On the edge with nerves and excitement

Going by the trouble Frank Sheedy had in getting to sleep on the night of November 13, he will spend most of next Saturday night tossing and turning.

Although he’s 84, you would think he should have more to worry about than how St Breckan’s will fare against Gneeveguilla on Sunday but Frank can’t help it. A love of football and place is in his blood.
“I hope my heart holds up,” Frank said, not saying it for mere effect. “I had a bypass there 15 years ago. I get excited,” he explained.
The excitement separated him from much sleep before the Munster semi-final in Dungarvan last Sunday week.
“I wasn’t feeling too well before the last game with excitement. I couldn’t sleep the night before with tension. I was that way when I was playing football too. I wouldn’t sleep for three nights before a match. I was tense the last day,” he reflected.
“I kept alive anyway but I wasn’t right till I came back to Limerick. I had a bit of a steak. T’was only then I recovered fully,” Frank ruminated.
He travels to matches with his son, Frankie, and on reaching the team hotel in Waterford, Frank was struck by how calm the players were compared to himself.
“There was no nerves in the world in any of them. Of course they’re all off the drink now. I hope they’re the same way the next day because nerves can get you,” he maintained.
Not unlike most GAA clubs, football in Lisdoonvarna, Doolin and Kilshanny is pock-marked with the odd rupture. Things were often complicated in Frank’s playing days and during his time as a mentor.
“We had a team here and there was a team in Doolin. And some of the Doolin lads were playing with us, even though they had their own team. There was three Shannon brothers; two of them were playing with Doolin and one of them was playing with us. Billy was playing with us and his two brothers were playing with Doolin. It wasn’t good anyway. We clashed a few times which wasn’t very nice in the same parish. But that’s all over now,” he said.
Although he can’t recall the specific years concerned, Frank vividly remembers a time in the ’50s when Clare clubs often fielded illegal players, who had no connection with the team they represented.
“Gerry Murray was playing with us at the time. He was playing with Cork and he was also playing here because he was an engineer here in charge of the sewerage. He was on Cork team, he was on The Lees club team and he was on our team,” Frank explained.
“We beat Clohanes by three points in Miltown and John O’Gorman found out about Murray,” he added.
The matter was brought up at a Clare County Board meeting in Ennis, attended by Frank and the then Lisdoonvarna club secretary, Mick Green.
“That night, Mick Green spoke completely in Irish. Gorman went up with all the particulars about Murray playing with The Lees in Cork. So he was completely illegal. John Gorman had all the facts and figures but Green spoke every word in Irish. He made a mighty speech.”
A replay was ordered but the North Clare men were instructed to play without Gerry Murray. That didn’t concern Mick Green. The Liscannor man, who taught in Lisdoonvarna, had a plan.
“Coming home in the car, Green said to me ‘we’ll beat them by more the next day.’ This was a man who had a lot of pull and a lot of contacts. ‘How’ll we do that, Mick’? I said. ‘Ah,’ he said ‘I know the commanding officer in Renmore barracks.”
The following Sunday, Frank’s team won, fielding several inter-county army men who were stationed in Renmore Barracks, Galway.
“Our centre half-back was a big fella. He was about 6’3. He had a cap on like myself. He came down to me. ‘Son,’ he said ‘what’s my name in Irish again? I’ve it forgotten.’ I ran out to the sideline and found out his name. We hammered them,” Frank smiled.
“They were all army men. No one knew them here. Usually we’d tog out in Paddy Hennessy’s pub in Miltown. He had something to do with the county board at the time but we togged out behind the Rineen school house.
“The only thing about it was we left off some of our own lads. That wasn’t too good. But we had at least five county men on,” he said.
Frank noted though that his club were not the only ones fielding illegal players. “Quilty had done it to us and Ballyvaughan were doing it wholesale. Half the team were from Galway. You’d get away with it that time. I don’t think you’d get away with it now,” he suggested.
Mick Green was also instrumental in persuading the then Garda Commissioner to station a couple of county footballers in Lisdoonvarna. The men concerned were Tommy Coleman and Tommy Noone.
“They were two mighty footballers; centre-field and centre half-back. They brought us up a lot. He got on to the commissioner. However he knew him I don’t know. They were a big help.”
Although Frank went to secondary school in Terenure College and in Roscrea, he has farmed in Lisdoonvarna all of his life. His own playing days were mixed but memorable. While St Breckan’s now have pristine facilities in the middle of Lisdoonvarna, that wasn’t the case in Frank’s day.
“The field was down there where tis now but t’was an awful bad field. There was a canal running along by the side of it then. Not alone would the ball go in but if you hit a jostle on a fella, you’d put the man in. If you had a set on him at all, you’d put the man flying. Ball and all. There’d be about two and a half feet of water in it,” he laughed.
Togging out in the open wasn’t conducive to winning a whole lot, though Frank did win an intermediate medal with Doolin in 1947. He finally retired at 40, having thought that he had already retired.
“I played in every position on the field. When I was retired for three years, I came back to play against Quilty. Mick Green, came to me to know would I play. I was about 40 this time. I had given up with three or four years. I said I couldn’t play, so he asked me would I play in goal. I let in a penalty. That was my last match in goal.” 
In his heyday, Frank liked a challenge. “Wherever there was a county man, I was put on him. I loved playing on county men. I’d play better on a county man than I’d play on an ordinary fella.
“I was picked for the county then when I wasn’t worth my place; when I was worth my place, I wasn’t picked at all. That time there used to be a lot of rows you see. I was in more rows… not that I started any. But if one of my players was hit down the field, I thought myself as a bit of a boxer. You make mistakes when you’re young. I know now all the mistakes I made and I know all the mistakes I made playing football. We were never fully fit. Signs on we didn’t win too much. We couldn’t train in the field. Ah they were good times though. We enjoyed it,” he said.
To this day, Frank is a selector with the St Breckan’s U-12 and the local secondary school teams. His other passion is coursing. His dogs won the Miltown and the Liscannor Cup, while he was the only Clare man to reach the final of the Kingdom Cup.
“They kept me walking. I was fitter that time when I was training the dogs than when I was playing football,” he believes.
As for Sunday’s Munster final, Frank can’t wait for it though he knows he’ll be wracked by nerves. He is confident that the St Breckan’s players won’t be as bad as himself though.
“They’re awful young and this is a very big occasion for them. I hope the nerves don’t go wallop. They’re cool enough though and I hope they’ll keep cool. They’re very confident. They’re confident in themselves. They’re not afraid of anyone and they won’t be afraid of the Kerry jersey either,” St Breckan’s most ardent football man noted.