Guestbook

Good people let us cast our minds back to the year "92" when the celtic tiger was taking her first clumsy steps, U.S.A rockers red hot chilli peppers shot to fame with a song called "under the long bridge" and the price of turkeys fell dramatically, it was also the year of the maguires u14 hurling team.

After a long and arduous campaign and after the defeat of many the gallant team from the barony of carbery the maguires found themselves pitched in battle against the barve men of St. Colums In Tadgh na Samhna Pairc Drimoleague for the title of u14C [then 15 a-side].

The trainig that was done in preparation for this joust is now stuff of legend, men were seen runing up nowen hill with a hod of bricks on there backs and swimming bantry bay at its widest point  to condition themselves,giants of the calibre of Tim Crowley and John "croc dundee" O Donavan arguable the best hurling duet to have ever emerged from the square and ironically both men were at there happiest on the field of play when in and around the square at opposite ends of the field however. 

This iron man training was dually necessary as it widely accecpted through out the land that the men of kealkil and Pearsons bridge were wild at heart and would not surrender meekly.

The game which was played in sweltering conditions took off at a lightning pace with no man willing to give an inch or bow to his opponent and the sides were deadlocked at the short whistle and long into the second half and just when it looked like it would take an intervention from the gods to seperate these 30 gladiators, maguirs adopting the then revoloutionery tactic of "take the goals and let the points worry about themselves" struck for the jugular and with that came two majors and ultimate victory on a scoreline of maguires 4-0 St. Colums[Colum og] 2-0. 

The title was retained the following year when the bold men of skibbereen were defeated and a 3 in a row was actually on the cards until the mountain men of ardfield came down from there mountain the year after to wreck hvoc and bring the first hurling trophy in their history back to their mountain. 

Owing to the shortsightness of the county board at the time these players never got a chance to display their skills on the county stage, many of whom are currently on the senior football panel. 

Sweetnam as such an eye for the ball that when he looks at it the ball looks back at him. In fairness he's like Lazarus but Lazarus did'nt have a sweet left side like Sweetnam.

 

I thought Bantry had a forward line that could'nt punch a hole in a paper bag.

 

I was standing beside a good friend of mine at the game and asked him who was this young lad soloing up the pitch he said '' Stephen o'Driscoll passes it to Daniel O'Driscoll .....no relation....Daniel passes it back to Stephen still no relation.Pat Fox has it on his hurl and is motoring well now... but here comes Joe Rabbitte hot on his tail ...... I've seen it all now, a Rabbitte chasing a Fox around Croke Park!"