The Great Tony Reddin: The Only Galway Man to Make the Team of the Century

A Cradle of Hurling; Stories from Southeast Galway by Aidan Lenehan

To a young lad of 10 years of age in Nenagh Sportsfield on 22 August 1948, on a day that produced a semi-hurricane in the first half and a steady downpour in the second, Tony Reddin stood out like a colossus against the mighty men of Borrisileigh, dominated by Kennys and Ryans. They threw everything against him between the posts as he saved ball after ball, right, left and centre and, on one occasion, even with his head, and secured an historic victory for Lorrha in the North Tipperary Senior Hurling Final, with the greatest display of any man to appear in the club jersey.

After the game Monsignor Boland, a visitor from Duluth, U.S.A., and an old Toomevara hurler, was given the honour of presenting the cup to the Lorrha captain, Dan O’Meara, and, in the course of his remarks said: “He had seen many good hurling games in Ireland and the U.S.A. but the goalkeeping display given by the Lorrha goalie, Reddin, surpassed anything he had ever seen.”

What made Reddin so interesting in those early days, apart from his genius as a goalkeeper, was partly because he wasn’t a native of the county but an import to the parish from across the Shannon bridge from February of the previous year. In fact he had been enticed across from his native Mullagh by a fellow native, Joe Deely, who had been living in Lorrha for some time. Joe was aware that Tony, an excellent goalkeeper, was unhappy about his chances of making the Galway team, as his rival, Seanie Duggan, was firmly in possession of the position. Deely convinced him that Lorrha needed a goalkeeper and that his chances would be better across the Shannon.

Tony established himself quickly in the parish and was soon the goalkeeper in the 1947 senior championship, to which Lorrha had been promoted, as a result of winning the county intermediate championship of 1946. Initially it wasn’t all plain sailing for him. Tony performed well in the first two rounds against Borrisokane and Roscrea but was so poor in the semi-final against Borrisileigh that he was replaced by the former goalkeeper, Paddy ‘Red” Maher of Grange, before the end of the game. This lapse was soon to become a distant memory.

Tony helped Lorrha right through the 1948 championship and they qualified for the county final against Holycross-Ballycahill, who were also competing for their first senior county honours. The weight of expectation and a lack of experience combined with the performance of an excellent opposition resulted in a big defeat by 4-10 to 2-4 before a record crowd of 12,000 spectators at Nenagh. The defeat might have been greater but for the outstanding performance of Tony Reddin.


Galway Career

Some people are of the impression that Tony had no pre-1947 hurling existence. This is to miss a chapter of his life that is important. He had many hurling medals in his possession but one that he cherished, and had a special place for, was a county juvenile medal he won with Mullagh in 1933. It was the only county medal he won, and he was immensely proud of it. He played centre-field with the team. He won a divisional junior medal with Mullagh in the late thirties and found his place on the Galway junior team of 1940. They beat Roscommon in the Connacht final but went down narrowly to Cork by 3-3 to 3-1 in the All-Ireland at Limerick. In 1941 he was promoted to the senior ranks and played with Galway against Dublin at Roscrea. In the same year Tony made the Connacht Railway Cup team that was trounced by Munster.

An impressive if not spectacular record. For the next few years, he lost interest in the game and doesn't appear again until 1946 when he played full-forward with Galway in the Monagh¬an Cup game at London against Tipperary. Tony scored a point and Galway lost by a narrow margin. Later that year we find him listed as sub-goalie on the Galway team that went down to Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final at Birr.


His Name

The man who crossed the Shannon the following year has been variously known. Programmes and newspapers have called him Tony or Anthony and Reddan, Reddin and even Redden. Probably, the most common usage has been Tony Reddan. How did a man, who was christened Martin Charles Reddington end up with the name of Tony Reddan? Despite what his birth certificate states the family were always known as Reddins. Tony’s father, Mick, was never known as anything except Mick Reddin. Tony had a pet name, ‘Thaudy’, and when he came to Lorrha people thought it was ‘Tony’ and they began to call him by that name. As Tony himself says: “Nobody ever asked me what I was called: They just called me ‘Tony Reddan’ and the name stuck.” Tony was known by his birth certificate name on his first passport, received in 1950. He was Tony Reddin to everybody else. And this clarifies the second point: His name was Reddin, nothing else. It’s the name of his wife and children.


County Career

Tony Reddin’s exploits between the goals for Lorrha were bound to attract the attention of the county selectors. Tipperary hadn’t won an All-Ireland since 1945 and the fans were getting impatient. The man in possession of the goalie position was Jimmy Maher of Boherlahan.

In a fine nostalgic piece in the 1981 Tipperary G.A.A. Yearbook, Seamus Leahy recalls a visit from his uncle Paddy, who was the manager (at that time without the name) of the Tipperary team, and Jimmy Maher after Lorrha's defeat by Holycross in the 1948 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 he was to give way to this ‘unknown’ who had shown unusual ability during the North Championship. There hadn't been many players from that remote northern parish who had achieved county status, but Tony Reddin was to be the one and only outstanding Lorrha representative for the next nine years.


County Goalkeeper

Tony was picked for the first league game against Offaly at Birr on 24 October and had a fine game in goal when Tipperary won by 7-6 to 1-2. The next match was the 1948 league final, which should have been played the previous spring. Cork won by 3-3 to 1-2 despite the “splendid goalkeeping of Reddin.” Tipperary had three more league games before the final at Thurles on 27 February 1949 when they reversed the previous October verdict and defeated Cork by 3-5 to 3-2 on a day that Reddin saved brilliantly between the sticks. It was Tipperary's first major victory since 1945, and the team had scored 22 goals and 31 points and conceded 8 goals and 18 points in the series of games.


His Hurling Genius

Why was Reddin so brilliant that he was picked as Goalkeeper of the Century and later appeared on the Millennium team? Many people remember him 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 was not a big man. He stood 5’ 9” and, at the height of his career in the early fifties, and he never weighted more that 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 muscles made him the strong player he was. He had the eye of a hawk, some might say a compensatory quality for defects in his oral and aural senses. Neighbours have commented on how sharp that eyesight was 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 and 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 it in his hand as it rebounded in different directions. Probably his greatest ability was a sensitive touch allied with the tilt 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-looking affair. He was a professional before his time and many of the skills he developed are in common usage today.


His Achievements

Tony Reddin's list of achievements is impressive by any standards. As well as winning three All-lrelands, six National Leagues, two Brendan Cup medals and one Oireachtas, he also won six Railway Cup medals and four ‘Ireland Team’ cups, the nearest thing to All-Star teams at the time. He travelled to London on nine occasions and played on the winning Monaghan Cup team on eight occasions. His ninth visit was as a substitute in 1957 when Tipperary were beaten. With Lorrha he won a second senior divisional title in 1956, before going down to Thurles Sarsfields in the county final.

During the course of his entire career with the county Tony played approximately one hundred major games and was on the winning side eighty-seven times. Whereas this success rate was a tribute to the standard of Tipperary hurling during the period, it was also in no small way due to the brilliance of the man between the posts.

Another interesting aspect of Tony's career in hurling was the regularity with which he turned out to play. From the first game he played with the county in October 1948 until he was dropped for the Monaghan Cup after the league defeat in May 1956, I can find only one match, a league game against Limerick at Kilmallock on February 6, 1955, when he didn't turn out. Having lost his place for the 1956 championship he showed a final flash of brilliance in the county championship of that summer. He was recalled for the league campaign and played three matches, the last of which was in February 1957. He won a league medal that year as a sub, when Tipperary defeated Kilkenny, and played his last game with the county when Tipperary travelled to New York the following October.

Reddin's last appearance with Lorrha was in 1958 when the team lost to Roscrea in the championship. One report on the game stated that “Tony Reddin showed he was by no means a has-been goalkeeper.” He played his first game for his adopted club on Easter Sunday 1947 against St. Vincent's. A month later he won his first tournament, for suit-lengths, at Portumna. It was a seven-a-side competition and Lorrha defeated Kilruane by nine points to one. Eugene O’Meara scored eight of the points and Tony got the other from a goal clearance. On the same day Reddin won the long puck competition with a drive of 106 yards. During his time with the Lorrha team he failed to turn out on only one occasion. That was in a tournament at Borrisokane in June 1951 against Ahane, who included Mick Mackey and Sean Herbert in their lineout that day. During his twelve years with Lorrha Reddin won North Championship medals in 1948 and 1956.

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 let the forwards in. Tony's greatest asset was the ability to stop the ball 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.

In my years of playing and following the game of hurling, no goalkeeper can compare with Tony Reddin. Ever since that wet and windy day in 1948 he has remained a hero, so reliable, so dependable, never equalled. I suppose the three All-Irelands he featured so strongly in, 1949, 1950 and 1951, left an indelible imprint on my experience. Having the privilege of playing in front of him in the North Senior Hurling Final against Borrisileigh in 1956 confirmed my feeling for the man, and I felt proud of the opportunity to share a hurling championship success with him before the end of his playing days.

Tony Reddin died in March 2015 in his 96th year and was buried in Bonoham Cemetery, in the parish of Lorrha. Mourned by his wife, Maura, and their nine children and families, only one gift was presented at the funeral mass for him in St. Rynagh's Church, Banagher on 4 March and that was the hurley stick he used when winning the 1949, 1950 and 1951 All-Irelands. It was a fitting and appropriate presentation as it was offering to his Maker the symbol of the gift which Tony had received at birth and which he developed, honed and perfected so well during his hurling career.