SEVERAL weeks have passed since the postponement of the Danske Bank MacRory Cup final due to the coronavirus crisis. Yet 49 years ago, in much different context, there was a lengthy delay to a semi-final fixture with a multi-talented lad called Martin O’Neill at the crux. The game would eventually take place 70 miles away from the intended venue of Casement Park with O’Neill on the losing side, a year after winning the prestigious cup. Séamas McAleenan speaks to former St Malachy’s College coach Phil Stuart...
PHIL Stuart was Jim McKeever’s partner at midfield in the All-Ireland final of 1958 when Derry lost by 2-12 to 1-9 to Kerry. In February 1959, Phil also played midfield in Queen’s University, Belfast’s maiden Sigerson Cup success in Galway.
“I wasn’t long started to take teams in St Malachy’s, Belfast when a few of the boys came into my classroom one afternoon and told me that there was a new boy playing on the courts at break and lunchtime and that he was something special,” says Stuart.
“I asked who he was. They told me it was Martin O’Neill whose family had just moved from Kilrea to Belfast. I told them to make sure Martin was at after-schools training the following evening.”
Stuart had played MacRory Cup football while a boarder in St Patrick’s, Armagh during the 1950s. He then moved on to read Celtic Studies at Queen’s where he was in the same class as Gerry O’Neill from Kilrea – Martin’s brother. The latter was also part of the Queen’s panel for the Sigerson success, as was another brother Leo.
Stuart had stayed in the O’Neill house in Kilrea. He knew all about the emerging talent of their younger brothers Martin and Eoghan Roe and he knew Martin had captained the St Columb’s, Derry Corn na nÓg winning team in 1967.
1967 was also the year that Stuart joined the Irish department in St Malachy’s and he was soon approached by head of PE, Michael McCormick, to take over the football team.
Success came quickly with a Rannafast Cup title in late 1968 and again in 1969.
“We beat St Macartan’s, Monaghan 6-7 to 0-4 in a Rannafast final and when Brother O’Doherty, secretary of the Ulster Colleges’ Council, came to congratulate me, he whispered confidentially into my ear that he had just watched the winners of the MacRory Cup the next year,” he recalls.
“It was the first time I had thought seriously about the MacRory.”
St Malachy’s had just the one MacRory title at that point, annexed when the competition was run on a league basis in 1929.
They had appeared in three finals in the interim – 1948 and 1949 when Jim McKeever played, and again in 1955. They were well beaten in all three and had since faded out of the spotlight.
St Colman’s, Newry, now with Gerry O’Neill as assistant coach alongside Fr Trainor, had completed a MacRory three-in-a-row in 1969.
But St Malachy’s knocked the holders out in the 1970 semi-final at Newcastle and went on to defeat St Michael’s, Enniskillen (trained by another of Stuart’s Queen’s team-mates – Mick Brewster) in the final, 2-6 to 0-6.
Defence was key, but so too the performance of the O’Neill brothers up front, Martin with five points and Eoghan Roe with 1-1.
They easily beat St Colman’s, Claremaurice in the Hogan semi-final and led the final by 1-8 to 0-3 at the break in Croke Park against Coláiste Chríost Rí from Cork.
Yet they didn’t push on and contributed to their own downfall by playing cross-field passes that were turned over and converted into scores. The result was that they were denied victory when Noel Millar slotted in an injury-time goal for a 4-5 to 1-13 win.
It was a defeat that Martin O’Neill referred to regularly in later life as the most disappointing of his career. But more disappointment was just around the corner in early 1971.
With many of the 1970 team still available and members of that second Rannafast success blooded to boost the panel, St Malachy’s were expected to win back-to-back MacRory titles. Martin O’Neill was captain.
Everything seemed to be on course in late January when they qualified for the semi-final with another city school, St Mary’s CBGS from the Glen Road. It was anticipated that the game would be played in Casement Park. It wouldn’t happen.
“Then I received a phone call in school one day from a prominent Antrim official informing me that the game would not be taking place in Casement Park if a certain individual was playing for us,” says Stuart.
“He refused to name the player, but it was clear that he was talking about Martin.”
O'NEILL was at this stage starring at soccer with Irish League side Distillery. Playing “foreign games” was in breach of Rule 27 of the GAA rulebook – although a blind eye had been turned to those playing in colleges’ competitions.
“I protested that all students who attended St Malachy’s were eligible to play for all the school teams without exception – the same as every school around the country. But it seemed that the idea of a prominent soccer player playing in Casement Park was just too much to swallow for the powers that be.
“The official intimated to me that if we played without this player, the game could go ahead. I went back and discussed the situation with Mick (McCormack, head of PE) who suggested that we shouldn’t say what our line out is but turn up on Sunday and take the field with Martin present.
“The Ulster Colleges’ Council agreed that ‘the ban’ was not applied in school competitions throughout the rest of Ireland and so we went looking for an alternative ground.
“The other semi-final went ahead as scheduled and Abbey CBS won it, while the Council allowed St Mary’s and ourselves a little leeway to find a pitch.”
The controversy rumbled on and it soon became apparent that St Malachy’s would not be allowed to play on any official GAA grounds.
“Eventually Br Nolan came up with the solution of playing it in the grounds of Omagh CBS on the Gortin Road.”
In a carefully worded statement issued by the Colleges’ Council, they avoided reference to personalities, stressing their role in providing games for the students. They acknowledged that: “The Ulster Colleges’ Council appreciates the difficulties of GAA authorities and honours the integrity of sincere men whose views may at times cause readjustment to match arrangements.”
But the statement was firm in stating that they intended to run their competitions by their own rules: “With so much achieved in the past and so much to be done in the future, the Council cannot run the risk of the present situation being exacerbated by sensational comment or intemperate interference by tyros who have little regard for the games and no sense of responsibility at all towards the boys in our schools.”
The match was played then before a handful of spectators on Thursday, February 25 with the two schools undertaking a 140-mile round trip instead of boarding the number 12 bus for the Andersonstown venue.
After all the preliminaries, the game itself was comprehensively won by St Mary’s with future Antrim midfielder John McKernan doing
a superb man-marking job on O’Neill. St Mary’s won by 4-9 to 1-8 and went on to beat Abbey CBS in the final to lift the MacRory Cup for the first time in their history.
A month later they defeated mid-Cork side Coláiste Íosagán Baile Bhuirne 1-13 to 1-7 in the Hogan Cup final with McKernan dominating midfield.
Indeed, a week further on, nine of the Hogan winners helped St Mary’s win the hurling equivalent, the O’Keefe Cup, defeating Presentation College Birr 4-17 to 4-5.
McKernan and his brother Paul, Gerry McHugh, Canice Ward and future Down and Derry dual player, Sean Sands, were some of the names to complete that All-Ireland double – unique for an Ulster school.
Stuart felt that the controversy surrounding the scheduling of the semi-final adversely affected his team in the game itself, although he was quick to acknowledge the strength of the Glen Road side.
“St Mary’s had a lot of talent in that side and many of them became fine senior county players,” he says.
Writing in a booklet which was published in conjunction with the 2001 reunion of his own MacRory Cup-winning team, the manager stated: “I still recall with sadness and disappointment the sight of the two best college teams in Ireland at the time, based in the same city of Belfast, setting off on a 70-mile journey westwards to Omagh to play … on an unenclosed practice pitch in private school grounds.” “Such feelings were compounded by the fact that a mere six weeks later, at the Annual GAA Congress ironically held in Belfast, Rule 27 was removed from the GAA Official Guide. For me, it was the end of my MacRory Cup coaching days.”
The player at the centre of the dispute – Martin O’Neill – had his time in the sun around the same time as Rule 27 was scrubbed. He scored twice as Distillery beat Derry City 3-0 in the IFA Cup final before launching long and decorated playing and managerial careers in professional soccer
A disillusioned Stuart didn’t take another school team and left St Malachy’s to join the staff of St Mary’s Teacher Training College in 1975. However, he later picked up his football coaching role, persuaded by Brother Ennis, to be part of the Antrim management team when the Westmeath native took over.
Within a year, however, Brother Ennis took up a teaching post in Armagh leaving Stuart in sole charge of Antrim – the county that had caused him so much grief just a decade earlier.
