KERRY legend Tomás Ó Sé has said that he’ll miss Cork’s much-criticised Pairc Ui Chaoimh, due to be demolished after this season.
“People say it's an awful stadium and, on so many levels, it is,” he writes in his Irish Independent column. “Yet I've probably loved it for the same design flaws that sometimes had you wondering if you were being filmed for You've Been Framed.
“The dressing-rooms are so small, you'd barely tog an U-12 team inside. Rumour has it they were designed for soccer and there's always been something wild about the tunnel outside and the challenge of slipping out through a narrow chute of stewards, opposition supporters bawling their worst.
“But, you know, even thinking about that makes me tingle now. My first experience there as a footballer was playing minor on Munster final day in '96. The rain tipping down and two Kerry wins on one brilliant afternoon in enemy territory.
"Nowadays the minors tog out in a prefab behind the stand but, back then, both teams were in connecting dressing-rooms. It meant there must have been up to 30 grown men in one tiny room, a massage table in the middle.
"So just as we were hitting the showers, Páidí was revving up the seniors, his words bouncing off the walls like ricocheting bullets. We stood there listening, the whole thing giving us goosebumps.”
Ó Sé retired from playing at the end of last season and won’t feature in Sunday’s Munster final at the Pairc. But the Gaeltacht man is still eagerly anticipating the match. He says that victory over the old enemy means as much to both counties as an All-Ireland title.
“I remember reading a line in Teddy McCarthy's book where he said that winning a Munster final against Kerry actually meant more to him than winning an All-Ireland. I could relate to that 100 per cent, except – of course – in reverse.
“My first taste of the rivalry was playing for North Kerry U-16s in a tournament when we came up against a Cork selection. Charlie Nelligan was in charge of us that day and, Jesus, the passion that Charlie had for playing Cork just lit up something inside of him.
“I remember him saying to us: ‘Lads, when ye win against Cork, ye will experience a feeling that can't be repeated against any other opposition!’
“So playing Cork has always been different for Kerry. One thing I will forever be proud of is the fact that, in my career, they never beat us in Killarney. You felt you were protecting something that mattered.
“Still, there would be no rhyme or reason to some of the games we had against them because, no matter how good Kerry might have been at the time, whether or not we were All-Ireland champions, we never came out of Cork with a handy win.
“They have always been the barometer for Kerry and Sunday will be no different. Both teams will feel something deep inside that has become ingrained by history. It's not hatred. It's more an unbelievable hunger just to deny the other a win.
“I'm living in Cork and, to my mind, there isn't a better sporting county in the country. I always had the utmost respect for them as footballers but, once we stepped over the white line, it was really a case of going to war. For that hour to hour and a half, your head was in a different place. You were a different person really.”
