Star of the fifties
December 31, 2007
Ballybay are going through a sticky period on the field of play right now but former star of the 'fifties John Moen says the will and the talent is there to kick-start better times
With some five minutes to go, Monaghan senior selector Christy Mason looked around the dressing-room in Omagh for bodies to parachute into the championship fray.
The 1956 Ulster SFC first round tie was going inexorably Tyrone's way and Mason and his think-tank colleagues reckoned some fresh legs might usher in a turning of the tide.
It was time for John Moen to make himself scarce without making his plan too obvious though. There were other scalps on his mind that day.
"If I had caught Christy's eye and he asked me to go on I would have but I knew that would have been it as far as my chances of playing with the juniors was concerned," John explains.
"Ollie O'Rourke was on the bench that day too against Tyrone because the county didn't want to play him or he'd been ruled out for the junior as well.
"Anyway Tyrone were well on their way to the win by the time Christy was looking for re-inforcements and it was just as well he didn't nab any of us the way things turned out."
In fact, the way things actually turned out was that the Oriel County proceeded to win the All-Ireland JFC a few months after the senior championship defeat to Tyrone.
Moen and his Ballybay team-mate on the Monaghan junior side Mickey Donoghue delighted in being part of history. After all, how many gaels in Monaghan have All-Ireland medals?
Ironically, the Pearse Brothers pair won their coveted medals exactly 50 years after the foundation of the proud mid-county club.
John's memories of those glory days are still very vivid and he gets great craic recalling those days when so many good players adorned the Gaelic football landscape of Monaghan.
He recalls how Monaghan mastered a Kerry team in the All-Ireland semi-final which had a certain Mick O'Dwyer playing in its ranks up front.
"Even then he (O'Dwyer) was very well known around the country because he had won a couple of All-Ireland medals and was probably at his peak.
"We had a very good team though and Seamus McElroy in particular gave him his fill of it that day," says Moen of the semi-final clash in Clones.
The initial meeting of the Ulster and Munster champions ended all-square with corner-forward Moen far from despondent at the result.
"I thought we were the better team on the day but the forwards as a unit didn't just come up to speed although they had some very good backs," he explains.
"Still we had enough of the ball to win the semi-final the first time around. I felt though that we would take them in the replay even though most of the country thought otherwise I'd say."
John remembers how things were just as claustrophobic, tense and tough in the replay in Newbridge in county Kildare. Once again, it was no place for cowards, he emphasises.
Monaghan beat the Kingdom by three points at St. Conleth's Park in a game of real quality that was regarded as one of the finest of the period on the intercounty front.
According to our man Moen, the team tired in the second half and it was just as well that everyone had a very good first half performance which meant the difference in the end between losing and going through to the All-Ireland final.
Thereafer the final and a meeting with Leinster kingpins Kildare beckoned with, once again, Monaghan going into the game as underdogs despite the victory over Kerry.
For the final, John found himself on the bench which, he admits, was disappointing at first but as things panned out he celebrated as good as anyone on the team.
He expresses sadness that the decider was held in Navan rather than in Croke Park. He felt the choice of venue was a slight on both teams and scornful of the competition itself.
"We won the final well without playing that great," John recalls. "We had greater quality in the side and the best team by far won and I don't think Kildare would argue with that.
"I was disappointed I was a sub but the fellas on the team were playing that well that I couldn't complain too much - it was one hell of a team.
"Fellas like Ollie O'Rourke of Inniskeen, Ted Duffy and Denis McGuigan of Clones, Seamus McElroy of Latton, Hughie McKearney and John Rice of Clontibret and Joey Byrne of Inniskeen were top class with everyone of them having the skills of the best there was in the country at that time, at any level.
"It was said at the time that the Monaghan junior team was just as good as the senior county team and I think myself that the juniors would have given them( the seniors) their fill of it."
So what was it like being part of such a talented and proud bunch of players?
"It was brillant, very enjoyable and even though I was just a sub for the All-Ireland final, I felt very much a part of things and there were great memories.
"There was a great unity and spirit about the team as well as so much skill and craft. The team was very strong up the middle and there was plenty of guts in every position."
John wasn't lost for company on the 1956 Monaghan junior team from a Ballybay hue either with five maroon and white clubmen alongside him in the squad.
Brothers Dessie and Noel Ward were on hand alongside John as were Eamonn Murphy and Matt Conlon to make for a real sense of honour among the Pearse Brothers club.
Amazingly, with such a quintet to call upon, Ballybay actually lost out in the SFC final of '56 to Clontibret courtesy of a "freak goal."
Three years earlier the club had reached the SFC final for only the second time in the club's history - 1922 being the first - and a 2-8 to 0-6 win over Donaghmoyne ensued.
"That was a great year for the club, winning the double, with the likes of Paddy McKearney and Eamon McGahey, a Cavan man along with the Wards and Matt Conlon.
"Then there were the three McCarthys in more recent times, Barney, Cathal and Paul plus Paul Flynn and Philip Smith further back a bit."
John says there's always been a core of families at the backbone of Ballybay teams and he cites the influence of men like Sean McKearney and Paddy and John Joe McKearney in that respect.
In more recent years he says the likes of Paddy Kerr and Kieran Finlay upheld proud family and club traditions and he had a lot of time too for the late Kevin Duffy.
For all their unity over the years though, Ballybay had to play second fiddle more often than they would have wished, John admits.
For instance, Clontibret, backboned by the likes of Packie McQuaid, Francie McQuaid and Hughie McKearney, were in their element in '56 and duly conquered Moen et al.
"It was a tough, hard-hitting final but it wasn't dirty," John recalls. "There was plenty of good football played and some right oul battles I can tell you.
"It was no real surprise that we met Clontibret in the final because it was mainly us and them fighting it out in the finals during the 'fifties.
"We won as many finals as we lost during the fifties. The club won the title in '53 '54, '57, '59 and '63," adds the former Hall of Fame winner.
John recalls training with Ballybay under the stewardship of former town Sergeant Liam Maguire when "four or five laps of the field" was sufficient before training with the ball ensued.
"There was very little juvenile football in Monaghan in my time and it wasn't really until minor that the structures were there as regards competition.
"But even though, there were a lot of question marks about the minors because you could find yourself up against a fella of 24 in some game!"
Winner of three MFC medals (and manager of the club's minor league and championship winning side in 1966), John believes that some of the craic has gone from the game too.
He's not so sure the same passion and intense interest is in the Gaelic game as was all so apparent back in the early 'fifties.
"I remember we played Cootehill in a couple of challenge matches when Jim O'Hanlon was the only one fit to mark Charlie Gallagher," John explains.
"We played them (Cootehill) in a challenge match in their place and 100 pounds was taken in at the gate at a time when six pence was all you had to pay to see the match.
"The following week we played them at home in another challenge match and 160 pounds was taken at the gate - incredible money in those times."
So what does he make of the finals today, of the type of football that's invariably on show at club or county level?
"I'm afraid the footballers today are too much like athletes and not enough like footballers because of all the running they do in training," he sighs.
"I don't think the training they do is what they should be at because the ball isn't used enough - it's called football after all."
John is fulsome in his praise for the work carried on in times past by the likes of John F Conlon, Vincent McAviney, Stookie Kerr, Leo Finlay and John Gilsenan.
He explains that he had no GAA pedigree; he was a maverick in the Moen family and could claim no relationship with the famed Benny Moen or his namesakes.
"Sure what else would I have been doing back then except playing football," he asks rhetorically.
"You got ten or fifteen shillings a week; you bought your fags, went to the odd dance and that was your money all but gone," says the former hardware shop assistant.
Later John worked as a breadman but continued his keen interest in all things maroon and white.
He is saddened by the club's travails on the playing field over the last couple of years but says there's enough work being done on the underage front to offer promise of better things to come.
"The will is there to get things moving again but it will take an awful lot of hard work to get us among the cups again at senior level," he fears.
"The club has done tremendous work in developing Pearse Park and it's a credit to everyone involved, including a great group of lady members, and hopefully that'll inspire the players to do that bit better in the next few years."
Grounds for celebration
Pearse Park may have surrendered its pre-eminent status some years ago but the Ballybay place of excellence is now back to where it belongs among its peers in Ulster.
Landmark achievements dot the history of Ballybay Pearse Brothers with all residue of the last pint drunk to celebrate the latest big-time triumph.
The mid-county club was formed in 1906 and 16 years later its finest footballers reached its first SFC final. Thirty-one years later it annexed its first SFC title.
The '53 success arrived after Ballybay's only second appearance in the Monaghan SFC decider but it heralded the onset of its golden era which yielded another four SFC title wins.
It was during that halcyon 'fifties period that the club sought to consolidate their on-field triumphs with some progress on the development front, off the field.
The acquisition of Pearse Park was to see the maroon and whites cement their growing reputation as a GAA club of excellence.
Soon the Castleblayney-road venue became a hugely popular venue in Monaghan, staging Lagan Cup semi-finals and final, All-Ireland Colleges semi-finals, Sigerson Cup etc.
The Park was spawned by the foresight of gaels like Jack 'Stookie' Kerr, Leo Finlay, Vincent McAviney, Tom McGrane, John F Conlon, John Gilsenan and other hands-on members.
The tireless efforts of those club stalwarts was manifest in the officially opening of Pearse Park in April 1951 by GAA President Michael Kehoe.
Another landmark event was thus hatched.
Then the arrival of the centenary of the club's foundation in 1906 heralded a re-invigoration of latent plans to enhance Pearse Park and bring it up to 21st century standards.
Club members were aghast at the loss of Pearse Park's county ground status and were determined to return the venue to its hitherto lofty perch in Monaghan.
In 2006 the club embarked on an ambitious development programme for its headquarters with the aim of constructing a monument to all who have been at the coalface of club affairs.
A development committee was established in Oct' '01, under the chairmanship of former Ballybay and Monaghan star Kieran Finlay, fully supported by the club's executive committee.
The go-ahead Simonstown Gaels club in Navan had been off the blocks that little bit earlier with regard to putting in place futuristic facilities and the Pearse Brothers took note.
With the assistance of Simonstown club officer John Howard, a delegation from Ballybay perused the Gaels' Kingscourt-road facilities which suitably impressed the visitors.
"Going into the clubhouse was like entering an hotel, " says development committee ace Damien Carraher.
"We wanted to grab it, put it on the roof rack and take it home," he quips.
A former development committee in Ballybay had, some time earlier, begun developing a second pitch adjacent to the forest at Pearse Park so a start had been made on the Park, thanks, in part, to a generous gesture by local landowner Ownie Sullivan.
"For the next 12 months, we began a major series of fundraising ventures which included, in August 2002, a house draw (tickets cost 100 euros) which generated 220,000 euros.
"So we had that 220K before the five year development plan had even begun and which, initially, revolved around the completion of the second pitch," the sterling club footballer adds.
As things panned out, the revenue generated from the house draw become the cornerstone and the platform of each level of the project tackled in the ensuing years.
All told, 150,000 euros were spent on the completion of the pitch adjacent to the forest with a grant to the tune of 60k from the Irish Sports Council offsetting that outlay.
Thereafter 240,000 euros were spent on the provision of the all-weather facility with the Government weighing in with a 130,000 grant while the GAA's Ulster Council provided 38K.
The club still had 70,000 euros on hand and that sum was used to kick-start the construction of its state-of-the-art clubhouse with a 140,000 sports capital grant coming a timely boost.
In addition, an old hall owned by the club was disposed of, raising a further 200,000 euros which was subsequently supplemented by borrowings of 400,000 euros.
All belonging to the club and the development committee in particular were also deeped indebted to the generosity of club stalwart and successful businessman Cathal McCarthy.
"Not only did Cathal contribute a substantial sum of money to the project but his hands-on experience of the construction business was invaluable to us in the construction work.
"He was brillant in getting people motivated, getting jobs done - whether that was plastering or whatever - and his leadership and influence on the project was incredible.
"In addition, Croke Park was an inspiration to us and the feel-good factor we left with after every visit was something we took home with us.
"We wanted to replicate that (Croke Park) at our level and bring our facilities up the standard of the 21st century.
"We were also conscious of providing an outlet for the older people in the town, especially those with links to the club and our decision to buy a bus has helped in that regard.
"Before we embarked on this project there was nothing in the town of the sort and nothing you could show to someone passing through. That has changed."
In total the five year project cost 1.5 million euros but savings of 0.5 million euros were made as a result of a massive voluntary imput from club members who brought various trades and skills to bear on aiding the development.
The club still owes just under 300,000 euros but the first part of that loan is being financed by a direct debit system supported by club members who pay 45 euros per month.
Some of the loan is being defrayed by the annual 18,000 euros which is reaped from renting out the club's all-new all-weather 75m x 32m astroturf pitch.
"We plan to consolidate what's already in place and consolidate the work that has gone on over the past five years," explains the 2000 Junior league and championship medallist.
"We hope to construct terracing on the stand side of the ground and install seating in the stand over the next three years and also put up a football/hurling wall and a running track around the pitch too."
The clubhouse is maintained by a dedicated group of lady club members which is indictative of the pride that lies at the core of what drove the massively ambitious project.
With an all-weather facility, two full size adult pitches, six dressing-rooms, gym facilities, function rooms and an impressive reception area, Ballybay Pearse Brothers' complex rivals anything there is in Ulster.
Lauded for their cognicance of the needs of the disabled, the maroon and whites are determined that their Castleblayney road place of excellence becomes the fulcrum around which all local community activity in Ballybay revolves.
In that regard, the words fait and accompli spring to mind.
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