ALMOST 50 years ago, a group of men from the Derry village of Bellaghy took the nation by storm and became the first Ulster club to win the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship. Inaugural Ulster championship winners in 1968, the Wolfe Tone’s captured their second provincial title in 1971 and went on beat a star-studded University College Cork side in the final at Croke Park the following year. Frankie Cassidy, left corner-back on that famous team, recalls those glory days with Andy Watters…
The unofficial All-Ireland
BY the late 1960s, club football, which had always been extremely popular, had a growing profile but Connacht and Ulster were the only provinces that played club championships. In 1968, Bellaghy beat St Joseph’s from Donegal, an amalgamated side that included Brian Eniff, 0-8 to 0-5 in the first-ever Ulster decider and went on play Roscommon’s Castlerea St Kevin’s (the Connacht champions) on a home and away basis.
“We beat them well in Magherafelt and then we drew with them in Roscommon so that was an unofficial All-Ireland,” Frankie explains.
“So we’ve been unofficial and official champions!”
Remembering Tom Scullion
FRANKIE played at left half-back during that ‘unofficial’ campaign alongside the ever-dependable Tom Scullion who wore the number six jersey. Scullion, who passed away in February aged 81, won 12 county titles with Bellaghy and was a fixture in Derry sides for a decade.
“Tom was a great player and I still can’t believe he is gone,” says Frankie.
“He was so healthy and I would have spoken to him every day – it’s just unbelievable he went so quickly. We used to meet at Mass in the mornings or when he was out for a walk – he would have walked five or six miles every day, he was a fit person but he was struck down with the virus and didn’t recover. It was very sad.”
The Wee Blues
WITH Scullion in his pomp, Bellaghy were the dominant force in Derry football and the Wolfe Tone’s won 13 county titles between 1956 and 1975 (they remain Derry’s most successful with 21 titles).
In 1971, Bellaghy dethroned defending champions Newbridge in the early rounds of the Derry championship and then prepared for the challenge of Lavey in the decider.
“Lavey were strong rivals at the time but we beat them handy enough that day,” says Frankie, who played at corner-back.
“That match was really over at half-time, we had a big score up by that time. Our normal scorers were Frankie O’Loan. My brothers Brendan and Kevin, Hugh Donnelly and Peter Doherty… They were all good forwards.
“Some of the Bellaghy teams that came along later would have accused us of being a catch-and-kick team but our team was nicknamed ‘the Wee Blues’ because we had two or three tall players and the rest of us weren’t too big so there wasn’t any point kicking long balls up to our forwards.
“Defenders were supposed to defend and give the ball to the boys that could play. We had good midfielders and forwards and a fairly strong defence as well so, overall, we had a good team at that time. We were lucky sometimes but you can’t be lucky for 10 years! You have to be able to play a bit too.”
The Cassidy Brothers
THE Bellaghy manager was Harry Cassidy (one of Frankie’s eight brothers) who had also been manager of the club for the 1968 ‘unofficial’ campaign.
Eight of the nine Cassidy brothers lined out for their club, only Robert (the eldest) proved to be immune to the football bug.
Frankie explains: “Four of us played in the 1968 final and once six of us played together. St John’s used to have a tournament and we all played against Glenn, from county Down. Generally we would have had five – myself, Willie (who sadly passed away a month ago), Dan Joe (father of Derry All-Ireland winner Damian), Kevin and Brendan, the youngest.
“When I started out at about 20, Harry was still playing at centre half-back. He was quite a tough customer, I would have to say. There weren’t a lot of forwards around the county at that time who really wanted to argue with him! As a manager, he was very demanding and he expected a lot of you. He didn’t want any excuses.”
Ulster champions
IN 1969, Bellaghy had lost out to Down champions Bryansford and the following year county rivals Newbridge had beaten them in the Derry championship.
But after recapturing their county title, the ‘Wee Blues’ made no mistake in 1971 and they saw off Armagh champions Clann na nGael of Lurgan (who went on to win the next three Ulster titles) in the provincial decider.
“We expected it to be a tight game but it was okay,” recalls Frankie.
A bag of muck
AND with the Ulster title secured, Bellaghy set their minds on winning the All-Ireland crown. Frankie’s brother Harry trained the squad mercilessly right through the winter and brought in Tommy Gribben, a former Bellaghy player, to coach the side.
“That was the first time we had our own pitch – before that we had been playing on fields that were rented from farmers, but this was our own pitch,” says Frankie.
“The training facilities at that time weren’t brilliant! At that time there was no changingrooms of any sort.
“On one side of the pitch there was a slope that went down about 30 yards and the whole squad would run down that and then you would carry whoever happened to be nearest to you on your back up to the top. I never stood beside Lawrence Diamond when we were doing that! He was 6’3”.
“My wife Helen always used to say that every night I came in from training I came in with a bag of muck to be washed. We trained all through the winter after the Ulster final, we had a bit of time off around Christmas before we started again.
“It was tough training. There was a fella called Tommy Gribben, he was a former Bellaghy player and he was actually managing Lavey that year when we beat them in the county final, and brother Harry got him back to train us for the All-Ireland semi-final and final. He did that and he was very good, a very good trainer.
“It wasn’t training like they do now, it was just hard work and exercises and we played practice games. But we still think that, although it’s a different type of game and a different era, if we were around now we could still have survived and won matches - we were all good players and good athletes.”
Let off the Laois
THE opposition in the All-Ireland semi-final was a burly Portlaoise side that had accounted for Westmeath’s Athlone in the Leinster decider.
“Portlaoise football is very strong and they had a tough team,” says Frankie.
“They had two brothers playing for them – one at full-forward and the other one at top-of-the-right. I’d say the full-forward was about 18 stone and they gave us a hard time of it.
“Near the finish it was level and I wasn’t looking forward to having to go down there for a replay but then we put on a young fella (well, he was a young fella at that time) called John McGoldrick for the second half. He caught a ball out on the right and went on a run and got it over to Hugh Donnelly, who was very fast with a good left foot, and he put it over the bar from 30-yards.”
Friday night delight
THAT one-point win set up an All-Ireland final against a University College Cork side that included talented players from Cork, Kerry and Limerick and had beaten Mayo’s Claremorris in their semi-final.
The All-Ireland final was played Friday, May 12, 1972 because the National Football League final was being played on the Sunday between Kerry and Mayo and Kingdom stars Brendan Lynch, Paudie Lynch and several others were on the UCC team.
“We would have liked to have played it at Croke Park before the National League final but the compromise was that we would play on the Friday night,” Frankie explains.
“Bobby Milne was injured, Tom Scullion, who was a great centre half-back and could have played centre half-forward was right full-back, Austin Mulholland was the full-back and I was on the left. Austin, myself and Tom were probably in the twilight of our careers at that time – myself and Austin were 30 and Tom was maybe a couple of years older than that – but the rest of the boys were young.”
The young legs and all that hard training paid off in the final. The game was level at 1-11 to 0-14 and the final whistle wasn’t far away when Frankie’s brother Brendan picked up the ball in the UCC half and tried a shot from distance. The ball looked to be drifting wide until it curled in and dropped delightfully over the bar.
“I thought it was going wide but it just struck the inside of the post and dropped over,” says Frankie.
“There was about five or six minutes left after that and Hughie McGoldrick, he played centre half-back for us and he was a great athlete and a great player too, caught a long ball that went down the middle of the field.
“I still don’t know how Hughie stretched himself and caught that ball! If he had missed it his man was straight through on our goal.
“Those are the two main things I remember about that match apart from the final whistle – I always remember it! It doesn’t seem like 50 years ago. There were a lot of matches but that All-Ireland final is the one that stands out, that’s the one you always remember.
“There wasn’t the same publicity about that match as there would be now but there wasn’t too many people left in Bellaghy that day – a lot of people headed for Croke Park and we always had good support. When you’re winning you always have a good support to count on. We won seven Derry championships in eight years but we always felt we should have had 10 in-a-row but it didn’t work out. Ballinascreen beat us in 1973 and that was the only title they won. We still talk about ’73 but then again I suppose we shouldn’t be greedy!”
The Bellaghy man with two All-Irelands
A VERY faithful servant to his club, Frankie won 10 county titles with the Wolfe Tones as well as two-Ulster medals and that All-Ireland. But he admits that he lost interest in the game after he finished playing and hasn’t watched Bellaghy in several years.
“When I was playing, if we lost a match I might not have slept for a week, especially a county final,” he says.
“I helped Bellaghy to win 10 county championships so I can look back and I can be content enough but I just lost the interest.
“I discovered that there was another life outside football! The rest of my brothers still go and watch but I discovered that there was such a thing as holidays abroad and that sort of thing!
“I actually discovered a more gentle game and I won another All-Ireland medal playing it – so I’ve got two! I played indoor bowls and then I joined the Magherafelt outdoor club and we won the Irish Cup in 1982.
“I asked a fella one day: ‘Could you tell me the Bellaghy player who won All-Irelands in two different sports?’ He thought about it and he said: ‘I don’t know’. I said: ‘You’re talking to him now!’”
