1957 will be remembered as the year that Meath minor footballers made their first inscription into the GAA history books by claiming their first ever All-Ireland minor title but for Brendan Cahill it meant much more than just a dollop of ink on a page. Cahill who plied his trade with Navan De La Salle was captain of the Royal County youngsters who annexed All-Ireland honours and has very fond memories of the epic journey which culminated in a historic victory over Armagh at Croke Park in September. For a county that was accustomed to paddling in shallow waters in the grade, it came as a major surprise to many that they able to cope in deep end and Cahill revealed that the lack of expectation in the county when they set out on their championship road made the success at the end that little bit sweeter. ''It was a memorable year and it was probably that bit more enjoyable because it was such a surprise to us all. The success came out of the blue really and there was no expectations at all at the start of the year but we just seemed to gain a bit of confidence with every game we played,'' Cahill said. ''When we began a bit of training at the start of the year, we all had an idea that there was a lot of good players in with us and as the year went on and we played a bit more with our clubs, we thought that we might have something there all right but we never dreamed that we would be good enough to win an All-Ireland. ''But by the time we got to the All-Ireland final expectations had been raised significantly and everybody was expecting us to win and luckily enough everything went right for us on the day against Armagh and we won pretty convincingly. To be honest we probably played our best football that day when it really mattered. ''The biggest fright that we got along the way to the All-Ireland was against Offaly in the Leinster final. That was the one game that I came out of where I said to myself afterwards that we were fortunate to win, because in most of the other games we had a little bit to spare,'' he added. Reflecting back on the team itself, Cahill recalls the side having a real physical presence about them and in the majority of games they would tower over their opponents, a trait not usually associated with minor teams of that era. ''The likes of Tom Fitzsimons, Tom Kelleher, Bertie Cunningham, Seamus Clynch and Jackie Gray were all big men so we had a very strong and physical team which wouldn't have usually been associated with minor teams,'' Cahill remarked. ''My local team was Navan De La Salle and we had a very big representation on the team which meant that we all got on very well and there was a great atmosphere in the camp but ironically we didn't even win the Meath minor championship, even though we had the biggest numbers on the county team,'' he added. So did the celebrations match the magnitude of the achievement? Not according to Cahill who revealed that while they did enjoy the success, most of the enjoyment came on the pitch rather than off it and admitted that if the team encountered a similar success today, the celebrations would have been very different. ''We did have great celebrations but it was nothing compared to the antics that go on nowadays. I often see lads celebrating after a match and I would say to somebody did they win a final but they wouldn't have had, they might only have won a first round match but that is the way that things have gone and they seem to be celebrating for the least little things now. ''We got our satisfaction just out of winning the games on the pitch and maybe because it was that we didn't have much money to go out and enjoy ourselves but it just didn't happen,'' the winning captain added. Like all winning teams, the successful Meath minors of 1957 had good men at the helm to guide them on the way and while Cahill heaped praise upon their efforts, he also stated that the management structure back in those days was a far cry from the type of managers who are patrolling the sidelines in the modern game. ''For the year that we won the All-Ireland there was a great lot of men over us and although Frankie Byrne would have done a lot of the training with us, there was numerous other fellas' involved in the set up,'' he said. ''They all had a great interest in the team and they put in a huge effort to improve us the whole way along. There was no real such thing as a manager back then and Fr Tully would have been one of the main fella's but I think they all had a fairly equal say in the picking of the team.'' With less of an emphasis on the days in the lead up to games, Cahill admitted that a lot of the county teams he played on did not delve too deeply into the specific training regimes and on the rare occasions they did it was all with the use of a football. ''I often remember playing with Meath both at minor and senior level and you would see a manager or a trainer at a game and you mightn't see them again until the next game. It is not like now where training has gone very technical altogether. ''I remember our training sessions we use to use a ball the whole time and the main thing was that everything that we did was with a football and it would be very seldom that we wouldn't have a game at the end or maybe even for the full duration of the training session,'' Cahill added. After showing plenty of promise during their minor playing days, many of the team made the leap into the senior set up the following year but apart from Bertie Cunningham who was part of the Royals All-Ireland winning team in 1967, none of the rest could repeat the feat of the minor days. As for Cahill, his footballing career was brought to a premature halt by a niggling knee injury which restricted him from following in the footsteps of Cunningham and claiming more accolades in the game. ''My first senior game with Meath was the year after we won the minor All-Ireland in 1958 when I played against Dublin in Drogheda and there was a good few of us from the minor team that made the step up so I suppose that was a sign that the previous years minor side would have been very strong. ''But I got a bad knee injury which cut my senior career with Meath short and I was forced to stop playing in my early twenties and in the end I think Bertie (Cunningham) was the only one of the former minors to win an All-Ireland senior medal.'' Cahill has witnessed the game of gaelic football evolve through different generations but is not a fan of the overuse of the hand pass that has gradually crept into the modern day style of play, finding it particularly ugly on the eye. ''It was a completely different game back then to what you would see now. Nowadays there is a lot of hand passes in getting the ball to where you want it to go whereas back in my day it was a case of letting the ball in as quickly as possible and there was more long kicking involved,'' Cahill stated. Turning his focus to the modern day footballer, Cahill believes that the dedication that any player must put in, be it county or club, is immense and fully understands why careers in the game do not last as long as they used to do. ''The way that football has gone, a player who just plays at club level, not even at county level, has to make a fierce commitment and can do very little else as almost every evening is taken up with either a game or training and such a commitment can sometimes have a bad effect on players,'' Cahill said. Cahill is still a regular spectator at Navan O'Mahonys outings throughout the year and while he may not have the same appetite for the game as in his playing days, the All-Ireland winning captain of 1957 will quietly watch on, safe in the knowledge that he has achieved more than most in the game. ''I would still have a great interest in football and I try to go to all the Navan O'Mahonys games whenever possible and even though my playing days are well over, I still get a great kick out of the game,'' Cahill concluded. Tweet

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