Lots of toil, little success
December 31, 1998
When Christy Kelly came onto the Athboy hurling side, success seemed inevitable. 24 years later he retired with five senior final defeats as his lot. Royal Meath discovers a man who still feels that he gained a lot from his association with the game.
Some things take a lot of getting used to. Like not seeing Christy Kelly in the colours of Athboy any more, for example. Christy was a regular on the Athboy first team since 1973 until he decided to nail up the hurl in 1996. He hasn't played for the Athboy seniors for two seasons now . . . yet Athboy without Christy Kelly is still difficult to imagine. He was a great servant to the club and gave them tremendous service as a player. It won't be easy but they'll have to come to terms with lining out without him. Time waits for no man.
Meath's Hurler of the Year in 1985, Christy comes from Athboy originally and started to hurl with the club at U14 level in 1967. 1972 was his first year on the senior panel and he was a substitute as Athboy enjoyed their most recent senior hurling championship success.
Christy started out as a forward but was gradually moved back to the midfield-centre back area. During the course of 24 seasons on the first team, he played in a total of five county deciders but - although most of those finals were closely-fought affairs - no luck!
Underlining Athboy's misfortune in those years is the fact that each of the finals in question were lost to different opposition! The first was against Boardsmill in 1973 and Kilmessan proved too big an obstacle in 1977. Killyon were unbeatable in 1981 and both Navan O'Mahonys and Trim refused to buckle in 1986 and '87 respectively.
"We were always there or thereabouts but could never make the breakthrough," Christy reflects. "When I started out on the team, they had already won five titles and I came onto the tail-end of a team that had enjoyed much success but didn't really have a lot of young players. I think we were good enough to win the Championship many times but were unfortunate. Navan had a big influx of players from outside and so did Trim. But we were the opposite; we didn't really get anybody from outside and were more likely to lose players!"
24 years is a lot of commitment to give to anything - never mind a team that failed to make the breakthrough! - but Christy admits he wouldn't have it any other way. He simply loved hurling with Athboy and points to the fact that at least three Feis Cups were garnered and many friends were made over the course of his club career.
And then there was his lengthy intercounty career. All in all, he played with Meath from 1973 until 1989. During this time, honours collected included two Division Three league medals and an All-Ireland B 'home' championship.
The Royal County hurlers were hardly setting the world on fire at the time but nor were they pushover material. "When we got up, we used to do quite well in Division Two," notes Christy. "In the All-Ireland B, we were unlucky to lose the semi-final on a few occasions but losing the final proper to London in Trim in 1985 really knocked us back a lot. That was possibly the best Meath team I played on and we should never have lost a match like that."
Christy and his intercounty colleagues got to play against teams of the calibre of Tipperary (Nicky English, Michael Doyle, Bobby Ryan etc.), Clare, Galway and Offaly in the national hurling league. Indeed, they would certainly have beaten Clare in Ennis one year but for some inspirational goalkeeping from Banner County netminder Michael Carmody!
Has Christy ever despaired at the progress the latter three of these counties have made in comparison to the Royals? "I envy counties like that but there is definitely a difference between them and Meath. I don't know exactly where it stems from, but they do things a lot faster than we do in Meath. At national school level, they concentrate more on doing the simple things quickly rather than focusing too much on the skilful things. That's the secret. There's no great mystery about hurling as far as I'm concerned - it's about doing the simple things quickly."
Of course, Christy hasn't severed his connections with Athboy hurling completely despite the fact that his hectic career schedule affords him little spare time these days. He did play one game with the juniors in '98 when they were stuck for players and is trying to get as involved as possible with the underage players within the club.
The former club Chairman got into the habit of going down to the park every Friday to lend some of his expertise to Athboy's U13s. "The population of the town is increasing and there are a lot of outsiders moving into the area - although I don't know how much they're into hurling! - so we have plenty of young lads here. The thing is, though, that there's plenty of other things for them to do. It's not like when I was a young lad and hurling was the only thing there was to do so we all played.
"These day, there are more distractions and the young people seem to have more money. But, hopefully, we'll get some good underage teams together because that's where we have to start building it up again. For a number of years in the early eighties we won everything at underage from U11 to U21 but those lads never really made it at senior level for some reason. We need to look at getting some new young players through."
Even though they didn't make a major impact, Christy was impressed by Athboy's performances in 1998. "I think it was a big improvement on the previous year," he says. "Despite the fact that they were without the services of David Martin and Martin Ennis who were both in America, they did quite well. Denis O'Keeffe coached the team and he got good performances out of them. Outside of Trim and Kilmessan, there's not too much between five or six teams in the county and I think Athboy are one of those."
In '98, Athboy were in a group containing Kiltale, Killyon, Kildalkey, Trim and Dunderry. They competed well in all matches and avoided relegation courtesy of victory over Dunderry in their last outing.
Can the current crop produce a first senior crown since 1972? "They are improving and if they can get it together any particular year then they will do it. If they hold on to all their players, then they have a good chance in a couple of years. As for 1999, a lot depends on the draw. I think the introduction of relegation two years ago is a good thing because it keeps the players interested right up to the end of the year."
Christy also played football for many years and was on the Martinstown-Athboy side which won the Intermediate Championship in 1979 and went senior for a few years. Although he never actually had the honour of winning a championship medal of any description with Athboy, he did win an U16 one with Martinstown in 1969. One of Athboy's all-time greats, he is keeping his fingers crossed that the good times are coming for his beloved club sooner rather than later.
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