DERRY hurling legend Liam Hinphey senior believes the county could flourish in the game if it had ten fully-functioning clubs, but feels a huge opportunity for the game was missed in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.
The Kilkenny native will be the subject of an appreciation night in Dungiven this Friday, where Kilkenny legends Brian Cody and Fan Larkin will be joined by ex-Antrim star Terence McNaughton, Pat Delaney (former Offaly hurler) and former Down footballer Sean O’Neill.
The event will be hosted by Joe Brolly, whose aunt Mary K has been married to Hinphey since 1958, and all proceeds will go towards Dravet Syndrome UK, an epileptic condition from which their grandson Liam suffers.
Hinphey is widely regarded as having given birth to hurling in Derry when he took up a teaching job in St Patrick’s Dungiven in the mid-1960s, and has since been involved with both hurling and football teams at both club and county level across five decades.
“If you had 10 functioning hurling clubs in the county, and I mean functioning teams from U12 to senior. That’s not beyond the beyond,” said Hinphey during a feature-length interview which will appear in Saturday’s Irish News.
The All-Ireland football winning team from ’93 was laced with dual stars who all played hurling for Derry at some stage, but never with the regularity around which something could be built.
“There were nine of that Derry team played senior hurling for Derry before they played football.
“You’d have the feeling there was an opportunity missed. You saw Antrim getting to an All-Ireland final.
“The players that were available would have been reinforced by Ollie Collins, Geoffrey, Rory Stevenson and those lads. They were as good as you could get.
“They could have had a pretty hot team but there you go. That all gave rise to this ‘burn the hurls’ nonsense.
“There’s nobody telling the Slaughtneil fellas to burn hurls. They’re winning championships, the same as we did, the same as Lavey did.”
