CAVANMAN'S DIARY: So long, Frankie, athlete and gentleman
Paul Fitzpatrick
The winter solstice brought with it dreadful news. The sudden and untimely passing of Frankie Kennedy, star Cavan footballer of the 1960s, began to spread around Co Cavan and the country like ripples in a pond on the morning of December 21 last.
Football and business took Frankie to a lot of places and, wherever he went, he made friends. So, word of his death touched many, many people, as was evident by the enormous turnout at his funeral in Stag Hall.
That was where we went to say goodbye to Frankie; last April, it was where I first said hello to him, too. I had arranged to interview him and we agreed to meet at the chapel; from there, I would follow him to his house at Kilcorby, where he split his time, based as he was in Malahide, too.
Frankie was a native of Drumlane, one of the best footballers the area ever produced. And more than that, he was a gentleman. It may be a cliché of commentary to say as much about someone who has passed on but, in the case of Frankie, it doesn’t make it any less true.
He first came to prominence as a footballer in St Pat’s, where he played in two MacRory Cup finals. In 1958, he was chosen as Ulster Colleges Footballer of the Year.
“It was a tough place. If you played football it wasn't as bad,” he told me.
“The priests always kept you down. You weren't allowed to read the newspapers.”
That was how he didn’t hear about his prestigious Ulster award until five years later, when an acquaintance sent him a cutting from a newspaper. That was the sort of grounding he had.
The following year, he was number seven on the Cavan minor team, which reached the All-Ireland final and, two years after that, he broke through to the UCD Sigerson Cup team.
UCD won that competition and Kennedy, who had been playing with the Cavan juniors, was offered a trial with Cavan seniors, where he did enough to earn a call-up.
But while football was a big thing in life, it wasn’t the only thing.
“I had got a chance to go to university,” he recalled, “and it wasn't all about football, I had to pass my exams. If I had failed my exams, I was out. That's the way it was then.”
Showing maturity beyond his years, he made the call.
“The game I was picked for was around the time of my exams and I rang the county secretary to tell him that I wouldn't be able to play. And I'll never forget what he said, he said 'you'll f**kin’ come the next time'.”
So, unfairly, he was out in the cold. The following year, he again played for the juniors, who won Ulster with a star-studded team, many of whom immediately graduated to the successful senior side.
Frankie continued to progress as a footballer. In 1963, UCD would beat St Vincent’s, who were seeking an astonishing 15th title in 17 years, in the Dublin championship. Again, academic commitments came first.
“I was doing my exams that year and they came up to the house and took me out of the flat to go down to play in the final, I didn't want to go. I got Man of the Match and I was picked for Cavan the next Sunday against Meath in Navan in a league quarter-final,” he remembered.
Cavan had bombed in the All-Ireland semi-final against Roscommon in 1962 and “the hatchet came down”. Some players were discarded and young Kennedy was in.
By the summer of 1964, he was living in St Johnston in Donegal, working for the Department of Agriculture, palling around with Derry-based Charlie Gallagher.
The lads would attend a dance and Charlie would sneak in the window of Frankie’s digs for the night, enraging Frankie’s landlord. They were heady days; when the team travelled to Cork for a pitch opening before the championship, they went via plane.
Probably his greatest day as a footballer, not that he would brag about it, was the Ulster final of 1964. Frankie marked the legendary Paddy Doherty, blotting the Down superstar out of the game.
“We won the Ulster final and I always think the deciding score was this. We were two points ahead and Down got a 50 and Joe Lennon was going to take it. Tom Maguire said 'I'm not going for this ball, Frankie, you cover me',” he recalled.
“Anyway, Lennon kicked the ball in towards Tom's position and it screwed out to me and I got it. I kicked it down the field and Charlie got it down along the wing and he kicked a big high ball in and Peter Pritchard stuck it in the net. And we won.
“What happened? Maguire had hit Macartan and put him down and there was no free. Tom wasn't good going backways, there was no reverse in him!”
That last line was typical of Frankie. When players of that era met up over the years, he was the one who got the craic going. Last year, he was President of the Cavan GAA golf society. Wherever he went, there was fun and stories.
“He’d have the place in stitches with his yarns but the spark faded in the last few months,” one of his former colleagues told me.
“He didn't look great during the summer and we were worried about him. He seemed to pick up a bit but we had a bit of a get-together in Crover and it was obvious he wasn't that well. He always passed it off saying he was feeling better. We were worried about him but never thought he would leave us that quickly.”
Last word to Larry McCluskey, a team-mate on the 1959 minor side and a friend ever since.
"Frankie was an enthusiastic, cheerful fellow, full of energy and fun, with an infectious laugh - and a great storyteller,” said Larry.
“A good friend - generous, too. A sudden and sad departure - and a solemn reminder of the venerable (and vulnerable) age we, his classmates, companions and team-mates, are now.”
So long to an athlete and a man among men. Frankie will be very sadly missed.