Can I support a different county hurling team?

Yeboah wrote: »

This is a good article by Denis Walsh from the 90s giving an insight into why so many counties dislike Tipp...geography being the biggest !!It was probably before the 1960 Munster final, but the date is not important;the sentiment is timeless. Cork were playing Tipperary and in the dressing room"Tough" Barry, the Cork trainer, had said his piece. Then Christy Ring steppedforward and by the time he finished the blood was boiling under every redjersey. A priest who had insinuated himself into the Cork entourage sat in acorner of the dressing room and, appalled by the language and tone of Ring'saddress, entered as strong a rebuke as he dared. "My dear Christy," he said, "I'm sure you never read that in the New Testament." "The men who wrote the New Testament," replied Ring, "never had to play Tipperary."Tipperary have never had it easy. They've never made it easy for themselves.By an accident of geography they share a border with eight hurling counties(Cork, Clare, Galway, Waterford, Limerick, Kilkenny, Offaly and Laois) and byan accident of nature they have never considered themselves inferior to any oftheir neighbours. Parity of esteem was the most they ever allowed; Cork haveenjoyed most of it, Kilkenny some. For which blessing, they give eternal thanks.No other county has been engaged in so many simmering feuds, no other countyhas represented the ultimate test of machismo for so many rivals. At differenttimes in their history Tipperary liked to play the game hard, but not always.Tipperary during the Babs Keating years, 1986-1994, were a beautiful team,underpinned by a scrupulous attitude to discipline - one sending off in eightyears. Yet they incurred the wrath of Galway and Limerick and, by the end,Clare.For that Tipperary team, like so many before, there was something in theirdemeanour, their bearing, an inclination to strut and preen, which incitedopponents. When Tipp broke out of Munster in 1987 Galway were fired up andwaiting. "It was their arrogance that got us going," says Conor Hayes, Galwaycaptain at the time. "They hadn't won an All-Ireland in 16 years but the vibescoming off them was that they had a divine right to win one now. We had been inthe All-Ireland finals of 1985 and 1986 and if anything we were the ones whoshould have felt that right. "A few years previously, in 1978, we had beaten them in an under-21 final and a year later they came back and beat us. I'll never forget the Tipp supporters leaving Portlaoise that day. They just thought they were going to win all round them."Spleens, by their nature, are not entirely rational. Between 1940 and 1971Limerick had failed to beat Cork in the championship, but when they assembled areally good team in the early Seventies Tipp were the enemy they lined upagainst the wall. It was reflex, informed by race memory."The same intensity wasn't there with Cork," says Eamon Cregan, Limerickmanager now and a player then. "We had watched the Tipp team of the Sixties and they were arrogant. They were good and they knew they were good. We had grown up looking at Tipp beating Limerick by 15, 20, 25 points and, consciously or unconsciously, most of that team in the Seventies said to themselves that theywouldn't be beaten by Tipperary like that."In places like Doon, three miles on the Limerick side of the border withTipperary, what each county thinks of the other is crystallised and magnified.Doon CBS caters for both creeds: three-fifths Limerick, the rest Tipp. Morethan half of the pupils bring a hurley to school and hurling is the commoncurrency of slagging and the only recognised arbiter of status.Even there mindsets and postures are apparent. PJ McNamara, a Limerickman and teacher in the school, said once that by sight he could identify the hurlers onthe school team that were from Tipp, as if the special properties were passedon by osmosis: "They have a little something about them, that little bit extrain their attitude to the game. They're much more confident about hurling. Maybeyou could call it hardness, you could call it a lot of things. They have thisbit extra."Conor O'Donovan played minor for his native Limerick but when work took him toTipperary he declared for them and went on to play under-21 and senior. Thedifference struck him immediately. Tipp were still searching for theAll-Ireland which would take them 18 years to find, but their intrinsicconfidence was undiminished."When I played minor with Limerick you struggled for success because there wasno history of it. With Tipp, underage success was always there and there was anexpectation. But to Tipp that expectation was a positive thing, whereas inLimerick it would just have added a burden of pressure."For those 18 years Tipp took sustenance from the success of generations, likea camel with its store of water. When they beat Kilkenny in the 1971All-Ireland they headed the roll of honour with 22 titles, one ahead of Cork,four clear of Kilkenny.Their record against Kilkenny had been extraordinary; unbeaten between 1922and 1966 in the championship and League finals. "Kilkenny for the hurlers,Tipperary for the men," went the taunt. Pat Henderson, the former Kilkennyhurler and manager, lived in Johnstown, but went to school in Thurles CBS."We were fiercely jealous of that fact that we couldn't beat them, butwouldn't admit to it. When we beat them in the smallest match we'd crow aboutit, and then they'd come back with the put-down that we hadn't beaten themsince 1922." Nothing was more elemental than the bottom line.Henderson was playing when Kilkenny finally stood up to Tipperary and beatthem in the 1966 League final; a harsh match decided without a goal, 0-9 to0-7. Two years later another League final was even more fierce, but then theneedle abated, as if the pus had come out of the sore. The All-Ireland finalthree years later was without rancour.Tipp, though, were not unused to attricious matches. Every so often theirfamiliarity with Cork broke into contempt and when Waterford came with a goodteam between 1957 and 1963 they locked antlers with Tipp. On the face of itthere was no obvious reason why Tipp should antagonise Waterford. The borderthey shared was football country on both sides and when Waterford had come with good teams in the Thirties and Forties it was Cork and Limerick who kept them down.Yet in those six years they played at least three big matches with Tipp whichwere laced with meanness. Of course, it would be wrong to say the phenomenonwas a mystery: "They were top dogs at the time," says Tom Cunningham, aWaterford player then, "and they had a way of letting you know they were topdogs."That was simply it. "The rivalry we had with Cork was more intense than any ofthem," says Tony Wall, a Tipperary great of the 1950s and 1960s, "but there wasno vitriol like there was with other counties. We had hard matches and forgotabout it. Cork never had an inferiority complex and we didn't either. We werewinning, Cork were winning - and the others weren't."Nobody felt more strongly about Tipp than Ring, but behind it all he wouldn'thave been without them. When they were down he used to say that hurling wasonly "half-dressed" without them.Despite the bitterness between Galway and Tipp in the 1987-94 era there wassome good fellowship too. When Eanna Ryan lost the hearing in one ear after ablow to the head, Bobby Ryan ran a bus to a fund-raising night for the Galwayplayer in New Inn.But some things Galway players regarded as immutable truths. Over his longcareer Conor Hayes shot the breeze with players of every hue, aristocrat andartisan: "I found that Cork had an attitude that it was an awful burden to bewinning matches. With Kilkenny fellas it was a case of 'ye were the betterteam, but ye lost' sort of thing. With Tipp, though, the impression was always,'ye were lucky to be playing us'."The tension with Galway has receded, Clare have picked up the cudgels. AfterClare there will be others. Tipp have never known peace. You wonder if theywould ever want it.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

One thing that annoys the f**k out of me is passing through towns like Enfield, Clonee, Ashbourne, Leixlip and seeing loads of Dublin flags.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

But you are wrong, Navan is not a long way from Ashbourne, its a 20 minute drive. Tara/ Skryne, which would be solidly Meath, are only 15 minutes down the road.

Min wrote: »

From Kilkenny and I support our own team, however when it comes to football, I like seeing Kerry doing well.