Cork manager Peader Healy’s story of playing with GAA royalty in South Kerry is fantastic

Best of enemies.

If the Cork footballers win any major silverware this year, people on Valentia Island in Kerry will probably take all the credit. Peader Healy is just a few months into his tenure as the Rebels new football boss, and he has already seen his side win the McGrath Cup this season. The Glengarriff-based Garda was a surprise choice to replace Brian Cuthbert, but he has serious football pedigree, even lining out with an iconic Kerry footballer while he was stationed in South Kerry in the 1980s. Interviewed in this week’s Southern Star, the 53-year-old tells the story of how one day he found himself playing on the same pitch as Kerry great Mick O’Connell in a local charity game. O’Connell was seen as a GAA god even then, and Healy explains that even when he was seemingly wrong, he was always right. The former forward, who decided to play with the islanders while he was in the Iveragh peninsula instead of town club St Mary’s, describes an incident that highlights the deference to O’Connell in that part of the county.

“Micko landed to the game in a Kerry jersey. We had the Valentia home jerseys and away jerseys, but he wouldn’t take off the Kerry jersey. "The next thing, some fella had to go off down to Portmagee to get their jerseys because they are the same colour as the Kerry ones. We had to change the jerseys because of Micko!"

That was not the only incident involving O’Connell however, as Healy remembers that a simple 14-yard free had the locals scrambling to try and find a replacement ball after O’Connell leathered it over the bar.

“I was taking our frees that day. We got one on the 14-yard line and I threw the ball to Micko and told him to take it. “The Valentia pitch at the time was on a slope and there were only a few metres between the top goal and the main road. There were no nets behind the goal. "If I was taking the free, I’d try to drop it just over the bar. But Micko took the free – he kicked it over the bar, he kicked it over the road, he kicked it into a field across the way! Ger O’Driscoll turns to me: ‘You bollix, what are you doing giving him that fecking free!'"