Related Stories

• Tommy O’Donnell’s take on diet, exercise and the future of rugby
  
  
• Ending of another great year for Kildorrery Karate Club
  
  
• Spectacular end to memorable year for Ballylanders GAA Club
  
  
• Swimmers bring medals home to Kilworth
  
  
• Munster Racquetball Championship win for Denis Power
  
  
• No let up in activity at Araglin Racquetball Club
  
  
• Historic first for Colm Jordan & Fermoy Handball Club
  
  
• Kilworth lady to run for Crumlin in New York City marathon
  
  
• Mitchelstown CBS are Munster champions
  
  
• Haulie’s memory honoured in Glanworth
  
  
• Willie McCarthy crowned Champion Jockey in America
  
  
• Mitchelstown boxer, Vladimir Belujsky gets ready for national competition
  
  

Cork manager Eamonn Ryan. Photo: Piaras O Midheach / SPORTSFILE

Speaking to Eamonn Ryan, someone who has been as successful as almost anyone in the history of Gaelic games, it’s odd to hear that winning was never really his motivation.

For the Cork ladies’ football manager, who picked up his ninth All-Ireland title in ten years this September, the value of sport comes from other things.

“The enjoyment, the friendship, the fact that when you’re immersed in a sport, everything else falls away,” he says. “It’s a bit like, Picasso had a great saying about art, ‘El arte lava del alma el polvo de la cotidiana picasso,’ which translates as, ‘Art washes away the dust of everyday life.’ So you forget about the mundane things, the worrying things, the everyday worries, because you get so immersed in the art, and I think you could substitute sport in my case.”

He does admit that he enjoys the many victories his teams have secured, and indeed, hates to lose, but the pure enjoyment of the experience is what drives him. “Obviously I love to win, and I get cranky when I don’t win. I’d be cranky on the sideline, as if I thought the world was against me, but it’s not the motivation. The motivation is to be with younger people, to enjoy and immerse yourself in that for the few hours that you’re at it.”

When asked about this year's Cork ladies' victory, Eamonn feels his side’s league form was mixed despite them eventually winning the competition. The turning point, to him, came gradually in the Munster championship, before they rounded into form during the All-Ireland series. They famously fought back from a ten-point deficit in the final against Dublin, and although seriously challenged by Dublin in that game, he believes his team earned the right to lift the Brendan Martin Cup for the ninth time in ten seasons.

“Even though territorially, we had, they reckon, maybe 55-60% of the play, we had something like nineteen wides. We never actually clicked until eventually about maybe twenty minutes from the end, the team collectively got down to business and I think the longer it went on, the more we would’ve won by. You could classify us as being lucky, but I’d rather think that it was the way we didn’t play for forty minutes, and then played our real form for the last twenty.”

Despite the consistent winning over the last ten years, he says it never becomes a routine. “If you’re not excited going to Croke Park, you shouldn’t be involved,” he says with a laugh. “As it goes on, it’s more nervous you get. You realise the enormity of the thing and how lucky you are to be there, because you might never be there again. Each and every final is a new experience.”

While some new players have come into the side since their first win in 2005, there is a strong core of players who have been with Ryan all along, and with whom he has a strong bond.

“They have been tremendously loyal, not just to the cause or to themselves, but to me personally. They’ve been listening to the same voice, doing the same old-fashioned drills, talking the same old story, but they are extremely loyal. They would never question you, or when things go wrong, they don’t blame you. They’re very grounded people and that obviously makes the job easier.”

At first, when he’s asked what he does away from football, he bursts into laughter and simply responds 'nothing'! He admits to cycling and walking, but it quickly becomes clear that, other than football, reading is his great passion

Asked what subjects he favours, he says: “The back of a cigarette box even! I’ve been known to lie down and read the dictionary. I just read, I’m an inveterate reader really - I read a lot of sports books, autobiographies, but I’d also read a bit of history, and I read an awful lot of newspapers. I buy two or three newspapers every day and read the whole lot.”

His love of sport most likely comes from his father Jim, after whom the East Cork junior football championship trophy is named. He was actually on the Glenville team that won the first championship and found himself in the unusual position of presenting the cup to his captain Seanie Farrell, while also being on the winning side. 

Jim Ryan brought Eamonn to the sporting occasions he loved himself, and his son quickly absorbed that love. “He was into rugby and hurling as a kid. I’d have cycled from Watergrasshill to Cork for rugby matches as a kid, inter provincials, Munster and Ulster and Leinster, in the early fifties.”

He also remembers cycling in to the Mardyke to watch Raich Carter, the former English football international, playing for Cork Athletic. In Ivan Ponting’s 1994 obituary of Carter in The Independent (UK), he is described as, 'by common consent, the finest English inside-forward of his generation'. Carter spent half a season Leeside in 1953, and Jim Ryan’s love of all sport meant his son got to see him play.

“My father would take me to all sorts of sports, he loved sport, so I suppose he’s partly to blame for it!,” he laughs. “I suppose you become indoctrinated!” An with the results Eamonn Ryan has contributed to, it’s clear that this indoctrination has served Cork football well!

blog comments powered by Disqus