On Friday, June 27, the city club will hold its inaugural golf classic, with Kinsale GC the venue. A member there, former Rochestown manager Declan Murphy – who stepped down at the end of last year after three seasons in charge and two as a selector before that – is a key figure on the organising committee. 

Keeping a club running nowadays is no cheap endeavour regardless of size and the hope is that the golf classic will provide a welcome injection of capital.

“Before you ever kick a ball, you’ve a lot of costs,” Murphy says.

“You need jerseys, balls, equipment, insurance, players’ registration – it’s like a business, before you turn the key on a Monday morning, you have overheads and clubs are no different.

“No matter how big or how small you are, you still have the costs so we felt that if we gave it one good lash this year, it would put us in a good state for a couple of years.

“It can be difficult, because every club and every organisation is doing something to fundraise.

“It’s nice that it’s our inaugural one, this is the first time doing something like this rather than be going cap-in-hand all the time. Between the GAA and golf and business, we’ve already got a good few guys on board with teams and tee-box sponsors, which is great.”

Beyond the finances, Rochestown are limited in terms of human resources – there is just one team in the cub, operating at junior C – but they punch above their weight.

“Last year, we won the Flor McCarthy in the city division,” Murphy says, “we got to a league semi-final, a championship semi-final and one of our players was voted junior C championship player of the year.

“We did the Pat McAuliffe game again, we had a great day for that. Derek Coughlan, the former Cork City player, came up – coincidentally, he presented the man of the award to Marky Sull [Mark O’Sullivan], another former City player!

“We had our awards night that night and presented the Flor McCarthy medals. When guys can see something tangible at the end of the year, it gives you the impetus to go again the following year.”

Rochestown do not have an under-age system, meaning there is no conveyor belt of younger players constantly joining the adult panel. However, Murphy outlines how their place in the Cork GAA ecosystem can serve them well.

“We’ve a number of lads who play rugby with Sunday’s Well and Dolphin,” he says, “and we’ve guys involved in soccer with Passage or down in Carrigtwohill.

“I think that’s helped us the last couple of years is we’ve lads down from Mayo and living in the area – rather than joining a Barrs or a Nemo, the small club here lended itself to what they were looking for.

“Then you have things like a guy working down in Pfizer saying to another fella, ‘I’m playing a bit of ball with Rochestown, you should come up, it’s great craic.’

“The last couple of years, it has really snowballed with that. The lads went back training about three weeks ago. They’re doing a 5km run for fitness training every Tuesday night and then ballwork at the pitch every Saturday.

“They have around 34 or 36 signed up for the year ahead, which is about on a par with last year. For a single-team club in junior C, it’s very good.”

Derek Coughlan, the former Cork City player, came up – coincidentally, he presented the man of the award to Mark O’Sullivan, another former City player!

We had our awards night that night and presented the Flor McCarthy medals. When guys can see something tangible at the end of the year, it gives you the impetus to go again the following year.

Rochestown Captain Mark Higgins collects the trophy from Seandún GAA Chairperson Mick Buckley.

Pat, a familiar voice to many on RTÉ Sport – and a contributor to The Echo – died in April 2019. He was the driving force behind Rochestown GAA Club, inveigling many to don the black and amber and Declan Murphy, the current team manager, wanted to ensure that his memory lives on.

“We played a game in 2020,” he says, “it was the first year the Cork Masters team got going and we had a few lads on that team – James Twohig, Rob Stewart and Dave O’Leary – so we played that year but with various interruptions and Covid, it didn’t happen in the years that followed.

“I took over the team last year and this is the end of my second year. Pat’s somebody that I grew up knowing and I felt that if it wasn’t revived and reinvigorated, it could fade away.

“We held a game between two teams of club members, with two dedicated guys, Richard Murphy and Paul O’Sullivan as captains. We felt it was a great way to finish the year and everybody enjoyed it.”

The show of support on the day underlined the importance of the role Pat played in keeping the club going.

“It wouldn’t exist,” Declan says, “it’s not an exaggeration at all, in any way.

“The club wouldn’t be there now. Pat chanced his arm with so many fellas and it got them playing.

“I can remember, I was heading to a work meeting and I was walking across the footbridge by the college of commerce, Pat was walking the other way, coming out of the RTÉ studios.

“That was a Friday evening, about four o’clock and the following Tuesday night, I was back training with Rochestown, above in Douglas Hall!

“You were thinking, ‘If I don’t say yes, I don’t know how I’ll face this man again.’ You’d feel like you were letting him down otherwise and it was the same for so many guys.

Matthew McAuliffe, brother of the late Pat McAuliffe, presenting the Pat McAuliffe Memorial Trophy to the winning captain Richard Murphy after Richie’s Rebels defeated Sully’s All-Stars at Rochestown College. Picture: Eddie O’Hare

“He had a great way of getting info from you. I can remember when I was an inter-county GAA linesman and Pat would come down to the dressing rooms in the old Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

“He’d say, ‘Alright Murphy – come here to me, is it true such-and-such is out?’ I’d say, ‘I didn’t know that news was out…’ 

“Before I’d be able to say anything else, he’d wink at me, as if to say, ‘That’s our secret,’ except it was a secret between him, me and the rest of the country when he’d go on air!”

Another famous piece of Pat audio signalled the start of proceedings on Saturday, as Declan outlines.

“At the start, I gathered the two teams outside the dressing rooms and I played a little bit of audio, Pat commentating on the Munster club football final between Clonmel Commercials and Nemo Rangers in 2015.

“I had that on the Bluetooth speaker and said, ‘For those of you who don’t know Pat, this is who he was.’

“Then we formed a guard of honour between the two teams and Pat’s brother Matthew brought the cup out between them.

“It said so much about Pat that so many past players who played for Rochestown under Pat – Kieran McGarry, John Foy, Declan Carroll, Aidan Carroll – all came up. Markie Sull [Mark O’Sullivan] came in in the evening as he was playing a match with College Corinthians in the afternoon.”

While Richie’s Rebels defeated Sully’s All-Stars, the day finished in a fitting fashion.

Michael Corkery, Rochestown chairperson, presents the player of the match award to Jason Walsh, with judges Brendan ‘Bags’ Murphy, Matthew McAuliffe and Dave Barry. Picture: Eddie O’Hare

“Pat played with Cork Hibernians, Cork Media, Rochestown and whoever else,” Declan says, “and he never, ever missed a penalty kick in his life.

“It was something like more than 80 penalties and he scored all of them. I said to the referee near the end that we were going to finish with a penalty shootout.

“Dave Barry came up and did a little ‘panenka’ over our keeper, Brendan my uncle took one and scored, everyone got involved. Matthew spoke very eloquently and we presented the trophy.”

 Afterwards, everybody repaired to St Columba’s Hall, ‘the tinny shed’, in Douglas, where stories of Pat continued long into the night.

“We had our awards night and my uncle Weeshie, who would have soldiered with the club, was inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Declan says.

“It was a great night and a very fitting way to finish the day.”

Credit – Article taken from echolive.ie – https://www.echolive.ie/corksport/arid-41278219.html

Rochestown Captain David Sheehan collects the trophy from Seandún GAA Chairperson Mick Buckley.