GAELIC GAMES: SEAN MORANon how, for the second time in two days, Tipperary had apparently lost the silverware – only for obliging Dubliners to hand it back.

THERE WAS a footnote to the 1961 final, which concerns this newspaper. Tipperary captain Matt Hassett had been presented with a miniature of the MacCarthy Cup after the final. While being chaired off the field, the replica was lost in the crowds. Two Dubliners in the attendance of 67,836, Thomas Flanagan of Charles St and Tony Harris from McKee Road, Finglas later found the trophy at Croke Park and brought it down to the offices of The Irish Times.

“We were watching the scenes when the cup fell out of the larger one,” said Flanagan at the time. “I saw it fall on the ground and I was nearly half-killed by the crush when I stopped to pick it up. When I got it, Tony and I tried to catch an officials’ attention but it was useless with the big crowds.”

Fifty years ago Dublin were on the way up. Led by the example of the St Vincent’s club, the county was starting to field teams of native Dubliners as opposed to migrants from other counties, who worked in the city. In an echo of this year, the only non-native on the ’61 team was full forward Paddy Croke, like Ryan ODwyer tomorrow, a Tipperary man.

Dublin were inexperienced and started nervously, very quickly falling three points behind. Although the late Des Foley, who would captain the county to a football All-Ireland two years later, quickly began to assert himself at centrefield the team never really hit their stride and were fortunate to trail by just 0-6 to 0-10 at half-time.

“We probably lost it in the first half,” according to Jimmy Gray, Dublin’s goalkeeper and later the county chairman who was instrumental for bringing in Kevin Heffernan to launch the 1970s football revolution.

“Tipperary were the top team at the time and had some great players. We weren’t given a chance at all and at the start I don’t think the belief was there at all that we could match them.

“But in the second half we took over in terms of pace – certain players like Achill Boothman, who was very pacy and a very good hurler. In the second half we felt we could have won, particularly when Willie Jackson got a very good goal and put Tipperary under pressure.”

Dublin’s pace threatened to turn the match on its head. A dazzling series of diagonal passes put Jackson clear shortly into the second half and he sped away from the defence to bury the ball in the net. Achill Boothman equalised. (He was one of two colourful brothers from Derry Road in Crumlin on the team. He was prematurely bald and his brother Bernard wore an earring.) Larry Shannon put the Dublin team ahead.

Tipperary’s reserve of quality players saved the day. Liam Devaney, a versatile centre forward, switched to centre back in place of the injured Tony Wall and played a stormer in the fraught closing stages. Jimmy Doyle – not for the last time in a final, carrying an injury – capitalised on frees and ended with 0-9. Donie Nealon’s three points from play were crucial and goalkeeper Donal O’Brien made at least one crucial intervention.

A turning point came halfway through the second half. Tipperary replacement Tom Ryan and Dublin’s Lar Foley were sent off. Dublin were disproportionately affected, according to one of the team’s star performers Des ‘Snitchy’ Ferguson, who played in the opposite corner of the defence.

He recalled: “Lar was having a blinder at left corner back, an outstanding game. I’d caught a ball around the square. I could see Tom Ryan coming on from the line (to replace John McKenna) and he was all excited. As I was coming out with the ball he gave me a bit of a smack. The referee was calling him over – I think to put him off.”

Instead Lar came over and exacted more immediate retribution for his friend and St Vincent’s club mate – in front of the referee, Gerry Fitzgerald from Limerick, who had no option but to even the numbers.

“I’d nearly fault the selectors,” remembers Ferguson. “We should have brought a man back to cover because me and ‘Drummer’ (Noel Drumgoole) were there on our own and Tipp made the best of that.”

The fates weren’t finished with Dublin or Ferguson. With Tipperary a point up and six minutes left he was penalised for picking the ball off the ground, leaving a 21-yard free for Jimmy Doyle to strike the crucial point.

“I didn’t pick it off the ground,” says Ferguson. “I can still remember what happened.”

His team-mate Jimmy Gray backs him up. “Des had very long arms and used to sweep the ball up but he didn’t pick it off the ground. Theyre the things you have to get to win matches,” he says of the breaks that went against his team.

“We were just a bit unlucky, very unlucky. Towards the end of the match a high ball came in and Des Foley went up and got to it but it hit the side-netting. Little things. We would always hold that one of Tipp’s points in the second half was actually wide.”

The following day a relieved Tipperary man came down to D’Olier Street to collect his lost possession. “I am most grateful to the finders for taking care of it and handing it into this office. It was very honest of them,” said Tipp captain, Matt Hassett.

For the second time in two days Tipperary had apparently lost the silverware – only for obliging Dubliners to hand it back.