The Irish Examiner published a 24-page supplement to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest hurler of all time, Christy Ring. I was asked to contribute this piece on Christy Ring and Glen Rovers. Christy Ring was born in Cloyne, County Cork in 1920. He played with his home club, Cloyne until 1940 when he moved 20 miles west to work and live in Cork City. That was when he joined Glen Rovers. He played with the Glen from 1941 until 1967 and remained a very active member of the club until his untimely death in 1979.
When 20-year-old Christy Ring moved to Cork in search of employment in 1941, he had three decisions to make: to find accommodation, to find a job, and to find a hurling club.
The first two took care of themselves — the hard decision for a man who was both captivated and fascinated by the game of hurling, must have taken some considerable thought on his behalf.
Ring was already a Cork senior hurler. He had a National Hurling League medal and had played in the two epic Munster semi-finals of that year against Limerick.
Cork eventually lost that tie and Limerick went on to win the All-Ireland title, but Ring had left his calling card; he would be back.
In 1940, Christy Ring and his brothers Willie John and Paddy Joe were in dispute with the Cloyne club and did not play. This meant that Christy was not affiliated to any club.
Having moved to the city, living in Cork city and playing in East Cork was not an option in 1941.
Travel was restricted by petrol rationing, a lack of cars and bad roads. It was not unusual for clubs to hire a lorry to transport an entire team to a venue during these ‘Emergency years’.
Also, Cork teams only trained in the two or three weeks leading up to a championship game.
Realistically, if Ring wanted to play and practice hurling every day, as he had always done, he needed to join a city club.
Any club in Cork City would have welcomed Ring with open arms. By his own admission, he chose Glen Rovers. He joined because he felt the club gave him the best options when it came to playing hurling.
“The year 1941 was a memorable one in my life. I won my first senior All-Ireland and Railway Cup medals but, in particular, it was the year I joined Glen Rovers Hurling Club. This is an honour I still cherish, and if God spares me, one which I hope to have for many more years.
When I first happened to stray out to Blackpool, I was a complete stranger but I was accepted as one of their own and it was then up to me to adjust myself to the Glen Rovers’ way of hurling, which I did as best I could.
It is for others to decide how successful I was, but for my own part, I made the right decision the day I first pulled on the famed green, black and gold jersey. I appreciate now (in 1973), more than ever, what Glen Rovers has meant to my hurling career.”
– Christy Ring writing in the Spirit of the Glen, 1973.
Life settled down quickly for Ring; he had accommodation in the city centre, St Augustine’s Church was around the corner to cater for his spiritual needs, he had a job to cater for his corporal needs and Glen Rovers to play hurling with.
He won his first senior county hurling medal in 1941.
There is a famous photograph taken outside the Athletic Grounds after the 1941 final. The players in the photograph have accumulated over 80 county medals between them — Christy Ring had one but while the team may have completed eight county titles in a row the tide was ebbing, and for some of the eight in-a-row veterans, their appetite was sated.
Even with the addition of Ring, Glen Rovers were an aging team. In 1942, the club meekly surrendered their county title to Ballincollig at the semi-final stage.
Some weeks after that 1942 loss to Ballincollig, the Glen played the new champions, St Finbarrs, in the Mardyke in the Augustinian Suit Length final: Glen Rovers won but it was no county title.
The Glen had also played the Barr’s in the Bord na nÓg under-16 hurling final as a curtain-raiser that day.
After the suit-length final, a Glen Rovers U-16 player entered the dressing room to collect his gear but soon realised he had walked into a storm.
The senior team — Jack Lynch, Christy Ring, and Charlie Tobin among them — were getting “down the banks” from a very cross elderly-looking man.
The senior team were told: “If you really put your mind to training, you could win the county again in 1943. And if you don’t want to do knuckle down, there are plenty of young players to take your places, regardless of who you are or what you’ve won.”
When the speech finished the young player headed towards his gear. He asked Ring who the cross man was.
Ring replied: “That’s Tom (O’) Reilly, stick around long enough and you’ll get to know him.”
Tom Reilly was the chairman of Glen Rovers from 1936 to 1966.
He, along with the man who ran the juvenile team, Paddy O’Connell (who was known as the ‘Father of the Glen’) and Fox Collins, were the driving forces behind the club. They played a huge role in Glen Rovers’ successes from 1924 until they died (O’Connell in 1963 and O’Reilly in 1966).
It was they who insisted that Christy Ring would adjust to Glen Rovers, rather than Glen Rovers adjusting to him, and it was probably because of their vision and ambition for Glen Rovers that Christy Ring chose the Glen as his club.
The Glen Rovers team of 1967: Back, from left: Denis O’Riordan; Patsy Harte; Denis Coughlan; Mick Lane; Maurice Twomey; Dave Moore; Jerry O’Sullivan; Tom Corbett. Front, from left: Mick Kenneally; Jackie Daly; John Young; Seanie Kennefick, captain; Bill Carroll; Christy Ring; and Finbarr O’Neill. Picture: Kevin Cummins
When the Glen lost to St Finbarrs in the 1943 county semi-final (attendance 18,400), O’Reilly and O’Connell were true to their word; they rebuilt. As well as having to replace some veterans, the club was also faced with Jack Lynch moving to Dublin, Jim Young being claimed by UCC under the infamous President’s Rule, and Joe Kelly leaving to study for the priesthood.
In response, the Glen selectors dipped into the pool of underage players that Paddy O’Connell had produced, including the U-16 team of 1942. They found nine players to complement Ring: Paddy O’Donovan, Charlie Tobin, Din Joe Buckley, Jack Buckley, and Dave Creedon.
The Glen won a thrilling final against St Finbarrs. The spine of this team, Ring included, would remain in place until 1955. In time Jim Young returned, as did Jack Lynch. The young Turks, who included Joe Hartnett, Jimmy Lynam, and Sean O’Brien, matured quickly — so much so that the Glen team which faced Blackrock in the 1948 County Final had collectively won 28 All-Ireland senior hurling medals.
Ring was by then approaching his best and was a central part of the team. However, when he was sent off in the second half that day, it was the veterans of the eight in a row, Lynch and Young, who took charge on the field, and quelled the Blackrock challenge.
Glen Rovers won the county titles again in 1949, 1950, and 1953. Then in 1954, Christy Ring captained both the Glen and Cork to the county and All-Ireland championships.
By then, there were other major influences within the club. Seamus O’Brien, who had a cobbler’s shop on Thomas Davis St, was by then a central figure in the organisation of the club.
His shop doubled as a communication centre where meetings were held, ideas were exchanged and messages were left for those who were making their way home in the evening.
O’Brien and Ring were in cahoots on all matters hurling. If Ring wanted some players to go training with him, Seamus organised it. If Ring was concerned about an opponent in an upcoming Glen game, Seamus saw to it that the Glen team was picked in such a way as to allow Ring the latitude to put his own stamp on the game.
When the time came for Glen Rovers to rebuild again after 1955, Ring was the cornerstone of the new team.
The team had taken shape by the 1958 county final when St Finbarrs were again the opponents and the Glen team featured 11 players seeking their first county medal.
Ring was sent off in the semi-final and was ineligible to play in the final.
The Cork Examiner said: “The game will go down in the memories of all who saw it, as one of the greatest finals ever fought out at the Cork Athletic Grounds.”
The Glen won by four points.
Ring played in four more county finals with the Glen, 1959, 1960, 1962 and 1964.
During that period, he dug the Glen out of some very tough corners.
In the 1959 semi-final against UCC he moved from full-forward, where he had been starved of possession all day, to centre-forward and within two minutes had set up Mick Quane and Bill Carroll for game-changing goals.
In the 1962 final, again against UCC, he set up two goals and scored a third to help earn the Glen a draw. In the replay, with the College looking like winners in the dying minutes, Ring held the 25,000 spectators captivated: the sliotar from his powerful 21-yard free turned the hurley in UCC keeper John O’Donoghue’s hand and crashed to the net to give the Glen a one-point win.
He was the winning captain again in 1964, when he played in his last county final and then starred in the delayed Munster Club final replay in 1966 which the Glen won.
Ring played his last game for the Glen in round two of the 1967 championship against UCC. He was 46 years of age. He said he felt it was the right time for him to go, and that the team was good enough to win the county. They did.
It is now 53 years since Christy Ring last wore the green, black and gold of the Glen.
Throughout his career, people had only one chance to see Ring play in any particular game and, if they blinked or turned away they may have missed some remarkable display of skill by him or a heroic deed. There were no action replays.
What was remarkable is that Ring performed his skills and heroics game after game and year after year for the Glen, for Cork, and for Munster.
One Sunday morning in the 1990s, Bill Dunlea, the internationally renowned tenor and veteran supporter of Glen Rovers, stood on the bank at an under-21 championship game involving the Glen.
Towards its end, the Glen fell two goals behind and Dunlea said, “The only thing that will save us now is three Hail Marys, it never fails.”
Those alongside him laughed and one of them said, “I suppose you did that too when Ring was playing?”
To which Bill replied, “I very rarely had to.”