It would be ventured that if you found anybody else on Point Nemo – scientifically recognised as the most remote place on Earth – and they had heard of Gaelic football, chances are ‘Micko’ would be the first words uttered. Likewise that island which Donald Trump imposed a tariff on last week, even though only penguins live there!
You get the picture. As Marty Morrissey put it in his wonderful, moving eulogy at Mick O’Dwyer’s funeral Mass on Saturday last, “Micko spread the gospel far and wide, but we are in The Kingdom, and you will always be The King”.
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The King is dead. Long live the King. With nigh on complete certainty, it can be said that the only time I ever heard him being referred to as Michael was in his bereavement notice and reportage of his death by folk who quite obviously hadn’t a bull’s notion about GAA or the man’s overall importance.
You know, whenever I unfortunately have reason to do one of these tribute pieces, people often ask me how I could have shared experiences or spent time with so many different people. Well, lads and lassies, we’ve finally hit one where there is no story.
Just long distance admiration. Sadly, meeting Micko is one ambition which will now go unfulfilled. It nearly happened once. Our club hosted a gargantuan fundraiser in Croke Park – A Unique Gathering Of Irish Sporting Legends. I can’t remember them all, but I know Sean Boylan, Colm O’Rourke, Noel Meade, Niall Quinn, Philip Matthews and the late Moss Keane were definitely in situ. Micko was to be there too, but, with undertaking being one of the many business irons he had in the fire, somebody required his assistance in their time of greatest need.
However, a mark of the man, not to completely let the side down, bearing in mind that this was 2004, I reckon he was a trend setter then too as he arranged with the lads driving the event on behalf of the club for a video conference call to be put through to the corporate suites in the bowels of the Hogan Stand.
Where, even though it was only for a few minutes rather than the intended entire evening, he had the audience of nearly 2,500 people hanging on his every word. Yet another thing he had in common with my namesake and neighbour. If you ever had the pleasure of listening to either of them speak or – put another way – seen them hold court over a captive audience and you need never wonder how either of them were able to make groups of nearly 40 men do extraordinary things on football fields for as long as was the case with Micko. And I’m not convinced the other fella is finished yet!
At this point, it will be admitted that any knowledge I have pertaining to Micko’s early deeds – which basically means his Kerry years – was gleaned from my father’s encyclopedic mind and the Decade Of The Dubs video. At some point, its contemporary, Kerry’s Golden Years will be snared for a peek too. What can be stated without fear or favour, though, is that, if Kevin Heffernan was thought to have begun to revolutionise Gaelic football in 1974, ‘Dwyer – as they would call him down his own way – took the process to a whole new level the following year and well beyond.
Now, there would be those, and I will confess to falling into this cohort myself for a period until considerably more streetwise, who would contend that, while the great man’s achievements with his native county were obviously outstanding, that he had such a stellar group of players at his disposal would have to be taken into account.
As stated above, to a certain extent I would have concurred with the said viewpoint, but it simply can’t hold water when the longevity with which he managed to keep largely the same group of players motivated, prepared and at least one step ahead of the rest is taken into account.
Moreover, there are plenty who’d pigeonhole Micko as the patanted exhibitor of short passing football. Such a view might have carried much credance in particular in reference to Kildare. The methodology being that, in order to compete with the powers of the day, Dublin and Meath, what they might have lacked in certain ways, Dwyer’s compensation for same was to have his charges fitter than any other team in the country.
Not that it manifested immediately by any means. As dramatically demonstrated by, one week after contesting the National League Final against Dublin, Kildare getting dumped out of the championship a week later by Louth on a day Stefan White scored two late goals for the locals.
Kildare’s qualification for the 1992 Leinster Final represented another progressive step, as did their return there the following year. But, when the Waterville wizard departed at the end of the ’94 campaign, it appeared the Kildare dream was over before it had even begun.
However, it would appear that what the rest of us could see from the outside looking in eventually dawned on the man himself – that he had unfinished business with the all whites.
Another little nugget that put himself and Sean on a par – recognising when their teams needed something ‘extra’ and not being afraid to go outside the box to get it.
Depending on how far back one wanted to go to prove it, you could pinpoint his blending of ‘Bomber’ Liston into the great Kerry team, the addition of his own son, Karl, to the Kildare mix or the conversion of Colm Parkinson of Laois into a bloody good full forward.
Yet for me there are two far less heralded switches which have remained drilled into my brain since I saw them play out in front of me at Croke Park.
The first, going all the way back to a Leinster semi final of 1993. An absolutely brilliant match between Kildare and Wicklow (then managed by Dunderry’s Niall Rennick).
A day when Conan Daye – an absolutely brilliant forward of that era – netted twice for the Garden County and looked to have sealed a shock victory, until the languid and leggy Martin Lynch raised two green flags in seconds and seemed to have secured a replay at least.
But the wily old fox in white HQ had one more ace in the deck. A young lad by the name of Dermot Doyle – I’m not sure if he ever played for Kildare before or after, or if he was any relation of Johnny Doyle – got on the end of a brilliant move involving Sean McGovern and Lynch before driving over a sensational winner from out under the old Cusack Stand.
The second such instance was even more significant. Not just on the day but for the recent history of Kildare football. The first replay against Meath in 1997. Jody Devine Day, at some stage either before the end of normal or during the break between the end of normal time and the beginning of the extra time, the Kildare think tank unleashed this tall, gangly looking youngster that tapped over a point on the day and showed promise of so much more – Dermot Earley Jnr.
To be fair, by then he had constructed a Kildare team which was the second best team in the province after Meath. Comprised of players such as Christy Byrne, Davy Dalton, Glenn Ryan, Anthony Rainbow, Niall Buckley, Willie McCreery, Eddie McCormack and the aforementioned Lynch.
Still, having come up short against Meath in that ’97 trilogy, the cute wh*** copped he needed something extra to make up the shortfall. Thus, he drafted in his own lad and Padraic Graven and Padraig Brennan and Brian Murphy and Brian Lacey and what an impact they all had. Never more so than in the following year’s Leinster Final against Meath.
When it was Cork cast-off Murphy rounded Darren Fay and buried the goal that saw off the Royal challenge and delivered a first provincial title to the shortgrass for 57 years. It is also worth noting that, in what was a typically tight encounter between the two, the two points Karl O’Dwyer curled over ended up crucial.
Of course, he came back two years later and won another Leinster, this time beating Dublin. On a day actually when Dublin looked to have the white goose well and truly roasted. Untll, that is, the auld rogue found another pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
Well, two of them in fact, in the guise of goals from Tadhg Fennin (a new ‘discovery’ that year) and Dermot Earley. And, though they didn’t make an All Ireland Final appearance on that occasion, but for those couple of years, it allowed Kildare fans not only dream, but live the dream. That’s all any sports fan ever wants to do!
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Where does one begin to quantify Micko’s later evangelist tours? Firstly that, at 67 years of age – and after all that he had already achieved in the game – he still took on the challenge of imparting his gospel to the people of Laois.
Though you don’t get to achieve the things he did in life – sporting and otherwise – without making more good decisions than bad ones. Such as hooking up with Laois at a time after they had several good minor teams in a row.
Which yielded players such as Joe Higgins, Niall Collins, Colm Parkinson, Martin Delaney, Noel Garvan, Ian Fitzgerald, Brian ‘Beano’ McDonald and Chris Conway.
Even allowing for that though, of course the great man had to put his own stamp on things. In that case, re-deploying the mercurial Colm Parkinson – heretofore thought of as a stylish attacking wing back – to the edge of the opposition square.
Now, the common thread running through his managerial occupations up to that point was that all the entities with which he linked up either had very talented player pools in place or he could foresee what was coming down the tracks. All of which would make you wonder what the attraction to the Wicklow job was.
Well actually it wouldn’t, because methinks it was simply down to what Micheal O’Muircheartaigh once described as feeding the addiction. Because Micko himself readily admitted to being addicted to football. You wouldn’t have to look far to find someone very similar!
Aside from the fact that, as far as can be recalled, it was around the time Rathnew had an exceptionally good club team, what exactly attracted him to the Wicklow Hills was something of a mystery – to everyone bar the man himself. He obviously saw something, though, from the Garden County which attracted him to the scent. Not only did he see it, he extracted it.
At the time, the blue and gold were ranked in the bottom three teams in the country. Yet almost unbelievably – except it shouldn’t have been because it’s Micko we’re talking about – with respect, he brought Wicklow from basically nowhere in terms of being competitive at senior level, to the last 12 of the of the All Ireland Championship and winning the lamented, disgracefully treated, Tommy Murphy Cup.
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I will openly admit to knowing little or nothing about his final inter county role, the reason he spent with Clare. But what I do know is – having heard the following from the greatest Clareman of them all, Martin Donnelly, is that he left football in the Banner County in a better place than whence he found it. In other news, today is Wednesday!
What some mightn’t realise, though, is that, while the Clare post might have been his last officially credited managerial job, it is known that he did train a Waterville U-16 team at some point within the final decade of his life. You would just wonder did the young lads under his baton know much about him or realise they were genuinely in the presence of greatness. Far beyond sporting iterations of that term. Quite simply possibly the greatest Irishman to ever walk the green sod.
In the beautiful, moving, yet in a way harrowing documentary simple titled Micko – as if to emphasise the point made at the very start of this piece – aired in 2014, it was there that the effects of a lifetime’s mileage – accrued in the name of pursuance of excellence from those under his spell and entertainment for the rest of us were heartbreakingly there for all to see.
The voice that had cajoled, encouraged, educated and enthused generations of footballers to entertain and enthral us and, you suspect, himself, was – like he surely did himself on occasion – playing through the pain barrier. It reminded me of a line a dear departed friend once mournfully lamented in relation to longings for a day in the bog – “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”.
Those who mourn the great man – which is the nation, really, can take solace in the knowledge himself and Heffo and Paidi and John O’Mahony and Mullins and Eamonn Coleman and Teddy Mc are above having a championship among themselves. Whose your money on?!
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