Phil 'Lighting' Murray Hopes Cavan football will strike again in '96 They used to call him "lightning" Murray because Phil Murray of Cavan and Cavan had speed to burn. Donegal's little general in '92, Martin McHugh, also had speed to burn and he is in the process of assembling a team that would take Cavan out of Ulster for the first time since 1969. Murray was a member of that team and, like every other long suffering Cavan supporter, has had to endure many's a false dawn in the years since. Every county goes through a period in the wilderness years but its particularly frustrating for a county where generations of supporters have been weaned on success after success. There are many Breffni men who remember Cavan's first All-Ireland triumph in 1933 and players from that team such as "Big" Tom O'Reilly, Vincent McGovern, Jim Smith, Louis Blessing, Jack Smallhorn, Sonny Magee, Hugh O'Reilly and Patsy Devlin. The same players won Cavan's second All-Ireland in 1935 and the Breffni county took three more in '47, '48 and '52 when famous names like John Joe O'Reilly, PJ Duke, Mick Higgins, John Wilson and Simon Deigan went into the annals. 1952 was the last time they brought home the Sam Maguire but, having won 32 Ulster titles up to then, only won six more after that. From 1931 to '52 they won a phenomenal 18 out of 22 Ulster titles and, were it not for Monaghan in 1938 and Antrim in '46, would have won an incredible 17 in a row! After 1952, they won two more, in '54 and '55 but the rate of wins slowed to a trickle after that, winning again in '62, '64'67 and '69. In addition, Cavan failed to progress to an All-Ireland final after any of those six provincial victories post 1952. So perhaps it is fair to trace the beginning of Cavan's decline right back to the zenith of '52, as opposed to 1969, the year that is generally seen as the start of their downward curve. Neither Cavan nor the British army have got out of Ulster since '69 - as that state joke reminds us - but things had got so bad in the '70's and '80's that it looked as if the British army had a better chance of getting out first, especially since the ceasefire in Ulster 18 months ago. But, how times change: the Canary Wharf bomb has entrenched the military back as deep as they ever were pre-ceasefire. Cavan, on the other hand, are now genuine contenders for provincial honours. Their supporters are getting excited again and they turned up in their thousands only a few weeks ago to see their team take on the All-Ireland champs in Parnell Park. That game showed the new mental strengths and resilience they have acquired under McHugh. Their willingness to scrap and battle was epitomised by their featherweight you corner forward Jason Reilly, a player Phil Murray has picked out as one for the future along with defender Philip Kermath and Anthony Forde. But the game also exposed a weakness that separates the useful contenders from the elite few - the absence of quality finishers up front. Cavan had a feast of possession in the first half, mostly through the excellent Stephen King, but squandered a series of good chances. McHugh has also been inculcating the running game which, of course, the Donegal team perfected in '92 but it doesn't look as convincing yet and it cracked under pressure from the Dubs in the second half - they reverted to long hopeful balls inside which the Dublin defence hovered up. Real progress has been made nevertheless under McHugh and he has managed to bring them a stage further than any other manager in the two decades since 1969 has. PJ Carroll, Eugene McGee and Gabriel Kelly were just some of the men brought in over the years to try and revive this slumbering giant of the gaelic games world but all were frustrated for a variety of reasons. Now a sales manager with the long established Jacksons Garage company in Cavan town, Phil played with PJ at Cavan Gaels for many years and went on to work with him as a selector during PJ's tenure as county manager. That was in the early '80s but, despite their efforts and Carroll's respected reputation as a trainer and motivator, Cavan football remained in the doldrums. "We were a bit unfortunate I suppose," says Phil," we were meeting teams like Derry and Down in the Championship first round and at that stage we were in the process of trying to build a team up, we were trying a lot of young fellows. I suppose in hindsight we maybe got rid of too many of the older fellows, you need those experienced players to carry you through." Phil was a sub in the Ulster winning team of 1964 and played on the teams of '67 and '69. On all three occasions they met and defeated Down. Cavan had a series of tremendous Ulster final showdowns with Down during that era with Mournemen coming out on top in '59, '60,'65 and '68. Down also won provincial titles in '61, '63 and '66 and were, possibly, the first "glamour" team of gaelic football whom sides like Meath and Offaly subsequently emulated. "They were a very good team," recalls Phil. "They were really the team that changed the trend of football in Ireland I'd say. They brought a different style into it, they changed themselves, they changed then from the white togs to the black togs and their style was more reminiscent of soccer teams. And the hype that they had around them was, you could say, like soccer teams. They changed football in Ireland actually, they brought more of a team effort into it, teamwork as opposed to individuals." The traditional catch-and-kick game which had been sacrosanct up to then, explains Phil, was made to look clumsy and old-fashioned by Down who patented the close-passing game with its one-twos and speedy support play. "They had more of a technical game whereas in those days. Cavan played the catch-kick game as did Kerry." It was also highly exceptional for a team to line out in black togs as opposed to the standard white variety and, while it might only seem a trivial point now, it did have quite an impact at the time, says Phil. "That was a big change. They won a couple of All-Irelands but then they changed, they put on the black togs and it changed the whole image of football in Ireland. It was good thinking on Down's behalf. It gave them a style, gave them an image." And there may have been more to this change in fashions than meets the eye. A Down player could pick out a blur of black in his peripheral vision and get the ball away that vital half-second quicker, knowing that it was going to a comrade. Phil was a member of the Cavan team that reached the All-Ireland Minor final in 1959 (beaten by Dublin) and played at Senior level up to 1973. He continued to play with Cavan Gaels right into the early '80s retiring within spitting distance of the big Four O. A few county medals were picked up along the way. No one could have predicted in '69 that Cavan would not win an Ulster title in the 26 years that followed, the longest draught in their history by far. The years have rolled by since, however, and Phil, like many followers of the game in Cavan, has struggled to pinpoint what exactly has gone wrong. Perhaps there is no mystery, perhaps the quota of quality players needed is simply no longer there. But why does the supply of playing material suddenly dry up, without any apparent reason, in a county where talent was once abundant? Alternatively, some argue that there was enough there but they weren't properly exploited. "It just went down and, actually, I know every other county in Ireland has the same problem but I reckon the Saturday night dancing didn't help the situation." It's a view corroborated by one Cavan supporters almost ten years ago when he trudged out of Breffni Park, disgusted after another feeble Championship performance and declared that the Cavan team was going to win nothing because the players were going out with "bellies of porter" on them! But there must be a more serious explanation than this? Nobody can really put their finger on it. Our football would be as good, if not, better, than Meath but, whatever happened, even the club football went down a bit. Maybe it's to do with people emigrating and all that. I know a lot of good footballers in Cavan town that I thought would make it but they just disappeared off the face of the earth." He is hopeful that McHugh can help them break this losing cycle and says that what he has done so far is "just miraculous". He got them from nowhere to an Ulster final which was an achievement in itself and a great credit to him and his players with the blue -and-white Cavan jerseys walking out of the sports shops as opposed to the reds of Liverpool and Manchester United. The Jacksons' motor business has become a landmark premises in Cavan town over the years and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The company has a long tradition of supporting Cavan GAA and they have continued in this vein, sponsoring juvenile football and making contributions to the Cavan Supporters Club and training facilities. Mrs. Norma O'Flaherty, who is a Director with the company, is married to Arva man Joe O'Flaherty who played with Cavan in the mid-sixties. Now 52, Phil is married to Kathleen Newman and they have four children, three girls and a boy, who is only six so the potential is as yet undiscovered. But the form book is good. Phil's brother-in-law, Hughie Newman, also played for Cavan in the '60s. No doubt he, too, will be hoping that the Donegal man who visited his fair share of grief on Cavan in the '80s and '90s, will be the man to finally take them back to the top of gaelic football or even Ulster for a start Written by the Hogan Stand Magazine 5th March 1996. Tweet

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