Ring scored two goals on his St Nicks debut after showing up among the crowd.

On Friday evening June 18, 1948, St Nicholas faced UCC in the second round of the City Division Junior Football Championship at Douglas.

St Nicks brought the bare 15 players to the game and trailed the College side by 4-1 to 2-1 at half time. Early in the second half, a Nicks player received a nasty injury and had to retire from the game.

Christy Ring was among the spectators and, even though this was just nine days before Cork played Limerick in the Munster SHC semi-final, he offered to tog off and bring Nicks back up to full strength. Playing gear was found, and Ring made his unscheduled debut for the football wing of his club. Ring scored two goals and created two more as Nicks won 6-2 to 5-1.

He had played with Glen Rovers since 1941 but until that evening, he had never togged out with St Nicks.

He did not play football again that year but from the beginning of 1949 until 1956, he played in almost all the St Nicks senior football championship games. St Nicks were very competitive during those years, reaching the finals of 1950, ’51 and ’54, and winning the 1954 final.

Ring was sent off once while playing football. It happened when St Nicks played Macroom in the 1949 county football semi-final. The scores were level when the referee suddenly stopped the play and ordered Ring from the field. The referee in his report said Ring had obstructed him in the course of his duty by making a remark.

St Nicks vigorously pleaded Ring’s innocence and Jack Lynch, who also played in the game, left the Dáil to travel to Cork to attend the board meeting as a witness on Ring’s behalf.

The referee’s report, however, stood, and Ring received a one-month suspension. The suspension did not affect Glen Rovers as they had already won the county title, but Ring did miss out on Cork’s National Hurling League game against Kilkenny, which Kilkenny won.He did not play in the 1951 final which Nicks lost to Collins, but he featured in all the games in 1954 when St Nicks defeated Clonakilty 2-11 to 0-3. That win completed a senior football and hurling double for the club — and Ring.

Christy Ring’s last football championship game for St Nicks was in October of 1956, against Millstreet. It was a bad-tempered game during which Ring had his jaw broken.

The sending off of a Millstreet player in the second half led to a pitch invasion by the crowd which escalated into a mini-riot. Millstreet won, and happily The Cork Examiner reported that “at the end of the game differences were forgotten and the teams left the field on amicable terms.”

By 1957, many of the players Ring had played football with were retiring and Ring himself was going on 37 years of age. He had contributed his lot to football in Blackpool, and from then until the end of his playing career in 1967, he put all his effort and concentration into playing hurling for Cork and Glen Rovers.