The death has occurred of John ‘Langton’ Fitzgerald of Ringmahon Rangers \u2014 one of the great characters of Cork\u2019s amateur game during the 1950s to the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Top English clubs were regular visitors to Cork in the early ’50s, and in 1952 Ringmahon Rangers made their schoolboy debut as the curtain-raiser to one such glamour fixture. Early arrivals at the Mardyke saw Ringmahon face Western, and one youngster stood out immediately: a tall, commanding figure six inches above anyone else on the pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was John ‘Langton’ Fitzgerald, and his physique made him a natural at centre-half. But he was far more than a stopper \u2014 a gentle giant with superb positional sense and an excellent range of passing, qualities that endured at every level he played.<\/p>\n
\n In 1956, Ringmahon set a remarkable record by winning the U16 League with maximum points and without conceding a goal.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
They went on to dominate AUL football in the late ’50s and early ’60s, winning the Munster Junior Cup (1959), AOH Cup (1959 & 1960), as well as League, Shield, Presidents and O\u2019Keeffe Cups. Langton was a pivotal figure in every triumph and continued to star as Ringmahon rewrote the Munster Senior League record books over the next decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On three occasions, they narrowly missed out on 10 consecutive titles \u2014 twice by a single point and once in a play-off defeat to Wembley.<\/p>\n
The ‘Langton’ nickname often caused confusion as many assumed it was his surname. A Connacht v Munster Inter-Pro match report once read: \u201cThe Connacht attacks were repeatedly broken up by the towering Munster centre half John Langton.\u201d Opposition defenders dreaded his presence at set-pieces, where he was a constant threat at the far post.<\/p>\n
When his playing days ended, John turned his energy to the club\u2019s administration, serving in every capacity on Ringmahon\u2019s management committee. In an era of frequent club-hopping, his 70 years of loyal service to one club, stands as a fitting tribute to a true Ringmahon legend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death has occurred of John ‘Langton’ Fitzgerald of Ringmahon Rangers \u2014 one of the great characters of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16250,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-72660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-soccer","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}