Former Donaghmoyne and Monaghan star Eamonn McCooey lit up Gaelic football in Ulster in the 'fifties like few others. Here is his story of a historic year. Words: Kevin Carney. How sweet is it to be within a well-driven 45 of your 80th birthday and the gongs gathering up at your elbows? The knub here is that very few of us will ever really know. It seems once a Donaghmoyne dynamo always a Donaghmoyne dynamo. Eamonn McCooey's legendary status among the Fontenoys and the county itself is still full-on, in your face. A few years after being afforded a Hall of Fame award by his own club, the bould Eamonn is the proud holder of the 2006 Monaghan Hall of Fame award. As modest as he was opportunistic on the field of play, Eamonn - the glittering star from the 'fifties - puts his hand up and says he's surprised by the award. "I didn't expect to get the award and I'm not sure whether I deserved it but I was glad to get it all the same," he quips from his home in Donaghmoyne. "It was very much appreciated and a great lift for an auld fella. I don't think older people get half enough recognition," he says with tongue firmly implanted in cheek. Now fast-tracking his way towards his 79th birthday, the former flying attacker has great trouble with his knees these days. His joints are sore to this day although he says the pain "isn't too much." One suspects though that his knee trouble would put Paul McGrath's problems in that area in the shade. Both knees have given Eamonn more trouble for more years than even he can scarcely remember but he's pretty much au fait with the terminology all the same. "I hurt them when I was young and back then you'd be inclined to just put a bandage on them and train on, go ahead and play your match and see how they work out themselves. "But it ended up the cruciate ligament went in one of them and the tendons were torn in the other one - they were in a bit of a mess and I was still only in my twenties." Still, unlike many others with no joints to complain about during or after their playing days, Eamonn has at least an All-Ireland medal to show for his troubles. Our man McCooey was one of the stars of the Monaghan junior team that shocked a lot of teams (and arguably shocked the county itself) by winning the 1956 All-Ireland JFC title. He was an integral part of the squad along with the only other Donaghmoyne player on the panel, Gene McArdle. Those were days not even knee pain can take away from Eamonn. Eamonn played either in the centre full-forward berth or at corner-forward but he preferred the former position "because, with my knees, it helped that I didn't have to run as much." The double Hall of Fame winner recalls how his injury nightmares came about rather freakishly and how he was never the same footballer again after his knees flared up. "I was playing a game in Clontibret and the ground was very rough. I jumped up for a high ball one time and when I came down it felt like my leg was broken. "It was real sore but between six and eight weeks later I was back playing football but then the next time I went out the other knee got injured and that was the real start of the trouble." Eamonn jokes that "my knees aren't like the shape of a knee but sure I'm not playing anymore football!" While he refuses to immerse himself in self-pity, it's obvious his knees were his ball and chain over the years and he's clearly disappointed he didn't get more of a free run from injury. Indeed, there are those who witnessed him play with his dodgy knees who reckon the ace attacker would have been much, much better had his joints not played up. Eamonn himself admits that he could have contributed more to the cause of Donaghmoyne and Monaghan had he been fitter but he doesn't dwell on the 'what might have been'. That he wasn't given the chance to fully fulfill his undoubted potential by dint of his knee(s) left Donaghmoyne and Monaghan football all the poorer though, without a doubt. That said, such was the quality of the Monaghan junior team in '56, for instance, that the county made history even though Eamonn was only fit to play in half of the campaign. He made his mark though in 1956. He made two serious dents in Down's defence in the teams' first round encounter, scoring two goals in Newry in the last few minutes of the game. "It was a game of two halves against Down," he opines, explaining that the homesters were coasting ahead, 0-10 to 0-1, at the interval. And the goals? "Well the first one came after Ollie O'Rourke must have sent the ball of of 90 yards down into the square and I manage to get my fist to the ball. "The second one I'm not so sure about how it came around but I scored it with my fist as well which was unusual for me to get two goals with my fist." Thanks, in part, to Eamonn's brace of goals, Monaghan beat the Mourne County by a single point. There's an interesting story about 'that' point as the bold McCooey explains: "Before I got the two goals, we got a free and the word came to me to go for a goal but the ref, Mick Higgins, told me to take my point. I took the point and it was just as well! "I bumped into Mick (Higgins) in Knock a while ago and we had a good chat and laugh about that game. I thanked him again for the bit of advice with the free." Eamonn recalls how the famed James McCartan lined out for Down in that '56 duel. He was a centre-back with shoulders on him that you could land an aircraft, it seems. "He was a great footballer as well as being a very tough player. I have met him regularly over the years at antique auctions and different places." Victory over Down was followed by a clash with Antrim in Pearse Park, Ballybay. The would-be All-Ireland champions won by 0-10 to 0-5 and Eamonn notched five points on the day. The scene was now set for the final and a meeting with next-door neighbours Cavan in St. Tighernach's Park, Clones. It proved to be a bitter-sweet afternoon for Eamonn. "I was sent off just after half-time," he explains. "A Cavan player left the print of his cogs on my belly earlier on so I got sent off for getting my own back you could say. "Cavan had beaten us in the Ulster senior final of 1952 so it was good to get one over them in the '56 final. We won well, eleven points to two which was a fair scoreline. "I don't think Cavan were that great that day but we had a lot of senior players and were a fairly good team and the game against Cavan was probably our best of the campaign. "We got better and better as a team with each round of the competition; we might not have had great individual stars but they'd go for every ball. We were a great team." Eamonn was one of the most experienced players in the Class of '56. He was part of the county junior squad that year because, through injury, he didn't feature in the '55 Ulster SFC. He was a senior county debutant in 1949, making his intercounty bow against Antrim in the Lagan Cup and, in doing so, following in the footsteps of brothers Percy and Mervyn. Accordingly, the Fr. Enda McCormack-trained Monaghan side was dealt a blow when Eamonn was ruled out of the All-Ireland JFC semi-final clash with Kerry due to his knee injuries. Played in Clones, the penultimate round match ended in a draw which, accordingly to Eamonn, was "a fair result." "A young Mick O'Dwyer played with Kerry then but Seamus McElroy of Latton never gave him a kick of the ball," Eamonn recalls. The replay, in Newbridge, resulted in a clear-cut win for the Ulster champions with Monaghan grabbing the initiative early on and steadfastly refusing to let go off the tiller. Putting Kerry out of the competition automatically made Monaghan odds-on favourites to secure the All-Ireland crown but London's finest weren't interested in lying down. Replete with some fine footballers from counties such as Mayo, Kerry and Galway, the Exiles were, Eamonn says, "good but very tough players." As things panned out, Eamonn proved a real match-winner by helping himself to two goals in a magical five minute spell just after the start of the second half. "I think they were thinking about taking me off at half-time but luckily I turned around and got the two goals with Noel Ward setting me up for the first of them. "I remember we won by about four points and the crowd in Carrick that day went wild, as if we'd won the Sam Maguire Cup and someone said there was 10,000 there for the game." A JFC medallist with Donaghmoyne in 1947, Eamonn understandably ranks the 1956 All-Ireland triumph as the highlight of his career and is happy to say he has no regrets. As for the game of Gaelic football these days, Eamonn isn't that enamoured with it all though he watches all the games on the television. He feels there's too much running with the ball and not enough kicking (the ball) but says that if Monaghan win the Ulster SFC title in 2008, you'll not hear him complaining! Tweet

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