The clashes of Kingdom and Sky Blues and their effect on Irish society are the subject of a new documentary to be shown on TG4
Dublin’s Seán Doherty fields a high ball the led to Bernard Brogan’s late goal against Kerry in the 1977 All-Ireland semi-final. Photo: Connolly Collection/Sportsfile
Over the winter of 1975, two footballers could be seen running over the sand dunes in Ballybunion, pushing each other, and common practice, to the limit. The meeting of Jimmy Deenihan and Bernard Brogan was serendipitous. Brogan arrived in Tarbert as a young engineer to work on a local project, remaining there for a year and a half. He was using the rugby club in Listowel one night when Deenihan spotted him.
“We played them in the ’75 All-Ireland, and a couple of weeks afterwards I was training with Listowel rugby club,” Deenihan explains. “They were the only club around north Kerry with lights at that time. And I saw somebody with a Dublin shirt, and I asked somebody, ‘Who is that?’ And they just said, ‘That’s Bernard Brogan. He plays with Dublin’.