Striking out from Redemption Road

Tom Humphries talks to Cork's John Gardiner, who is on the cusp of being the nation's hurler of the year at 22 years of age

Homeboy. He looks around these streets. Fashion has narrowed itself. There are two types of shirts a young fella can wear right now. Blood red of Cork. Wasp hoops of Na Piarsaigh. Nothing else - unless he's a social misfit.

Himself, he started in a red shirt. Playing in the street leagues for Onslow Gardens. They were the red sort. There was a tall, slender kid with a lively, brown face who played in the blue and white of Farranree. His looks might have been more of a novelty to them if they hadn't gotten used to seeing his big brother. Anyway John Gardiner and Setanta Ó hAilpín fastened onto each other.

They had their idols and their dreams but essentially they were kid brothers. Seán Óg Ó hAilpín and David Gardiner were admired trailblazers but excused from the pantheon of heroes. There's always something to be taken not quite seriously about older siblings. Kid brothers. It seemed their destiny to follow. They grew up listening to the legends of the 1995 Na Piarsaigh county championship-winning side. They saw David and Seán Óg winning féilte and minor championships and cutting a swathe through the world. They followed the pathway.

This is a story of young fellas. Kid brothers. Cubs. Boys who had cricks in their necks from looking up. They bowed to the older fellas. They bowed to the legends. They bowed to the aristocrats of the Glen.

They won nothing. Setanta moved to Blarney but went to the Gaelscoil which was in the clubhouse at Na Piarsaigh. His dad couldn't collect him till work was finished so they put down the hours like all boys in legends should do. They banged sliotars. To each other. Against the big, flat wall at the community centre. Down in the field. In the ball alleys. Hours and hours and hours. Hurling and talking and having the crack.

Sometimes playing against other teams, poison gas would carry from the front lines back to the rearguard where John was deployed. He'd hear the abuse that passed for banter going on up around Setanta and realise what his friend was up against. Then again, if Setanta wasn't as good as he was there'd have been worse to endure. When he'd have scored six or seven goals the air usually cleared and things fell quiet.

What were the big events which punctuated the days? Well Tony Sull held a summer camp once. The Tony O'Sullivan Summer Hurling Camp. As if being in the presence of Tony Sull himself wasn't benison enough he brought along guest divinities. DJ Carey. Brian Corcoran. Three beings in the one god. Massive, boy. It was a summer you'd remember all your life.

SETANTA WAS a Norrie via Fiji and Sydney. John was a Northsider by pedigree. When Na Piarsaigh were founded back in the early 1940s, quite literally at a meeting under the lamppost outside the house at 3 Redemption Road, they held some of their early meetings in the Gardiner house. Young fellas. The club was founded basically by a gang of young fellas with educations from the North Mon and with ideas about what a GAA club should be like. Back around then somebody took a photo of John's grandad Matt looking out over a northside field. He stands in a man-of-destiny pose. Na Piarsaigh's pitch is on that field now. Later Matt's son John won a Munster under-21 medal in the red of Cork. He's been a senior selector for as long as his son can remember.

"And before that I remember him as a junior hurler. We're steeped in the club."

Anyway John and Setanta fell in with young Ronan McGregor. They grew up together. Came the whole way up. Won nothing. Learned lots.

Abie Allen, the dean of hurling coaches in Na Piarsaigh, remembers them as kids crossing the threshold for the first time.

"John was always going to be coming down because of his father and his grandfather but Setanta landed into the club almost as soon as he came to Ireland. The pair of them and Ronan were the three best players on their team all the way up. They were big and mad for hurling from the moment they came in. When you see a kid's mad for it like that you always know."

They got to a county final at minor and won the city final. They beat the Glen and the Barrs on the way. Any year you beat those two is a good year in Na Piarsaigh. They were finishing with promise. In the final they played Carrigtwohill. Niall McCarthy was playing against them. Blew them away. Quietly though, secretly, John Gardiner had realised he was handy enough at this old game.

"I was slow enough though. Never pacy. John Considine was the manager for the minors. He did speed work with me. Short sprints. Just to get it going. I worked on that. Thought about weights. I improved some small bit. I wouldn't be the fastest still but I worked on it a bit. I'd always be stuck in the alleys. There's a couple of alleys down below in the club. I'd be pucking the ball off the wall for hours. I'd enjoy it, like."

On the doorstep waiting to walk in. Any given spring there's probably 100 kids in Cork on the same threshold. Everything falls away, doesn't it. Fellas put away childish things and bury the dreams in a hole somewhere and life happens. And then they die with the mortgage paid.

Flick a switch. Another decade. John Gardiner, always one step ahead of the posse, has played his first season as a senior hurler for Cork. You can't believe that feeling. You're still a teen. You're not done with spots. You're a rebel though.

First day out they put him in on Ollie Moran of Limerick. Ollie Moran has shoulders he'd have trouble squeezing through a barn door. John Gardiner is rasher thin and bends like a reed. He surveys Moran's grandeur and thinks to himself that it's best not to think. "Have to do something here." I said. "Got to be quick."

He wonders now how he got through that game. Adrenalin. Excitement. A promise to himself that he'd go to the gym in Na Piarsaigh and add a little meat to the bone.

It all happened quicker than a dream. Bertie Óg was running Cork. John Gardiner played for CIT against UCC in a league match one day out in Bishopstown. He was marking Eamon Collins, who was already on the Cork team. Did well enough. Afterwards Bertie strode over and mentioned that the Cork seniors were training and they'd be delighted if John Gardiner would start coming along. Whoa. Delighted!

It all ended with a championship beating by Galway. He played on Mark Kerins. Had to admit that Kerins had some hurling in him. It was all over with 15 minutes left. He wondered briefly if they'd blame the young centre back. Nine points in it though. Blame would be a scattershot thing.

Then the next thing was he heard rumbling. And grumbling. The Cork hurlers went on strike. Lots of solidarity of course but one thought flashing in neon in his head. I'm never going to play again. Ever.

"There was meetings called. Lots of them. I was used to hearing lads talking about how things were in other teams and I'd be wondering what's going on here but when you're that age you keep your head down. I talked to the older lads but basically I just followed along. They outlined issues. I'd nod. Seán Óg kept explaining it all. He was very patient. I'd say grand so, grand. I didn't know what went on in previous years. The form came to sign. I signed it."

Never going to play again.

He was shielded though. The instruction was that if anyone asked him anything he was to pass them on to Seán Óg. He was happy to do that. He would have said anything to anyone. "Lucky thing was nobody took any notice of me."

Until the next September. Donal O'Grady came in with a new broom. For a while it seemed as if they would be given detention if they didn't win an All-Ireland. The summer went doolally crazy though. This new kid, see.

"That seemed like the start of it. Setanta arriving! He took the limelight straight away, which was kind of grand. Perfect for all of us. What a summer! The best memory is his goal against Waterford back at the start. He got the ball and just stuck it in the back of the net and the whole place erupted and I'm looking down the field at him and he's doing this celebration thing holding his crest and looking like an eejit. What's he doing? He's never done that before? There's no slagging him though! It's water off a ducks back."

O'Grady had this thing he'd do. He'd come and sit down and talk to each player in turn on the bus. He'd say this is the day for you. All these people are coming to see you. They're here for you. This is your day.

John Gardiner would think, "Jesus, I just want to get the first ball." Setanta would think, "yes."

SENIOR HURLING life had really started. All those hundreds of games together from Farranree and Onslow Gardens, from playing for Na Piarsaigh in the 13D League, to being Cork minors together and here they were pillaging for Cork in Thurles.

That's how dreams go. The first year John Gardiner made the team. The second year he won a Munster title. With Setanta as talisman they went all the way to Croke Park in September. And another year ended in flames.

"After that summer to get to an all-Ireland final and to lose it in the fashion we did and to always remember the way I played. I'll never forget the stick I got afterwards. Got stick in the papers. From people around Cork. Every fella had a joke about it. Yeah, at the time it was tough. I was very young."

On a day when Kilkenny won with three points to spare John Gardiner played in midfield. He had seven wides. Four from frees. That's how the summer of Setanta ended. John Gardiner zero for seven with the shooting.

"I got over it. They say inches were the difference. I imagine if they had gone in. Four wides from free. Three from play. All very scoreable from play. Could have had seven points in my first All-Ireland final. Me and Setanta winning medals."

The odd thing is that even though he beat himself up and allowed others to get their kicks in too, he didn't play badly. He hurled like a thoroughbred and when the wide count started becoming noticeable he didn't duck. He didn't spare himself. No laying off. No dropping them short.

"If I got the chances again I'd have a go again. You have to believe, like."

Two years as a senior hurler and he was ceasing to believe in happy endings. Setanta got abducted by Australians and John Gardiner waved him off wondering if life would ever be the same.

"Setanta could do it. He has the character that he could take off like that for an adventure. I'd love to be a professional sports person but leaving the family, the friends, the club behind like that I don't know if I'd be as able for it as Setanta is. He's open to everything."

Setanta left a big hole in the wall when he went out. Incredibly Brian Corcoran walked in to fill it. Setanta would have loved that. Being in a dressingroom with Corcoran. They kept working. Kept knuckling under to Donal O'Grady's punctilious regime. Hours of blocking and hooking. Two hands on the hurl. Classic hurling education. Another All-Ireland came around.

"I remember the first ball. Their corner forward Cha Fitzpatrick, he came out around, he had it. I went for a block. I got him half way. I just flaked like mad. It went wide. I said to myself calm down boy. Calm down. That's not the way to go. That's not what we'll do this year."

He stuck to the lessons. The O'Grady message. If there's a fella five yards away, you can get him, you can stay with him, you can chase him down.

Winning an All-Ireland was a relief more than anything else. When they'd lost the Munster final it was Corcoran who'd picked them up with his comment that he hadn't returned to win Munster medals.

On the night of the final Setanta came to their hotel and knocked on every door with a hug and his personal handshake. Respect.

The year ended in Cork but in the dreamtime.

John Gardiner. Setanta. Ronan McGregor (now a Cork senior too) had grown up in the shadow of Na Piarsaigh's two senior championship teams.

"We heard stories of the 1995 team. The 1990 team. They were the heroes. We were always in their shadows. That's why we won it. So sick of hearing the stories. Setanta came back against Sars. There was this massive crowd at the game. Huge. Joe Leary was in charge and Davy Walsh and Ger Shaw were warming up the next two subs on. Setanta was sitting on the bench with five minutes to go and we were well ahead. Joe passed down the line and Davy Walsh says, 'For fuck sake, Joe, bring him on will ya.' He came on and the place went mad. His touch was obsolete. The ball was coming and he was missing it by a mile. And big cheers every time."

In the semi-final against Blackrock Setanta, still vacationing, didn't start either. Huge cheers when he came on. Young Aisake Ó hAilpín had two goals. Something special was happening.

For the final with Cloyne Setanta wasn't named and then the late change crackled over the tannoy. Setanta at centre forward. The big roar.

"We all grew up together. Buddies. Best friends. Me and Setanta and Ronan. And the year ended with a county title in the club colours. We went back to the club. We only have three county titles but we have a little tradition of shouldering the captain in the door. Mark Prendergast got carried in. Fantastic."

The day of days. Prendergast was no sooner through the door than Setanta was on a plane back to Australia.

NOBODY REMAINS a boy forever. Setanta left to take his lumps in a man's world. John Gardiner's happy and gentle equanimity hides a steely centre. This season has been his time to step out from the shadows. Unless he commits hari kiri in Croke Park tomorrow he will be the hurler of the year for 2005, the second Na Piarsaigh man in succession to pull that honour down.

That's a big burden to lay on somebody's shoulders the night before an All-Ireland final but the summer has been full of revelatory moments. If there's an enduring image to be plucked from Cork's patchy season it is the swashbuckling of Gardiner.

When Cork won an epic semi-final against Clare, when once again they had been threatened with submersion, the Clare players stood around outside Croke Park an hour after the final whistle and spoke about Gardiner. In the final 10 minutes with everything in the fire he was the difference.

He's too modest to say so himself of course, but his excellence and influence were so sublime that he concedes it wasn't a bad patch anyway.

"I remember they went six points up. They got a point and I looked up at the screen and there was 49 minutes gone. People don't believe you'd actually look at the screen and say this but I actually said to myself, 'Okay, there's 21 minutes left, we still have a chance here.'"

His friend's big brother stirred him a little.

"Then we got into it a bit. Seán Óg's point was hugely inspirational. That's two points he has in his career for us, is it? How long has he played now? And then we were taking off the two lads. Jesus. Ronan Curran. An All Star player, and Brian Corcoran, the biggest legend in Cork hurling. The two of them taken off in a semi-final. That shakes you."

So that was it. The end of boyhood. No Setanta and himself going down the big slide. No Corcoran to look up to and rely on. Seán Óg had done his bit. John Gardiner moved to the pivot.

"I went centre back. Davy Fitz I think decided we were in trouble there. He started launching the ball straight down on top of me. It suited me. Standing under the ball instead of moving to it, that's my game. I was lucky. We got going. Tom Kenny and Jerry O'Connor were unbelievable. The running game kicked into gear."

Gardiner suppressed old instincts. As a kid his greatest asset was his striking. He could lean onto the back foot and strike the ball 70 yards over a block. Playing for Cork though they'd asked for something else. In training Cork players have to break the tackle and get free and put the ball on the hurley every time they win possession. Then they pick the man or the score out.

"They've planted that instinct in us. Get the ball and burst with it. It didn't suit me at the start. You're taught growing up to get rid of it quickly. I liked to make a little space and let it go. In this game at this level though there's no time for big, long strikes."

So he caught one from the clouds and burst and laid it off. Caught another and went forward and launched as big a point as Croke Park has seen this year. The sort of moment a team builds its victory on. It was done. John Gardiner stood alone, boyish things and bad days all behind him.

THE YOUNG FELLAS have gotten used to him now. Up in Farranree and Fairhill, in the hinterland of the Na Piarsaigh greats, where great hurlers are as necessary as ozone, there is no shock and awe when he walks the streets. Even the people in the house next door to the Taj Mahal don't spend their lives gazing out the side window.

If John Gardiner scorches around the great fields and the epic games, well that's what he does. That's what he has done.

At 15 he made the club minor side. At 17 he was on the under-21s. Just one step ahead of the posse all the while. Always there though. Now John Gardiner is on the cusp of being the nation's hurler of the year at 22 years of age. They love him but won't be commissioning any statues just yet.

So tonight his chevvy, a candy-apple-red beauty which was a gift from Noel Deasy the garage guy, pulls up at the house. John stoops into the back to haul out the gear. A young fella approaches, curious as a kitten.

"John," he says, "I saw you on the telly."

"Yeah?" says Gardiner, sensing a Max Clifford moment. "John," he says, "you know when you're talking on the telly?" "Yeah?" "John. You don't talk like a Norrie anymore." "Huh?" "You should talk like a Norrie," he says, withdrawing, his business done, "like you used to."

High on the northside of Cork, John Gardiner laughs to himself. It was just the day before yesterday he was that kid. No matter where you go, there you are. Never too far from Redemption Road.