Micheál Burke Remembers ...

In 1999, Westmeath won the All-Ireland Under-21 title beating Kerry in a never to be forgotten final in Limerick. Mullingar Shamrocks players Micheál Burke and Brian Lambden were members of that special Westmeath team The following year Micheál was still under age and playing when Westmeath retained the Leinster title, making Micheál a member of a very small group of Westmeath footballers with 2 Leinster Under-21 medals.

Here Micheál recalls those great years for Westmeath and Mullingar Shamrocks football. The photograph of Micheál and his father Mick was taken on the night of the medal presentation in the Greville Arms Hotel ...

I have always believed to be successful you need persistence, momentum and a good tab of luck and I and the team had a good mix of these three in winning the Under-21 All Ireland.

I always had a huge interests in Gaelic Games from a very young age and this was formed from being from a football mad household where both my parents Mick and Marie had strong GAA connections and I have great memories of going all over the county and country watching games.

My father got involved in Mullingar Shamrocks having moved to the town as a Garda and I played from an early age. However my underage Shamrocks career was not the most successful and unlike the team the next grade up with the likes of Mark Treanor, Shane Colleary, Brian Morley, Paddy Rouse and others winning everything at every age grade.The team I was involved in was not the strongest to say the least. We never actually won a game at any age grade! Not something that would put you in the spotlight for county selections. However, good coaching in Shamrocks, encouragement to go for county trials and also exposure at schools football for St. Marys CBS against teams like Rochfortbridge (managed by Luke Dempsey) helped get me my chance with Westmeath. I represented Westmeath at Under 16 and minor. At minor level we were beaten in the first round of the championship by Longford after getting a man sent off where I was given the task of keeping tabs on Paul Bardon. Again far from a future All-Ireland winning side.

In 1999, I was in college and wasn’t expecting to have any involvement with the 21’s as I still had another year underage. I had just started some weekend work thanks to Bernard Flynn in a newsagent's shop he had opened in town. The same week I got a call from Luke to come in to train with them. I had to promptly tell the parents and Bernard I was packing the weekend job in after 1 week so I could give the 21’s a good go. I would have known some of the lads my age that also got called up but it was also good to have a club mate in Brian Lambden involved. Training while tough was enjoyable and Luke had a good setup with good coaches such as Michael Lydon from Galway involved. We played plenty of challenge matches and as we started mixing with the Galway’s, Kildare's, Offaly’s we were more than holding our own and confidence was growing. I was getting chances all across the backline but predominately at wing and corner back. Coming up to the first round against Kildare I had a couple of good games at the right time and got the nod for the first round against Kildare in Newbridge. I was to pick up their danger man Tadgh Fennin who I had done well on in a couple of challenges games. However after a good tussle he came out on top that day and we held on for a draw. I wasn’t named to start the replay. James Galvin who had come on from me had done well and deserved the start.

My memory of the games are limited and I would often be talking to players supporters etc who could remember the ins and outs of every game and I can’t and I haven’t watched any of them back either which doesn’t help.

In the replay we got an equalising point to take the game to extra time. I got on in extra time as we got a run on Kildare and pushed on for a good win. We had Wicklow in the Leinster semi final where we came out on top in another tight game. I hadn’t got on for the semi final and I remember doing a lot of training on my own when back in college between the games to try to get myself back in the mix. I knew I was going well in the internal games coming up to the Leinster Final and I felt I had a chance of starting but when the team was named Luke had stayed loyal to the team that started the previous two games.As a twist a of fate and the bit of luck for me the day before the game I got a call from Luke that a mate of mine on the team Davie Kilmartin had come down ill with a virus and I was going to start wing back. The first dilemma was whether to tell the parents as they were staunch Laois supporters (my mother is a daughter of Bill Delaney, one of the legends of Laois football and Bill and his brothers are the Royal family of Laois football. They won 18 Railway Cup medals between them and another 12 Leinster senior medals with Laois. My grandfather, Bill Delaney is one of the few men to have played in an All-Ireland senior final and refereed a senior final!) and I didn’t want to give any team secrets away but I did and swore them to secrecy. The Leinster Final was in Tullamore, a pitch I always loved playing in from the old small dressing rooms at the back of the pitch to running out under the tunnel at the bottom corner and that day with a huge crowd in attendance you felt ten foot tall sprinting out of that tunnel and mad for action. I can remember marking Tom Kelly that day and bits of the game like a goal mouth scramble in the last minuteafter Beano McDonald had hit the post and then getting my hands on the ball and getting out of there and knowing we were heading for another replay. My abiding memory was actually during the meal after in the Bridge House in Tullamore getting awful cramps in both legs and having the get the great Killer Byrne to come in to the toilets to try and stretch me out (the things you remember eh)!

I held my place at wing-back for the replayand after another ding dong battle against a really strong Laois side we got over the line to become Leinster Champions. Dessie Dolan and Joe Fallon led the way in scoring mainly from placed balls in what was poor weather conditions. However, it did little to dampen the Westmeath supporters who swamped the pitch at full-time.

Monaghan had upset the cards in Ulster and we drew them in the semi-final. In another twist of fate the Senior Div 1 League final went to a replay that year and they decided to put our All Ireland semi-final on before it in Croke Park. It was great to get that box ticked and play in Croker and what proved to be our most straight forward win of the year as we were too strong for Monaghan.

Training was always Tuesday, Friday and a game at the weekend. I can’t imagine what it would be in modern times for a team chasing its first All Ireland (with gym, nutrition, analysis etc) but different times. Some of the players fathers would collect 6 or 7 of us in college from Dublin every Tuesday night for training and drop us back up after which was appreciated. The joke at the time was the Tyrone’s and Meath’s had started using the Neutron diet where we had Ballingore’s Mae Ennis feeding us buns and cakes after training that worked a treat. Luke’s key skill was his man management and he had every panel member feel they were in with a chance of playing and they were going well and drove the confidence in the group.

Kerry were next up and a game we would go into as massive underdogs against the reigning All Ireland champions with a host ofsenior Kerry footballers the likes of Tom O’Sullivan, Mike McCarthy, Tomas O’Shea, Paul Galvin and the Kennellys. I was in college in Dublin and it was exam time so I missed most of the hype around the county in the build-up. We trained well coming up to the final. My abiding memory was of a speech by our captain Aidan Canning at the last training session (and I don’t remember many speeches) where he talked of his belief in the group and the reasons why. Looking around the group and knowing there was no great fear of Kerry but huge respect and that we all believed no matter what happened we were ready to perform and give it a good go.

Limerick hosted the final and it was mad walking the pitch before hand as the huge Westmeath crowd had already streamed in. Re the game itself I started wing back on Tadgh Kennelly now of Aussie Rules fame. Ball down our wing was limited in the first half and before half-time our fullback James Galvin did his cruciate and I was moved back to fullback. As a defence we kept a strong Kerry forward line to one point from play with the help of a penalty save from Cathal Mullen. The memoryof the last twenty minutes in particular was running around after the likes of Paul Galvin hoping the ball would stay the other end of the pitch as the game closed out. We held onto the deserved lead and after Dessie had again inched us closer to the finish line with a big free. The final whistle was mayhem as thousands of Westmeath fans engulfed the pitch and I remember getting nearly squeezed to death by Ned Moore. Seeing Canno lift the cup above his head was surreal and meeting my parents, family and friends in the stands was special. That Saturday night the bus journey back into Mullingar to streets thronged with people and getting introduced to the crowd was a super memory. A few of us had to cut our celebrations short on the Sunday evening as we had to go back to Dublin to do college exams the Monday and Tuesday but we made up for it over the coming weeks!!

I mentioned at the start of this you need luck, persistence and momentum and we had all three we got our slices of luck against Kildare, Laois and Kerry and the momentum of the replays and game after game really suited us. The persistence from a personal point of view from a very unsuccessful underage club and county career to that point and to get dropped after the first game to claw my way back into the team stood to me.

As I and a few of the lads were underage again the next year and we also added to the team the likes of John Keane, Derek Heavin and JP Casey we knew we could give it a good go again and we had that roll over momentum. After games against Wicklow and replay and Wexford we landed back in Leinster Final again this time against Meath. In what was twenty years ago three weeks ago ,16th April (one of the lads sent me the article from the paper) in a wet Tullamore, we came out on top 7 points to 6 to win our second Leinster in two years. I saw grown men in tears on the field that day as they had never seen Westmeath teams beat Meath in finals and it meant as much to them as the All-Ireland the year before. I made sure to enjoy the dressing room feeling after that one as someone once said those moments in the dressing are the last time that group will be together so enjoy the moment. Unfortunately, we were beaten by a strong Limerick side in Portlaoise in the semi-final in a game we should have won. They succumbed to a Cormac McAnallen led Tyrone in the Final played in Mullingar. That one hurt as we felt we should have made at least the All-Ireland Final. However later that year in what was probably some of the worst weather conditions I played football in we won a senior championship with Shamrocks beating Tyrellspass in Cusack Park. To play on a winning Shamrocks team on county final day was as special if not more than all the others over the previous two years. Something I had dreamed of since I was a kid.

I am very thankful to all those that coached and helped us have those special days and now feel it important to try and give a bit back to both the Shamrocks and Westmeath. I am involved coaching underage in Shamrocks and have coached nearly every team from under 6 up to and including our Seniors and this year have got involved in with Westmeath Under 16s until the infamous Covid 19 hit.

GAA has always played a huge part in my life and has opened doors and helped meet great friends and is something I always recommend to any parent as it helps steer kids on a good path and the enjoyment you get way out ways anything you put in. Hopefully soon I will be back bringing my two kids to Cusack Park to watch any and every game that is on there and we are all active, involved and watching the games more than reading and writing about them.