Declan Bogue

FOR THE PAST fifty years, the name of Pat Spillane has been front and centre of Irish sports discourse.

His achievements were on a skyscraper scale. Twelve Munster titles, eight All-Irelands and nine All-Stars speaks of a career that that cast-iron excellence and consistency throughout. But it also discounts the three years he lost with a cruciate knee injury.

Thirty years as a pundit then followed when he enraged and entertained in equal measure.

And yet, he kept the bigger part of himself away from view. Content to play the caricature for the public eye, Spillane released a couple of books that traded on after-dinner speaker yarns and quips, but without any depth.

However, ‘In the Blood – My life in and out of football’, ghost-written by Michael Moynihan, brings us closer to how he is, where he comes from and what matters.

And that is; the educator who decided to bring a class to the trial around the Whiddy Island disaster. The man who spent years toiling to modernise his Templenoe club only to see his son get less than fair play on the playing fields. The campaigner for rural Ireland who drew years of torment down upon himself for upsetting the system, and the husband and father.

The man who was on the television for all that time now feels like a hologram. We catch up with him now once the initial fuss over the book launch has come and gone and find a contended, good-humoured man who loves talking.

Declan Bogue: Pat, any time a book comes out, there is a reaction to some headlines. But how have you found the reaction from those who have had the time to read the book?

Pat Spillane: It has been amazing.

First of all, I have said this a lot of times, but I just felt that I wanted people to know the real me, rather than the guy who spoke for three hours every year on The Sunday Game.

It’s not the book you expect from Pat Spillane if you are used to The Sunday Game. It’s not one where I wanted to criticise any individual. And it’s not the book I wanted to settle scores.

It was about life, family, homeplace, teaching, motivation.

It’s a bit of everything. I wouldn’t say it is a typical GAA book.

DB: It’s also a rich, living document of rural Ireland in a very uncertain time. It couldn’t have been better coming from a man who ran a country pub and is steeped in the local GAA club.

PS: I think it is. It’s not that long ago, but big things and small things; like, I was talking about the Whiddy Island disaster which happened just before I started teaching in Bantry in 1979 and 99% of people hadn’t heard of it.

And 50 people were killed. Seven Irish and nobody knows about it.

The Stardust Enquiry is on at the moment now. They are hoping that the victim’s families are going to get a little bit of justice. And the wee bit of publicity around Whiddy Island could do something for it. Perhaps bring a new tribunal to try to get justice for the victim’s families and get an apology from the Government of Ireland for letting down the families of victims.

There’s a bit of everything; sociology, history of rural Ireland, the plight of rural Ireland. I was worried because if I go on television and say, ‘Today is Wednesday’, 10% of people will agree with me. 20% will disagree and 70% will have their usual rant about Spillane and go for the man instead of the ball.

I was afraid this might happen. But not this time.

I am happy that I have done a good book. I haven’t criticised anyone and if there’s an epitaph, well then this is my epitaph.

It’s an honest account and it’s what I stand for; family, community and Templenoe and Kerry.

The last day of The Sunday Game was the sort of watershed moment, because it was the day I cried. And like I said, on television you always have your soundbites ready and your notes. Everything on television is fairly rehearsed.

Until you cry!

But I couldn’t get over the reaction. Social media was becoming an itch and I was getting obsessed that the 2 or 3 % of people who watch The Sunday Game, the anonymous keyboard warriors, would goad me.

It was bothering me and it was bothering my family, so I was amazed by the (positive) reaction. For ten years I had been listening to the same shite, ‘It’s time to get rid of Brolly, Spillane and O’Rourke, they are past it, put them out to grass, the game has changed…’

And ever since the day I announced I was leaving, people have been calling for the Sunday Game to bring back Brolly, Spillane and O’Rourke!

What I found about that day was the outpouring of affection was unreal. I mean we got hundreds, upon hundreds, upon hundreds of messages and letters that I simply couldn’t respond to. Presents, little gifts!

It was unreal and maybe I did touch a few people’s hearts. Maybe some people liked me!

That threw me. Me talking about my father, it’s amazing how that connected with people. Others telling me how they never grieved my father. So it gave me an idea. There were a couple of publishing agencies that had come to me to do a book.

Even getting the name of the book. It had to be about me and about family. ‘In The Blood.’ That’s it.

DB: You make mention of how Joe Brolly and you are such old friends, but there’s some catty moments too! By the end I get the sense that you are content to finish up your television work, while Joe clearly craves more and more.

PS: It was gas in a way. I got Joe down to launch the book. I have been great friends with Joe and I like Joe.

Now, on the set when we were live on air, oh God save us, we hated each other with a passion. It didn’t matter what I said, you know Joe was going to go the opposite. It was good for television!

With Joe Brolly on punditry duty. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

I know when they wanted to get rid of the celebrity pundits out of RTÉ, the Dunphys and George Hooks and so on, and the three footballing boys.

And sometimes in this country, faraway fields are greener and we don’t realise how good we had it. We had a great thing going. There was an audience. And we decided to get rid of it. RTÉ probably bowed down to social media pressure for change.

Once, the pundits had a meeting with (RTÉ Head of Sport, Declan McBennett) and we had a handout and he was talking about the greatest sports analysis programme in the world; Monday Night Football.

Now, that’s a big operation. But it is deep-dive analysis where they have the whole day to go over the game at the weekend.

The bottom line is that people want to be entertained on television. The people who want deep-dive analysis, Burnley’s Zonal Marking at corners, that sort of thing…

We were encouraged, not pushed, into the Sky model. The satellite TV model of deep-dive analysis, stats, gizmos, gadgets, looking good, speaking . . .

It became generic. But once RTÉ had gone towards the Sky model, they changed back to what RTÉ were good at, with the celebrity pundits! They are back to pushing Roy Keane, Micah Richards and all of them.

So that’s a pity, but I have no regrets.

When you talk about Joe, I was certain I was for the door. I say that Joe going allowed me to get another two years out of it. Thanks to Joe and Covid!

DB: One of the things your detractors held against you was your aversion to a lot of modern-day thinking and methods, but as a player you spent a lot of your career pushing boundaries, especially when it came to getting over your cruciate injury that ruined the 1982 season.

PS: Ok, in 1982 I presume I ruptured my cruciate. I presume it was ruptured but we never did the x-ray.

Someone said I could build up the knee without an operation. That we needed to be together in ’82 for five in a row. And I hung on and built up the muscles. I knew it wasn’t right, but that wasn’t here nor there.

After losing five in a row, I decided I would get an operation. I researched it to find out as my uncle was in Glasgow Celtic at the time, Canon Michael Lyne. Through the Celtic medical team and David Hay, they were able to identify the person to talk to was George Burley, the Scottish international who played with Chelsea.

On the treatment table. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

We got it done with a guy who was in Colorado. It was the headquarters of knee injuries because of all the skiing injuries, so the best surgeons of the time were operating there. I found a guy, David Dandy. Now, I paid for a good bit of it myself.

Once that was over, that was it. As regards rehabilitation and recovery, this was a journey into the unknown. There was nothing out there. Nothing out there except for keeping the muscles strong.

I went at it like a lunatic. I came back a different person. Single-minded and focussed and I was told I would never again play football and that was what resonated with me for two years.

And I had been privileged and lucky to have won so many honours in the game but I missed the three best years of my playing career; ’81, ’82 and ’83.

I trained twelve times a week. Monday to Saturday twice a day. I never missed my weight training every second day, I wanted to build my muscles up to as strong as I could. I did 30 or 40 laps of the field with 10lb weights on my ankles.

The two things that were going round my head was, one, that I felt I had never celebrated the previous three victories. And if I ever got a chance to win something again, I would really celebrate.

And the second thing you realised was that when you are gone, you are gone. And I said if I was going to come back again, I was going to come back for myself.

Which is selfish, but it drove me on. There were nights when you were running around the pitch with the wind and the rain coming in from Kenmare Bay and you’d be thinking that you were wasting your time but you’d keep going and keep going.

The injury was a turning point in my playing career. But I was lucky enough to come back again and have a lot of success.

DB: There is a significant chapter in which you describe being part of a Government taskforce to help rural Ireland. And yet it ends with a non-stop harassment and investigations into your financial affairs that went on for two years. How come you never said anything in public?

PS: I upset the establishment. The system. I upset powerful people in the system.

When I tried to find out why (this was happening), I would be told, ‘Oh, you were outspoken.’ So being outspoken is a sin in this country?

It was the hardest chapter in the book. I honestly spent weeks not sleeping, thinking about writing this chapter in the book. It brought back so many nightmares. Not memories. Nightmares.

Myself and my wife were subject to two of the worst years of our life. Non-stop, non-stop, non-stop.

Occasionally, we might tell somebody. But every time you would be trying to find out what it was about, you were told it was being driven by above. Who was above? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

Do I want to know at this stage? No.

Why didn’t I write it in a column? I couldn’t even think about writing it in a column. I found it so difficult.

I remember so many nights sitting up at night, watching CNN as I couldn’t sleep and I remember sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea with my wife, crying. I’d be saying, ‘We didn’t deserve this.’

And no citizen of this country did deserve it.

But one of the things in life I have is that I can compartmentalise things. I don’t revisit the Golden Years. I don’t go back on anything. When I am finished, I am finished.

Those were horrible years. I have closed that chapter and certainly don’t want to revisit it.

DB: At various times, you said publicly that you would manage Kerry underage teams, and you offered to take the London senior team. Being frank, most seen that as publicity stunts. But would you ever have fancied taking a county team, given what Colm O’Rourke has done?

PS: At 68 years old, with blood pressure and cholesterol, I am easing down in the world.

The game has changed and it is evolving. But I see in so many other sports, you see it in RTÉ and the world around us, the buzz word is ‘inclusitivity.’

And of course, what is happening in television is they are practising ‘exclusitivity’. 

It’s the same in the world of sport. You see what O’Rourke has done – who is one of his advisors? Sean Boylan. Because Sean Boylan has a football brain.

I see it in Kerry. I am not going to be throwing my hat in the ring as a manager. I offered my services several times to Kerry and they rejected me.

Against Cork in the 1986 Munster final. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

Had I something to offer? Course I had. Would I like to help out as a, say, ‘forwards coach?’ Jesus, I know forward play inside out, left, right and centre.

Could I give them 600 drills on kicking, shooting, making space?  Jesus, I could write the book on it.

But nobody’s ever asked me! I don’t think they will be ringing me any time soon after this article!

DB: You said that while playing for Templenoe, you had a bad habit of eating team mates when they made a mistake. That has to be a regret?

PS: No. That’s me on the playing field.

The fella on the playing fella, is not the same fella off the playing field.

If you look at the Jonny Sextons, Roy Keanes, Michael Jordans, some people have a different mindset on the pitch. It’s about winning and being aggressive and that was me.

But anyone who knows me, and I mean really knows me – and, I would say there are very few people who really know me – somebody says, ’Spillane’s a bollocks, I don’t like him.’

Well, those close friends I have, the five or six people I have would tell you I am a very quiet person and the one thing with me is that I don’t bear any begrudges to any enemies. I have no grudges at all, at all. I swear to God. If there’s anything to leave people with, it is that I forgive and forget.

If people are upset about something I might have shouted at them in the heat of battle, during a match, well then so be it. They have the problem, not me.

DB: The image you projected was of someone who is quite cranky, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all . . .

PS: That’s why I like my quiet life here. I have my schedule for the evening. Five hours of sport every day, ten hours of sport every weekend.

I am in the middle of Hereford and Happy Valley, that will take me two or three hours. I will get United and Galatasary. I will watch Arsenal after that, and then I’ll get Galway V UUJ. I watched the Division 2 league final last night, Tralee beat Dundalk. Lovely game of football. Jesus, nice game of football.

That’s my life.