus. That seemed like a good high note to end on but now there was another connsideration. West Kerry had won the county championship and that meant that Paidi 0 Se would be the new captain of the county team. No player had given greater service to the county so 1985 was dedicated to Paidi ....

But it should not be assumed that the springs of motivation have now dried up.

"I do get tired at times and I think about it and I ask myself, 'What is it all about?' From the financial point of view there are.no gains. What I am doing I do for the total and utter love of the game."

Yet, twice or three times this year the question of his expenses and his rumoured connections with big commercial concerns, have been raised in print. Rumours have been raised and left free to sprout legs, giving some credence to what previously was pub talk. These allegations have clearly stung him and for the only time during hours of talk his voice carried a sharp edge.

"I have seen it in the papers. It has been said that I am getting money from multi-national firms and that I am also trying to create a position here in Kerry as full-time coach and trainer. If I wanted a jo b I had a chance four weeks ago. The Munster Council creaated that position, a coach for the province, and there was a big salary going with it. I did not apply because I didn't want it.

"There have been references to what I am supposed to be making out of the game financially. I can say, here and now, that I never accepted a bob from any company, one way or another. My travelling expenses have been mentioned. It has been reckoned that I have been getting SOp a mile. I'm not getting anything near SOp a mile for my travelling. As a matter of fact, what I get does not even cover what it costs me to be involved in the game.

"Why should people be discussing these matters anyway? I'm not a proofessional. I'm doing what I'm doing because I have become addicted to the game as you would to drink or cigarette smoking: two things I never did, as a matter of fact. And if I was really in my sane senses I would have devoted more time to my business. But I wouldn't have got the same enjoyment out· of it and I have done what I have enjoyed doing in my life. At the present time I'm doing it for the same reason and the day I stop getting ennjoyment out of it I'll just pack it up."

As ashrewd judge of human beings, he thinks he sees the purpose of some of the more speculative pieces written about him in recent times. Part of it is due to what is commonly called beegrudgery but some of it may be more calculating.

"Most of these writers would like me to respond and start a controversy. That seems to be what they are trying to do, but as far as I'm concerned they can write what they like. However, I think they should have some facts before they write, unless, of course, the facts would get in the way of the story. But we are a nation of knockers. Anyone who achieves anything will be knocked, but if you land in the gutter you're a nice poor devil. It's crazy, just crazy."

The book will be his considered reply to all these matters. It will cover all aspects of his involvement with the game and the association. But it will not be published until he has severed his present connection with the game. For the moment it is all present and correct for another tilt at three in a row.

When presented with the award for Manager of the Month of September, he was quoted as saying that he did not believe that the present Kerry team is over the hill.

"The evidence of the final is that we finished strongly in the vital last six minutes. The bulk of the team is aged around thirty. I would not call that old. I played until I was thirtyyeight. "

The rules of football worry him, as they do most thinking players and officials. The Croke Park attitude annoys him. One feels that his exxperience with that branch of officialldom has soured his attitude and made him see the GAA, at the highest level, as a handball alley against which ideas for change are hurled only to come straight back to the one who delivered them.

"I was on a rules revision committtee, about five or six years ago, with Kevin Heffernan, Martin Carney.Paddy O'Donoghue and Father Troy, among others. We sat for four Saturdays and made recommendations which I thought would be great for football. Believe it or not, these recommendaations were never tried.

"So when they weren't trying them I decided to try them in a friendly match against Offaly , in Killarney on a Whit Sunday. The Central Council was supposed to send an observer but never did. Weeshie Fogarty from Killarney was the referee and he said to me afterwards, 'Mick, a great immprovement in the game. It made my job a lot easier'."

Under these revised rules a player would get a warning, after the first foul - personal or otherwise - a yelllow card would be shown after a second, and a red card after the third which meant dismissal. A substitute would replace a player dismissed in this way. For serious offences, such as kicking a player on the ground or striking with the fist, no substitute would replace a player sent off.

The solo run was curtailed. Two solo runs and one hop were allowed. Manhandling the player in possession and pummelling with the fists in the general direction of the ball were also forbidden. The player in possession had to be shadowed and his eventual kick blocked down. This would bring that particular skill back into the game.

"We gave the problem of dispossesssing the player in possession a lot of thought. We considered the Australian rule: when caught you must release the ball. But this was considered messy in our game and we decided that by curtailing the solo run we would bring more fluidity into the game. The solo run is a wonderful skill to watch but you have to decide whether the game would be better without it. In a team-game of fifteen players a side the ball should be moved quickly."

For this reason also the committee decided that the hand-pass would be allowed, either ·by propulsion or striking, as long as the ball was not thrown. It all sounds simplicity itself and Mick O'Dwyer insists that the exxperiment in Killarney worked very well.

"But the authorities did not think it worth their while to try them out. Instead, some other gang - another committee - got together in Croke Park, brought in another set of reecommendations and they are the rules you have today."

His view, in short, is that those who are coaching, training and playing the games are those who have the clearest understanding of what should be done to improve the rules. He fears 'that the Association is so far removed from players that it makes no sense to him. More than anything else he feels that the players are not being utilised by the Association to further the games and act as ambassadors for them while they are still very much in the public eye. Clearly, any moves to bring this desirable development about would have to come from above.

I mention the short-lived organisaation for players, Cum ann na nlrnreoiri, which seemed to me to have been frozen to death by determined cold shoulder. He thinks it was a great pity that a representative of that organisaation was not invited to become a memmber of the Central Council, as soon as Cum ann na nImreoiri was founded. The benefits of his advice would have been considerable.

"We are in danger oflosing sight of our game. We have made great improveements in pitches and dressing-rooms, and rightly so, but the time has come to think about the games and to proomote them. There is a difficulty in getting players involved in administraation after they stop playing. In many areas, particularly sparsely-populated rural areas, the clubs' officers are usually chosen from non-playing peoople. Nothing against that, but when players stop playing they find all these people entrenched in these positions and some entrenched in positions of more authority. It is difficult for exxplayers to get in and not all players are anxious to take up coaching."

The creation of a small army of officials, in this manner, had never occurred to me before and it went some way towards explaining why the annual Congress of the GAA always lacks the robust zest that characterises the .games and those who play them. Apart from the heat generated by the "political" resolutions, the annual gathering does not reflect either the true problems of the GAA or the desire to confront them.

What changes would the country's most successful manager and motivator like to see in the organiisation; the Association which he allways pronounces with a capital A? "Some people seem to think that I would like the game to become a professional game. Let me be clear about that. I would not like it to beecome a full-time professional game. That would defeat the purpose of our Association, But I have gone on the record many times as saying that I would not mind it becoming a semiiprofessional game.

"There is a lot of money being generated and if you want to improve standards you must remunerate players to some degree: loss of wages or being out of work, for instance. I know players involved with the county team who have not worked a week-end in ten years. It is unfair to ask them to make such sacrifices."

He really warms to this one and points out that you now have twentyyfour or twenty-five permanent officials in Croke Park. In Pairc Ui Chaoimh there is Frank Murphy and two fullltime secretaries. Eamonn Young has just been appointed Football Coach for Munster. Like it or not you are already moving into semilism.

"You have everything but not for the players. I am not advocating wages or anything like that, but players should be compensated. It has been said that we are already doing that in Kerry, We are not. But it is something that could and should be done. Far from damaging the organisation it would improve standards, have better games, make for a healthier organisaation .... "

In my youth I sometimes read a sports columnist who kept his eye peeled for those who would be dubbed "Enemies of the Association". They consisted of people who advocated the abolition of the Ban on Foreign Games, those who called for the provision of dressing-rooms and showers at pitches, degenerates who wanted to take their wives and girl-friends to dinner-dances and teams that wore black togs remiiniscent of you know what. Like the hated Ban he too has passed away, but I wonder idly what he would make of the Waterville Dynamo, It was as good a moment as any to introduce the question of sponsorship and adverrtising.

"Right! Every County Board in the thirty-two counties should be authoorised by the Central Council to raise money, through advertising and sponnsorship, and that money should be used by the County Boards to promote the games. But I would not want that money to go to individuals. It should go to County Boards."

He goes on to talk about the huge gate-receipts that Kerry have been involved in during the past ten years. "Crazy," one of his favourite words, is what he calls the grant of £4,000 they get for reaching the All-Ireland final; £2,000 for getting into the Munster final. If Kerry got ten per cent of the gate receipts they would not have any need for sponsorship. The Central Council should allow competing teams to take ten per cent of the gate at Championship matches.

As for getting sponsorship for the major occasions, the All-Ireland finals and semi-finals, he believes that the GAA should accept it if it is availlable. A lot of work is due to be done in Croke Park itself in the near future. The Cusack Stand will have to be replaced and the Railway End reestructured. The important thing is that the organisation, at all levels, benefits from whatever revenue it can generate from sources so far untapped.

The appointment of Eamonn Young as coach for Munster is the kind of full-time development he agrees with. We discussed the question of having a national coach and this O'Dwyer is opposed to.

"I would be afraid to see another addition to Croke Park. What I would like to see is a coach for each of the other three provinces. It is unbelievvable the number of letters I get from clubs all over the country looking for help. If rugby, tennis, basketball have people to promote them in the field why shouldn't we?"

The situation in the schools has changed since he made that trip in the Model Y. Facilities have to be proviided for children that are bussed to and from school each day so that there is little time for organised games. But he feels, and he is in touch with players constantly, that the national games still have a great attraction for young people, despite all the rival attractions that are now available. However, the young players have to be looked after and this must be the GAA's aim, at all levels.

When we touch on the arguments in favour of having an "Open Draw", in football and hurling, his conservatism is again obvious.

"You would be doing away with something very special in the GAA in the provincial finals."

When I point out that while this may be all very well for Kerry and Cork, it can hardly be doing anything for football in Clare, Waterford, Limeerick and Tipperary, slaughtered annnually during Ute inevitable march of the two top-dogs to the final.

Tipperary won their last Munster football final in 1935. Waterford last reached the final in 1960, Clare in 1949 and Limerick in 1965; needless to say that was as far as they got.

Mick 0 'Dwyer does his best to reekindle my waning faith. He thinks that Tipperary, Clare and Limerick are immproving. He even predicts that Tippeerary could come out of Munster in another five to six years. But he quali- . fies that by saying that until you have' coaches working in the weaker counnties you cannot hope for success. We must wait and see. Again he raises the question of using prominent players of the day to promote foottball in these counties: set up a proogramme and see it through.

It takes little imagination to see the effect a visit from Jack 0 'Shea, Pat Spillane, Barney Rock or Willie Joe Padden would have on young foot baIlers in any part of the counntry, not necessarily in the weaker counties.

Once, when the conversation strays away from GAA affairs, Mick O'Dwyer mentions the absence of any industry within fifty miles of Waterville. The area is totally depenndent on tourism, which is very seasonnable. He lamented the fact that the area's greatest natural resource - the sea and the fish that swim in it - is so neglected. Emigration is on the increase again. IIi football you notice these things in a dramatic way. That promiising full-forward you noticed in June, what became of him? Gone, you are told, no work so he took off.

It struck me that the GAA may be as negligent in the cultivation of its greatest natural resource - its players and coaches - as various Governments have been of the sea around us. Perrhaps for the same reason; that it is too obvious and therefore overlooked.

I put it to Mick O'Dwyer that he will possibly find it difficult to sever all connection with the GAA when he does cease being manager of the county team. He replies that there is little left to do that he hasn't already done. He has been chairman, secretary, treasurer and delegate to the County Board, for his club. This time he will be happy to become a spectator at games.

The family tradition is also carried on by his three sons. The eldest played at corner back for the Kerry under-2l team last year. The two younger boys are boarding in Colaiste. Iosagain, Baile Mhuirne, where they are coached in the skills of football by Mickie O'Sullivan. He was captain of the team that started it all in 197 5, although he watched the presentation of the Sam Maguire from a bed in the Mater Hospital as a result of an injury reeceived early in the match.

Have politics lost whatever attracction they seemed to have for him in the past? There has been a lot of specuulation and he has given it a bit of thought. It is hard to get involved in politics in a way which would lead to getting a nomination. But he has thought about it, although that is as far as it has gone.

He is fully aware of the scenario which has been written for him by others. It goes something like this:

Fianna Fail win the second seat in Kerry South back again. The dynaamic Mick 0 'Dwyer tops the poll and a Fianna Fail Government appoints him Minister for Sport.

He looks sideways at me and smiles.

All he has to say to that is what he always says about newspaper speculaation: "Paper never refuses ink."

It is past one in the morning. We have been talking about one thing and another for four hours. Now we are back on GAA matters again and he gets down to bed-rock.

"The thing above all else that has kept the Association alive and healthy is the parish team. Is there a parish in the thirty-two counties that hasn't got a Gaelic team of some sort, either football or hurling? That's the life blood of the whole thing. That is the secret of the success of the G AA. Now, as a result of media coverage more people are getting interested in our games. And the achievements have been spectacular. Do you know that there are only three clubs in the whole of Kerry that haven't got pitches at the moment?"

It is a good note on which to end that particular conversation. One gets a small inkling of what people desscribe as his motivating power, his very infectious enthusiasm for his particuular addiction. It is not too strong a word to use.

Dublin seems a long, long way away when you leave Waterville early on a misty morning in Octo ber. Even before I got on to the road from Farranfore to Castleisland, that someetimes looks like a track which will end in someone's haggard, I came to the conclusion that even Mick O'Dwyer's Mercedes was really inadequate for the daunting travels. What he needed was a helicopter.

The young man to whom I gave a lift near Castleisland said that wellcoming the Sam Maguire so often was "a very costly business." But he was sure he would have to dig down deep in his pocket again next year.

"You see," he said, recognising me as a foreigner, "they'll have to win this one for Dwyer." •