Latest renewal of an age-old football rivalry

It’s a quirk of football history that while Cavan and Roscommon have tended to occupy similar strata in the game, the usual flux nothwithstanding, the Rossies have held the upper hand in many of the major meetings.

From 2013 to 2020, the sides met 10 times in league and championship, with Cavan winning just twice, one of those a dead rubber. In the bigger games – the 2014 Division 3 league final, two championship matches and a crunch round-seven clash which Cavan had to win to stay up in 2020 – Roscommon have come out on top.

That run was preceded, in 2012, by an U21 All-Ireland semi-final at Saturday’s venue, Pearse Park in Longford, which the Connacht side also won.

Roscommon won that game by 2-7 to 2-2 which, amazingly, was the same scoreline as the 1943 All-Ireland SFC final replay between the sides, which came at a time when Cavan and Roscommon were among the best sides in Ireland.

In fact, of the 10 All-Ireland finals between 1943 and 1952, one of the counties were represented in eight, between them winning five. Those mid-century idols are remembered fondly in both counties, who have risen again at various times but have yet to get their hands on Sam Maguire since last tasting supreme success in 1944 (Roscommon) and ’52 (Cavan).

The sides had drawn 1-6 apiece the first day in ‘43 but the replay is probably the most famous – or, perhaps, infamous – clash between these two storied footballing counties.

The game is remembered for a brawl which resulted in a number of lengthy suspensions.

The nuts and bolts of it were as follows: Cavan full-back Barney Cully got sent off for tangling with an umpire. Watching from the far end of the pitch, Cavan icon Mick Higgins would later recall seeing the umpire’s white jacket go tumbling.

One version of the story relayed some years back has it that the umpire was a college-mate of Cully’s (the Arva native was studying dentistry in UCD, where Cavan goalkeeper Des Benson was also studying at the time) and that Cully took offence to the official vigorously waving the flag after a Roscommon goal!

Roscommon wing-back Brendan Lynch’s hilariously matter-of-fact recollection of it was as follows: “What I remember most was the mayhem at the end. First, Joe Stafford was sent off for having a go at Owensie Hoare. We got a point but Barney Cully didn’t agree and put the umpire in the net with a box.”

Wexford referee Paddy Mythen was the man who sent Stafford to the line in that 1943 decider, later recalling: “Cavan’s Joe Stafford committed a bad foul early in play, and I had no hesitation in ordering him to the line – something of a very big thing in All-Irelands in those days. And, I still think, except for his rash action that day, Cavan would have won the match.”

Stafford’s own recollection of the incident was committed to print in a brilliant profile by journalist Paul Kimmage.

“They were the better team second time around and made a great start with two good goals. But I got one back after 20 minutes and we went in at half-time just a couple of points down and were starting to get back on terms when it all went sour in the second half.

“I had a chance... a great chance. I was through on the Roscommon goal. Sackie Glynn was a big long lingle of a goalie but I knew that with a low shot - a grasscutter - I’d beat him. I was sure to score.

“Well there I was with the goal at my mercy when Owensie Hoare - the Lord have mercy on him - took me down with one of the finest kicks ever a man got in the ankle. And the referee ran over and immediately gave the free but the free wasn’t enough. Because I was sore. So sore.

“And I pulled myself off the ground with the ball still under my arm and looked at Owensie Hoare. He was a wee man with curly black hair. ‘Ye black f**ker ye,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill ye’. And I drew on him with my left hand and turned him upside down.”

Hoare, for the record, was a brilliant player who won an All-Ireland junior football medal in 1940 and senior Celtic crosses in 1943 (at left half-back) and ’44 (in goals), a remarkable achievement.

In the latter season, Roscommon again beat Cavan, this time by 5-8 to 1-3, in the All-Ireland semi-final. In his match report, The Anglo-Celt’s correspondent spoke of his puzzlement at how “the traditions of 60 years on the football field should suddenly go wrong”.

“Out of evil,” he noted, showing a gift for the dramatic, “cometh good... Cavan will rise again.”

And so they did, finally winning a third All-Ireland in 1947, defeating Roscommon in the semi-final, with the prize of a trip to New York for the final at stake. One of the heartwarming tales from that game was that of Phil ‘The Gunner’ Brady and Eamon Boland.

The battle was again feisty and, it is said, with time almost up, the referee, Dowling from Kildare, called both men together and was intent on dismissing them. Brady often relayed the tale of how Boland intervened.

“Don’t send him off,” he asked, “I’ll go but don’t put Brady off. He’ll not get to New York.”

In the end, both men stayed on and the Gunner crossed the Atlantic and came home a champion after all.

They have met in several games of significance since. In 1962, Roscommon hit Galway for 1-1 late on to claim the Nestor Cup while Cavan stunned two-time defending Ulster and All-Ireland champions Down.

Cavan were fancied to win the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final but played poorly on the big day.

“What happened against Roscommon was that we were totally inexperienced,” Ray Carolan, then a 19-year-old lining out at midfield, recalled.

“There’s a big hype from winning an Ulster championship and going into an All Ireland semi-final.”

This year, for whatever reason but primarily, it seems, because of the ill-judged new championship structure, that hype has been dampened everywhere and the crowds are not turning out. There are too many games of too little consequence but in terms of advancement in the All-Ireland, this is both sides’ biggest match of the campaign to date.

Cavan and Roscommon may be in different provinces and do not share a border but they boast a lot in common. At their closest point, between Arigna and Dowra or thereabouts, they are approximately 15 miles apart, although in driving terms, Lough Allen would extend the journey somewhat.

Both counties are deeply rural and are steeped in the tradition of Gaelic football, with their heydays having chimed before and after ‘the Emergency’. Both yearn for a return to the glory days but it’s a slow and, at times, agonising process.

A win for either on Saturday (throw-in 5pm, Longford) would propel them into the last 12 in the country and have the long-suffering fans dreaming again.