Paddy Doherty: The Making of Paddy Mo

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Also, my father took a weak turn while watching me taking that penalty… he never again went to see me play… not even in the All-Ireland finals.

We extend our deepest sympathy to James' wife Marie, his daughters Delia and Maria, sons Brian, James, Charlie Pat, Daniel and Eoin, his grandchildren, his brother Dan and sisters Gay, Delia and Eileen. While supporters and players may have been deeply disappointed, the team management remained optimistic...they were ahead of schedule in their overall plan and were confident that the breakthrough was imminent. An interesting statistic...the 1958 final was the first of 12 consecutive Ulster final appearances for Down!

INan extract from his memoir ‘The Making of Paddy Mo, The Paddy Doherty Autobiography’, which will be launched on Monday, August 10, Paddy Doherty remembers the greatest game of his life in Croke Park and also recounts how a career which included three All-Ireland victories might have been cut short by a decision to make it as a professional soccer player in England. Its GAA correspondent was Barney Carr – who managed Down in the 1960 and 1961 All-Ireland Finals. An excellent writer. He also wrote a book called 'Summerhill, Warrenpoint', about his life and childhood – he's an exceptional writer. He had Down match reports and an article every week. Everybody involved in football and every parent wants to get their kids out on the field playing football, or hurling or camogie or whatever it is but it has to be in a safe and controlled manner.” Down have done that – the Nineties team, I got close to getting my hands on 'Sam' in '91 but Paddy O'Rourke got there in front of me. There are so many similarities between those Down teams of the Sixties and the Nineties when you read about them, the characteristics of both, it's amazing." The scene was set for the final showdown...Down v Kerry...Down seeking their first title and Kerry seeking their 20th. There was an amazing atmosphere all over the county as the players prepared for the big day. But they were well prepared and were not over-awed by the great occasion. They led by 0-9 to 0-5 at the interval but Kerry were still in contention until Doherty forced his marker to bring him down in the 'square'. Cool as ever, he stepped up to blast the penalty to the net.

He was one of the greatest forwards in the history of the game. Some of his exploits, his confidence on the field, his abilities, were unbelievable; I'm delighted we're presenting his full story to a whole new generation of people, who'll be able to understand who Paddy was and what the Down team of the Sixties represented.

Barney Carr’s father had played for Down once in 1914 but his own connection with the GAA didn’t begin until the St Peter’s club was formed in Warrenpoint in the winter of 1931 when he was nine-years-old.

It made Down's winning of the All-Ireland Football final that year especially meaningful for me, then and since. That's what we all want to do but in the current climate there are a lot of unknowns so we just have wait and be guided by what the Government guidelines are and then in turn by guided by what the GAA roadmap lays out.” As a young lad growing up in the Kingdom, I believed in Kerry’s invincibility. But Down shattered all that. Paddy Doherty was their chief predator. Without doubt one of the greatest forwards the game has known… loved and admired in Down… feared and respected in Kerry and everywhere else.Three decades on, when people still have a glint in their eye when describing what ‘Shorty’ could do on a football pitch, the man himself has more than made his peace with how events transpired and he fully celebrated the side’s 1-16 to 1-14 win. Reality TV star Paddy Doherty has told how convicted murderer Joe Joyce insisted to him that he “tried to kill nobody”.

Apart from Down in the ‘60s and their three titles, there was no sense of a sustained assault on the championship or coming year after year to Croke Park and turning teams over." The Down team before the final against Meath Obviously I never heard her but it would hardly have mattered… I would have taken it anyway. I slammed the ball past my good friend Willie Nolan. We got to the 1990 National League final against Meath and we ran them close," Collins continued. "They were clinical whereas we weren’t and we gave away a soft penalty. The lure of Ireland, and of the Association from which was soon to find himself disenfranchised, proved too strong. Charlie was a cult figure, not just in Cavan, but all over Ireland in the sixties, so much so, there was a song written about him, ’Charlie from Coothill’ A wonderful footballer, who earned a special place in the hearts of Cavan people far and wide.The excitement was now in full boil and, into the last eight minutes, Down were awarded a penalty. The room filled with mutterings and exclamations and a shifting in the seats and a great hush came over the radio as if there was nobody in Croke Park. If Paddy Doherty scored it was all over for Kerry, creating a gap of seven points. But to miss, apart from the dread of a tension-filled ending, would destroy the sheer beauty of Down's overall defiant display. The penalty had to be the coup de grace.