Westmeath Senior Football Final 1944: Another Gut Your Man Type of Game & Another Controversial Penalty Incident ...
A couple of weeks ago we covered the controversy surrounding the Mullingar Football Club and The Mental Hospital Club in the 1945 senior football championship. This week we take a look at the 1944 county football final between Mullingar and Kinnegad and another controversial penalty incident. The arrival of Brother Thomas Wilfred Hogan to Mullingar in 1942 revolutionised the GAA in the town for a brief period. Hogan hit the town like a tornado and his impact was almost immediate. A native of Grangemockler, County Tipperary, his brother Michael was shot by British forces in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920. Another brother Dan, , was active in the War of Independence in Monaghan and Ulster. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and entered the Irish Free State Army at the start of the Civil War. He rose quickly through the ranks and became Chief of Staff in 1927, a post he held for two years before he resigned in 1929, emigrated to New York and subsequently disappeared.
Brother Hogan began to promote the GAA with a vengeance as soon as he established his bearings in town and realised the impoverished state of the organisation. Hurling and football street leagues were organised to cater for adults, minors and schoolboys and these provided programme of games that were locally meaningful, regular in organisation and competitive. Newspaper publicity added to the status of the street leagues and games played by the Mullingar hurling and football clubs were also spotlighted. Gaelic games in Mullingar were given a newspaper profile and a presence on the ground of unprecedented proportions. The chief vehicle for this publicity was a weekly column in the Westmeath Examiner written by Brother Hogan under the pen name of An Fear Faire entitled ‘With the Gaels of Mullingar’. Hogan’s impact was such that in 1944, the Mullingar GAA Club played in the senior hurling and football finals as well as the minor football final.
Mullingar qualified for the senior football final, played on 27 August 1944, by beating Gibbonstown and the Mental Hospital Club; their opponents Kinnegad first qualified for the senior grade by winning the intermediate title and then defeated Moate and received a walk-over in the semi-final from the Custume Barracks team. The final was a novel one and for the first time in forty years featured a Mullingar team. Despite the atrocious weather conditions a huge crowd attended Cusack Park. . As no team-lists were published for the football final it is necessary to rely on the list of players requested to report for the early games to identify those involved at the time. These were J. Gaffey, Gerry Hennessy, J. Ledwith, J. Raleigh, G. Armstrong, Denis O’Callaghan, Mick Reynolds, Oliver Tully, James Wims, Frank Keane, Sean Tone, Aidan Wallace, Peter Lynch, Johnny Lyng, William ‘Bill’ Hahessy, Eamon Moynihan, Albert Duncan, Thomas Lynch Des Devalley and Vincent Gillick.
Hidden behind the final score of 3-7 to 2-8 in favour of Kinnegad is one of the most controversial county finals in the history of Westmeath GAA. The outcome hinged on a dramatic last minute penalty kick which was driven wide by Mullingar’s Thomas Lynch. The penalty kick was introduced to the rules of the GAA in 1938 and was almost certainly the first awarded in a Westmeath final. Lynch was totally exonerated for the miss. An Fear Faire explained that ‘no blame whatever is attached to the player taking the kick’ and claimed that ‘at least’ one of the Kinnegad players ‘actually attempted to obstruct the ball in such a fashion that it would be a physical impossibility to score.’ This is a reference to the idea that a Kinnegad player placed his foot on the ball before the kick was taken and pushed it into the mud. It is also part of GAA folklore that sods were thrown at Lynch as he took the kick but there is no contemporary mention of such a happening. It was claimed in the subsequent objection that two Kinnegad players charged Lynch as he attempted to take the kick and ‘at least 8 Kinnegad players crowded round the place kicker’. The referee failed totally to implement the rules which required that all players except the goalkeeper and the kicker remained outside the twenty-one yard line.
Anger poured from what constituted the Westmeath Examiner match report written from the Mullingar perspective by An Fear Faire. There was no final score or teams listed. The Meath Chronicle carried a very short report which gave a half-time score of 2-0 to 1-0 in favour of Mullingar but did not give a final score. After a good opening half of football, the second half degenerated into a series of injury induced stoppages. According to the Meath Chronicle the loss through injury of Johnny Lyng early in the second-half was a critical reversal for Mullingar. As Mullingar attacked several melees occurred around the Kinnegad goal and shortly before the penalty award Mullingar also missed a fourteen yard free. An Fear Faire was convinced that injuries to Mullingar players were ‘due to the settled policy of three or four of the Kinnegad players’. It was made clear in the column that the Mullingar Club planned to object to the match result: ‘The wanton and deliberate attacks on J. Lyng and A. Duncan were too obvious to be overlooked. We must protect our young players; we must ensure that sportsmanship is upheld’. Tribute was also paid to the ‘sportsmanship of eleven of the Kinnegad players’. The column concluded with a veiled suggestion that unsportsmanlike behaviour was not confined to the Kinnegad players. After congratulating the Mullingar supporters for their loyalty, it was suggested that greater discipline was required ‘in order to prevent ugly, uncalled for and unwanted scenes’. Tribute was played to the sportsmanship of eleven of the Kinnegad players.
The unruly scenes inspired a Westmeath Examiner editorial.
The match was characterised by fights between players, scrimmages between spectators, who invaded the playing pitch in numbers, and generally by conduct which can only be described as deplorable … The day’s sport was nevertheless spoiled by the misconduct of a few people … It would indeed be a poor ending to what should be a friendly game of football if one or more of the players were, as a result of unfair conduct crippled for life.
In his column, a week later An Fear Faire suggested that ‘all the over-enthusiasm both on and off the field in the last quarter’ was inspired by the gambling associated with the match and the ‘fear of losing the bets which looked at the time not the easy money they may have been before the game’. Andrew McCarthy from the Hill of Down in a letter to the Westmeath Examiner provided a Kinnegad perspective on the events and tellingly asked An Fear Faire to ‘explain the fact that the crowd was orderly during the first half of the match when Mullingar was playing better football than Kinnegad, and was not only disorderly but pugnacious when Kinnegad appeared to be winning the match’. He also suggested that 'the scenes on Sunday were not new but were only a continuation of similar exhibitions of rowdyism on occasion s when teams other than Kinnegad were involved'.
The subsequent county board meeting held on 8 September 1944 revealed what lay behind the request for improved discipline amongst the Mullingar supporters when the county chairman, Dan Leavy addressed the issue. Leavy explained that the heavy rain during the course of the game was ‘probably responsible for the conduct of several spectators who encroached on the playing pitch’. Some spectators in the Mullingar section were very difficult to handle and ‘a few in particular were noted for bad behaviour at several games’. He feared that a number of Mullingar spectators were going to assault the referee. As a result, Patrick Gillen, Mick Roache, Paddy Price and ‘Jackson’ Kelly were black listed and banned from attending future games in Cusack Park. Price was granted a reprieve on Brother Hogan’s intervention, who promised that the Mullingar club would take responsibility for his conduct at future games. Prior to the hearing of the objection, the referee’s report was adopted and after a discussion Maurice Dunne and Michael Plunkett of Kinnegad and William Hahessy and Mick Reynolds of Mullingar were warned as to their future conduct.
The Mullingar objection inspired an ‘edifying debate seldom equalled for dignity, sportsmanship, or eloquence even in the Dáil’ that continued for over three hours and concluded just before midnight. An objection to the legality of Kinnegad’s Harry Dunne was withdrawn on the pretext that the Mullingar Club did not want to be responsible for having any team suspended! The key objection was now based on the breach of rules associated with the infamous penalty kick. Brother Hogan explained that several of the Kinnegad players refused to stand outside the 21 yards line as they should have done according to rule and surrounded Thomas Lynch who took the kick. Two Kinnegad players actually charged him as he was kicking the ball. The referee Mr Sheehy was called to give evidence and he explained that the penalty was awarded following consultation with the umpires. The Kinnegad players initially refused to leave the goal. Several players from both clubs were grouped around the kicker as he was about to take the kick but ‘he did not see anyone impeding Thomas Lynch in any way’. This evidence was crucial but Sheehy admitted when questioned by Hogan that some of the Kinnegad players were only two or three yards away from Lynch as he kicked the ball; the rule was not observed as there was a tense atmosphere at the time and he found it difficult to get the players as far as the fourteen yard line. He allowed matters to stand as he was anxious to get the match finished. Hogan argued that as the rule was not observed the Mullingar objection should be upheld. However the referee was certain that he had seen no player impede Thomas Lynch. Mullingar seemed to gain an advantage when the delegates voted to hear the evidence of Lynch but this did not take place. After Kinnegad objected, Dan Leavy ruled that the championship final be awarded to Kinnegad and recommended that his decision be appealed to the Leinster Council. In his subsequent Westmeath Examiner column, Brother Hogan congratulated Kinnegad on the victory and he unreservedly withdrew his remarks on certain Kinnegad players and apologised for using them as ‘certain people were unwilling to substantiate their previous statements’.
Within twelve months Brother Hogan was dead. He died in a Dublin nursing home on Tuesday 22 May 1945. His loss to the Mullingar and Westmeath GAA was inestimable.
