The McCormack brothers - Padraig, Sean and Larry - gave outstanding service to Meath GAA during the course of their extraordinary careers. All three represented the Royal County at minor, junior and senior levels; all three contested All-Ireland finals; all three lined out at Wembley. Their story is a truly remarkable one. Hailing from the Poles, an area that straddles the Meath-Cavan border, dissecting both county and provincial boundaries, the three McCormack brothers found themselves in a sticky situation early on in their careers. From neither here nor there, they may as well have grown up in the Twilight Zone as far as Association bigwigs were concerned. The archaic rules in place at the time meant that Padraig, Sean and Larry found themselves out on a limb - deemed ineligible to play for anybody. It was a bizarre situation and it's a testimony to the trio's determination and inherent talent that they went on to enjoy tremendous playing careers at club and county levels. Lesser men would have thrown in the towel at the very beginning, frustrated by rules that sound ridiculous now but were deadly serious back in the day. It was an age of deep-rooted suspicion and paranoia, a siege mentality prevailed throughout the Association. The Ban was rife; suspensions were commonplace; controversy was never far away. The people empowered with making the rules seemingly eschewed all sense of logic and/or reason, so pre-occupied were they with exercising their dubious power. Sean recalls the futile situation that prevailed: "The Poles is in Kingscourt parish, but it runs into County Meath. As kids, we couldn't play for Kingscourt because we were in County Meath, and we weren't allowed to play for Kilmainhamwood because we were in Kingscourt parish. So we went freelance and we ended up playing for both!" The rules were the problem. That much is clear now. All the young lads wanted to do was play football, but it wasn't easy with regulations that may as well have been designed to prevent them from doing so. If you took the rules too seriously, you were dead in the water But if you took a year out, you could play for whoever you wanted. Known affectionately as 'Paddy' or 'Patsy' during his playing days, Padraig is the eldest of the three. He was a wonderfully-balanced player who could kick off either foot, a dependable score-getting and free-taker who made his senior debut for Meath against Kildare and made his last appearance in the 1965 Wembley Tournament against Galway - when he came on as a substitute for his youngest brother Larry. Paddy McCormack was a class act and his outstanding performance against Kerry in the 1962-63 national football league semi-final at Croke Park, as he shot over a series of stunning points from all angles, is the stuff of legend. Reflecting modestly on that game, he notes: "I was up against Tiger Lyne (an uncle of Pat Spillane and his brothers) that day and Kerry beat us by two points. The much-travelled John Nallen was at full forward for Meath and he kept knocking the ball down for me. He caused havoc in the Kerry defence. Mick O'Connell and Mick O'Dwyer were on the Kerry team." Padraig's career was cut short by a terrible knee injury sustained against Longford in Kells. But for that, he would almost certainly have featured alongside Sean on the Royal County side that captured Sam Maguire in 1967. As it was, Padraig (at right half forward) and Sean (right corner back) were both on the team that beat neighbours Cavan by 1-11 to 3-4 in the 1962 All-Ireland junior final at Ardee. The junior championship was a big deal at the time and a large crowd turned out to witness the decider. Seven of the players from that game - four from Meath; three for Cavan - knew each other extremely well (with six of them working together in Gypsum, who had a handy factory team). Padraig bagged 2-2 in the final 'proper' against a strong London side in Navan. Two years later, Larry and Sean featured as Meath contested another 'home' All-Ireland junior decider, only this time they were pipped by Cork after a replay. All three brothers represented Meath at all levels. Larry also lined out for Cavan and, on one occasion, Larry and Sean were on opposite sides in a Meath V Cavan match! Between football and hurling, Sean estimates that he represented 13 clubs in total, in counties Meath, Cavan, Monaghan, Dublin and London, and he also had a nomadic career position-wise before a certain Fr Tully discovered his prowess as a goalkeeper. Sean was between the posts for three senior All-Ireland finals inside five years - losing to Galway in '66, beating Cork in '67 and losing to Kerry in '70. He garnered the first of his four Leinster SFC souvenirs as a sub in 1964 and wound up his intercounty career in 1972. In 1970, Meath trailed Offaly by eleven points at half time but battled back to win an absorbing provincial final by 2-22 to 5-12. Meanwhile, as well as a wonderful footballer, Larry was also a considerable athlete, specialising in cross-country and long-distance but also claiming the County Meath one-mile title. He represented Meath at minor level for two years and played for the Royals for five years all told. He was part of the Cavan set-up that won the 1969 Ulster championship, playing in two games but never receiving his medal for some reason. After starting their careers with Nobber, the McCormacks lined out for K'wood in the 1959 IFC decider, collected U16 honours with Kingscourt and a SFC with Kells in 1966. They weren't the only ones from The Poles who were affected by the rules governing participation - there were maybe twelve in total in the same boat, including the Clarkes and the Hagans. Pat Carolan, who won an All-Ireland with Meath in 1949, was a first cousin of their mother's and it was arguably from this side of the family that the McCormacks inherited their great talent. The 1967 All-Ireland final victory was the pinnacle of Sean's career. As part of the celebrations, Meath were the first county team to go to Australia, with pit stops in Rome and Singapore. Some of the shenanigans, told over a nice pint of black stuff, sound good even today. After one All-Ireland final in Croke Park, Sean and Red Collier left Croker with the crowd and remained anonymous as they sipped a couple of pints with the Meath supporters before the team bus picked them up. Sean is a man of many great yarns, but the best of all came in the aftermath of the 1970 All-Ireland semi-final defeat of Galway at Croke Park. "I was almost arrested after the game," he reveals matter-of-factly. "Myself and Tommy Keenan of Galway stayed back in Croke Park to do post-match interviews for RTE. After the interview, Tommy and the TV crew headed out under the Hogan Stand and I went back under the Cusack Stand to get my boots. When I came back out, the stadium was closed and I had been locked in. I didn't know what to do so I climbed across the handball alleys and dropped down onto a garden shed outside and this old one came out of one of the terraced houses and told me she was ringing the Guards, so I made a run for it." She would've got a surprise if she watched the football highlights later that night Padraig remembers Mick Kissane of Dublin and Martin Newell of Galway as his toughest opponents, while the men Sean feared most were Down pair Sean O'Neill and Paddy Doherty, John Keenan of Galway and Pat Dunny of Kildare. Tournament games were huge at the time and it wasn't unusual for players to take part in two or three in a week. As emigration was rife, clubs were always on the look-out for players to make up the starting XV. Padraig, Sean and Larry's sons all followed in their fathers' footsteps. Padraig's four sons - Padraig Jnr., Glen, Brendan and Ryan - all played for Kingscourt and Cavan. Glen and Brendan were once on duty on the same day at Ballybofey for an Ulster minor/senior double bill. Sean's son Larry played all grades for Meath and played national league for Cavan under Martin McHugh. He won two Leinster U21 championships and a junior All-Ireland with Meath and was also a good boxer, amassing several Leinster titles and contesting two national finals. Larry's sons Damien and Gordon have both lined out for Kingscourt. Padraig and Sean are in agreement that Colm O'Rourke, Brian Stafford and Bernard Flynn deserve to be remembered as Meath's all-time greatest full forward line and their combined Best Ever Meath XV also includes names like Jack Quinn, Peter Darby, Red Collier, Martin O'Connell, Trevor Giles and Graham Geraghty. They speak of a time when footballers didn't have tattoos and highlights in their hair, when the Association placed spies at soccer games hoping to catch gaels flaunting the rules, when you bought your own flimsy boots and the leather ball was so heavy that only Down's Joe Lennon and Louth's Kevin Beahan could convert 50s with any regularity. Victor Sherlock specialised in the art of the dropkick - another skill we hardly ever see any more. The GAA produced footballers and real, larger-than-life characters. And the McCormacks rated amongst Meath's premier exponents on both counts. Those were the days, indeed Tweet

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