Profile of Billy Morgan: Keith Duggan examines the likely effect on Cork football of the return of the great man

Just under a year ago, the cupboard door of Cork hurling was flung open; skeletons were duly slung out, cobwebs were chased, the haul of silverware was given a good spit and polish and, with a few sharp whistles, the game was on song again.

The appointment this week of Billy Morgan to the post of Cork football manager has already led to widespread predictions of a similar cloudburst in fortunes for a team whose confidence and profile reached a new low during a desperate summer.

But Morgan is no new broom. Depending on perspectives, he is both the god of Cork football and its great outsider. The unanimous ratification of the Nemo Rangers man by the committee responsible for electing a replacement to Larry Tompkins illustrated two things. One, Morgan's legacy in Cork is omnipotent. But also, the think-tank of Cork football is too terrified by the parlous state of the domestic game to opt for something new and bold and, crucially, unproven.

"I suppose there are two views. Some people would say that Billy had his time and that he has been out of the job for a while and that someone else should be given a chance," says Nemo and former Cork forward Joe Kavanagh.

"But speaking personally and for everyone at the club, we are delighted and feel certain it will be a very positive thing for both Billy and Cork football. Like, he is still obsessive about the game. Nothing has changed with him really."

Morgan left the Cork post in 1996 after a decade of monumental change. More than anyone, he was responsible for breaking the hegemony Kerry breezily enjoyed in the province. When he was appointed in 1986, Ireland was in the economic doldrums and Kerry were All-Ireland champions. Same as it ever was. Yet Morgan guided Cork to seven of the next 10 Munster championships, culminating in back-to-back All-Irelands in 1989-90.

Consequently, he sent the Kerry game into a tailspin that was utterly foreign to its players and thinkers and which has arguably left a permanent dent on the Kerry psyche.

Larry Tompkins, the pale wreath of muscle that was the central playing figure during Morgan's tenure, was anointed as successor. While the pressures of the post seemed to take a toll on Tompkins, a complex individual married to a fierce and headstrong commitment to Cork, the laconic Morgan re-established his beloved Nemo Rangers as a permanent force on the club scene.

His deliverance, at the third time of asking, of another club All-Ireland to the county in March, just two months before his protégé foundered terribly with Cork on a revolutionary turn by Limerick in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, put him back in the mind's eye in a celestial light.

Good things happened to Cork football under Billy. Why not go back to that?

For Morgan, though, the more pertinent question is why. At 59, his place in the pantheon is assured and the intercounty game has become a busier and faster and even less forgiving station since he last ghosted through.

"All the time he would have been looking at all, well, the crap that was happening in Cork football, and I suppose he would have been wondering if there was anything he could do to help," reckons Kavanagh.

"And, you know, he is no fool either. I doubt he would be going back if he thought there was not enough players there."

Morgan is not likely to be fazed by the fashions he will see when he returns to the big time. Nemo's nationwide trips for the past three years ensured him first-hand acquaintances with the best intercounty players in the land; only this year, he pitted his wits against Errigal Ciarán, the perennial Tyrone force.

"I apply the same principles of coaching this team as I did with Cork," he observed in an interview with the Examiner a couple of seasons back. "A lot of it is building up camaraderie. When I was with Cork I found them a great bunch of players. These lads are the same."

While the respect he commands among the Nemo contingent is natural, it seems that there was a widespread and energetic wooing of Morgan by established players from all across the county. A godfather is just what that young team needs now.

Tompkins's colourful and occasionally agonising reign went awry after the 1999 All-Ireland football final loss to Meath and, after deliberating for much of this summer, he concluded that he had spent every ounce of imagination and energy on the team. In his weekly column in the Sunday Tribune, he pronounced, with the same exacting standards he demanded of his players, that his reign had ultimately been a failure.

Identifying the problems for his successor, he wondered if there wasn't a "softness" creeping into the local game in Cork: a fondness for hearing the whistle which could be translated as a limited appetite for the naked aggression players face in the All-Ireland series.

Certainly, softness would not be a fault associated with Morgan's teams. Nemo's drive for this year's All-Ireland after two really galling St Patrick's Day losses was sustained by an unwavering mental toughness. And when he masterminded the last of Cork's All-Irelands, in 1990 against Meath, the bone-crunching fare was described by Paddy Downey, then GAA correspondent for this newspaper, as "the toughest All-Ireland final this writer has ever seen".

Morgan is either wholly unconcerned by the way he is generally perceived or else carefully cultivates the image as the fearless, independent cult figure in a Cork GAA landscape notorious for its labyrinthine politics. He can, in turn, be bright and engaging and actually impossible to talk to.

Digits which were reliably supposed to comprise his mobile phone number and pressed for the purposes of soliciting his views for this article led to a connection that, according to the half-familiar voice on the other end, had - firmly but regrettably - nothing to do with Billy Morgan. Wrong numbers notwithstanding, it is generally acknowledged that he wears his lifelong allegiance to Nemo as a badge of honour.

Reminiscing in another Examiner piece about the club, he recalled something that Nemo player Frank Cogan once said. "You never see a Nemo man on his own. And you know, it is true that we seem to travel around in bunches. I even notice it with our minors; they're always together. It's a strength we have, clannishness, and it is true."

And yet Billy Morgan is often painted up as the inscrutable figure, the man apart. It always seemed appropriate that he carved his playing reputation as a goalkeeper, the loneliest and most independent position on the pitch. He was always feisty and has never been afraid to speak out against perceived slights or injustices.

As far back as 1979, he used a newspaper piece depicting the classical contrast of Nemo against a rural Galway team in the championship as city giants against the humble villagers. The problem was that the Galway team were pictured training under floodlights; Nemo could scarcely afford a flashlight between them. That became his motivation.

And just this year, minutes after supervising Nemo's breathtaking All-Ireland win - a booming, last-minute point from Colin Corkery the defining episode in a close game against Crossmolina - Morgan reportedly refused to allow the Cork chairman, Jim Forbes, access to the dressing-room. Forbes, a pleasant individual, made the folly of being involved with machinations to have Morgan removed from the post of manager in 1991. And Billy did not forget.

Even as he unpacks his studs and coaching manuals, he lets nothing slide, rejecting reports made earlier this week that his backroom staff had been finalised.

But it would be wrong to suggest that Morgan is wilfully cantankerous. Capable of great empathy, his tremendous strength is his natural flair for dealing with players as people. Like all great managers, his mere presence seems to heighten his players' performances and their inclination to work harder for him without their fully understanding why.

"He would sit down and have a pint with us if it came to that," says Kavanagh. "And you'd find him tremendously good company. But at the same time you were under no illusion. He is a perfectionist when it comes to the game. It was never, 'Ah, I'm all right, I'm good with Billy'. You never know when you are going to get hauled up on something."

His opening gambit as Cork manager for 2004 was to declare all slates washed clean where players were concerned. All comers, he stated, will be given a chance.

There will be keen interest to see if Morgan's skills can lure Bantry's Philip Clifford, whose football career was as bright and temporary as a flare in the sky, back to the game. Captain for Tompkins in 1999 and young footballer of the year that same season, he announced his retirement from the sport before he had even reached his mid-twenties.

There may be a lot of such latent and undiscovered talent across the county and few would bet against Billy Morgan harnessing it in his sure-footed and intelligent way.

In Cork, they will probably hedge their bets on a sudden ascension back to the good old days, but it is likely that the word of Morgan's return has probably led to a few deep breaths around Kerry. And beyond.