Tribute to Tony Reddin
On the occasion of re-naming St. Ruadhan’s Park to Tony Reddin Park & Community Centre, December 7, 2019
Cathaoirlach, Uachtaran Cumann Luthchleas Gael, John Horan, Maura and members of the Reddin family, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I consider it a great privilege to be asked to say some words in tribute to Tony Reddin on the occasion of the renaming of St. Ruadhan’s Park as the Tony Reddin Park and Community Centre. It is right and fitting that the survivors of the 1956 team, which won the North divisional championship with Tony in that year, should be present along with his family and friends to celebrate this very important occasion.
When Tony came across the bridge at Portumna in February 1947, he was twenty-eight years of age and had already quite a bit of hurling done for his club Mullagh, for Galway and for Connaght without achieving much in the line of honours. The one exception was a county juvenile medal, which he was to cherish for the rest of his life. Travelling to Lorrha was to start a new chapter in his life.
His reputation as a goalkeeper had preceded him and he got his first opportunity to show his prowess when Fr. O’Meara went to him in Holy Week and asked him to play on Easter Sunday. St. Vincent’s of Dublin were coming to Rathcabbin to play Lorrha in a challenge game that was to be the beginning of a long friendship between the two clubs, inspired by the Drumgoole connection – Noel was to captain Dublin in the 1961 All-Ireland, that Tipperary narrowly won and Noel’s mother was a Corcoran from Ballymacegan. At ant rate Tony turned up, had a good game and the visitors won by a point. It is interesting to record that this was Tony’s first match in Tipperary, in the quiet backwater of Rathcabbin. His last match for Tipperary was to be in the bustling city of New York in October ten years later.
Tony didn’t do anything spectacular during 1947 but he made up for it the following year, particularly in the North final against Borrisileigh at Nenagh on August 22. With a gale force wind in the first half Lorrha ran up a lead of 4-3 to 0-4 by half-time. In the second half Borrisileigh had a downpour behind them and they attacked the Lorrha goal with everything in their arsenal in an attempt to get back on top. They tried for goals again and again, when points went abegging, and Reddin stopped the ball with mechanical ease and flung it back in their faces. Borrisileigh scored twice, early and late in the half, but it wasn’t enough. Lorrha had won, scoring 1-1 on top if their half-time tally, for a final scoreline of 5-4 to 2-5, and the parish and further afield sung the praises of a new goalkeeping star. Lorrha won the county semi-final against Cashel but went down heavily to Holycross-Ballycahill in the final. In both games Reddin’s contribution was way above that of average men.
In a fine nostalgic piece in the 1981 Tipperary G.A.A. Yearbook, Seamus Leahy recalled a visit from his uncle Paddy and Jimmy Maher after Lorrha's defeat by Holycross in the county final. He produced an autograph- book and his uncle Paddy wrote: 'Sensation: Holycross won county championship 1948. Tipp will win All-Ireland championship 1949. Signed: P. Leahy.' Then he handed the book to Jimmy Maher, who wrote: 'Jim Maher, Boherlahan.'
'Identify yourself!, urged Paddy. 'Jim Maher, Boherlahan could be anyone. Write 'Tipp goalie.'
'Not after today,' said Jimmy, sadly but signing, just the same. 'Didn't you see your man, Reddin, today? He's your goalie now.'
Jimmy was right. After eight years as Tipperary's senior goalkeeper, Jimmy was to give way to this 'unknown' who had shown unusual ability during the North championship.. There hadn't been many players from Lorrha who had achieved county status but Tony Reddin was to be an outstanding representative for the next nine years.
It's not possible to give a detailed history of Tony’s achievements with Lorrha and Tipperary in the course of this short tribute. I’m going to mention one of many outstanding performances, the Munster final against Cork at Killarney on July 23, 1950 ‘the toughest match I ever played’ according to Tony. The last ten minutes of that game remained vivid in his memory years later. The outcome of the game hung in the balance. The overflow crowd of 55,000 had encroached on to the pitch so that the referee, Bill O’Donoghue of Limerick, had to stop the game for ten minutes until the pitch was cleared. No sooner had the game restarted than the encroachment resumed around Tony’s goal and became so bad that, as he looked left and right, he found himself in the horn of a half-moon. Bottles, cans and sods were raining on his goals. Anytime a ball came in he was teased, barracked and even pushed. He was caught by the jersey as he ran out to clear the ball. There was much more.
When the final whistle sounded with Tipperary victorious, Tony had to escape from an angry crowd of Cork supporters. He found himself under the protection of a number of priests. Fr. O’Meara have him a hat and a short coat and covered him up as best he could, but he was unable to leave the field until well after the game, as fitting a tribute as there could be to the quality of his play!
I believe that this performance plus his heroic display in the 1948 North final established Tony as an outstanding goalkeeper, a player of heroic proportions, a man apart. He became a folk hero, not only in the parish of Lorrha and throughout Tipperary. He was great in the days before television when it was impossible to see the player in action unless one attended the matches and one had to depend on the voice of Micheal O’Hehir to bring us the information of his play, to describe his goalkeeping performances and relate his brilliant saves. And O’Hehir did it so well that radio on a Sunday afternoon with him at the microphone was a memorable experience.
I remember at that time the pride I felt when the lineout for a Munster game was relayed by O’Hehir on radio and the first man on the list was in goals, Tony Reddin of Lorrha. In the days before TV and Social Media, etc, etc this was brilliant to hear. Tony put Lorrha on the map just as Lorrha put Tony on the map. He brought the parish pride and fame and the parish as well as the county gave him a platform to express his genius. That genius was recognised when he was an automatic choice for goalkeeper on the Team of the Century and the Millennium Team
His Genius
Why was Reddin so brilliant? It may be a good place to analyse the quality of his greatness. Many people remember Reddin as a big man going high for the ball, catching it securely and bursting out amid a welter of hurleys, to clear well up the field. It will come as a surprise to learn that Tony is not a big man. He stood 5'9" and, at the height of his career in the early fifties, never weighed more than eleven and a half stone! He was a very fit man. He trained for the position as keenly as another might train for centre-field. Running cross-country, jumping over hedges and ditches and building up his arms made him the strong player he was. He had the eye of a hawk, some might even say of compensatory quality, for defects in his oral and aural senses. Neighbours have commented on how sharp that eyesight was and his ability in spotting someone at a distance. He was no mere ball stopper but a player who completed the act by clearing the ball down the field. He was equally good on the right or the left side and this again came from constant practice. He sharpened his reflexes by belting a ball against a rough stone wall from short distances and catching the ball in his hand as it rebounded in different directions. Prob¬ably his greatest ability was a sensitive touch allied with the tilting of the hurley's face at an angle which enabled him to kill even the fastest ball dead so that it rolled down the hurley into his hand as if by the genius of a master magician. Finally, Tony used no 'half¬door' of a hurley to stop the ball. His was of ordinary size and he had the same stick for most of his hurling career, a heavy, many hooped, ugly llooking affair.
Tony Reddin's list of achievements is impressive by any standards. As well as winning three All-lrelands, six National League, two Brendan Cup medals and one Oireachtas, he also won six Railway Cup medals and four 'Ireland team' cups. He travelled to London on nine occasions and played on the winning Monaghan Cup team on eight occasions. His ninth visit was as a sunstitute in 1957 when Tipperary were bffccfc fg eaten. He won two North divisional titles with Lorrha.
There is nobody to deny that he was one of the greats of hurling history. He was great in the days when a goalkeeper's fate was to be bundled into the back of the net if the backs gave the forwards sufficient leeway. Tony's greatest asset was, to stop the hall dead so that it rolled down to his chest or his feet. He would leave the ball on the ground until the last moment and then, with the forwards rushing in, he would take it, sidestep them and have loads of space to clear. He claimed to know which side of the goal a ball would come by watching which foot a forward was on when he hit the ball. Whatever the reason for his greatness his stopping prowess was the bane of forwards and a joy to supporters for many a year.