Declan Bogue

SOMETIMES, STEPHEN FRAMPTON catches himself in the middle of the day wondering how the whole thing got from back then and his childhood spent on the bank supporting a Ballygunner team plodding along at intermediate level – in the shadow of the three-in-a-row winners of the late ‘60s – to now.

These days, he’s immersed in multiple facets of the club. Some years ago, he found his work in the bank had made him feel stale. For years he had been into coaching teams and decided to do the Setanta College course to formalise his strength and conditioning knowledge.

During Covid, he left the bank. After considering different career paths he settled on the idea of training people in the community, operating out of the Ballygunner gym.

“Training more mature people, my age and older, into their 70s to be honest,” he says.

“People that wouldn’t have been interested in going to a gym or they just wouldn’t like the gym environment, they are a bit intimidated by it.”

It is, he will admit, been immensely rewarding. Job satisfaction has been off the charts and while he has tasted hurling at the top end from his time captaining his county, as well as being in the management teams of Derek McGrath and Liam Cahill, there’s something else that comes with taking a small group of pensioners making the most of themselves.

He doesn’t so much as double-up roles as spread himself across almost everything. He heads up the Healthy Club group. He is the chairman of the field committee, and, “That doesn’t change too much because the guys that were there before me did such a great job. One of them was my father (Jeff) and another was Tim O’Keefe who was on that team of the ‘60s.”

For a man who can remember togging off in a shipping container, he is on the finance committee. He’s on the executive committee to add to everything else.

So little wonder when he thinks of the current crop bidding to win their sixth Munster senior hurling championship on Sunday against Cork’s Sarsfields (Semple Stadium, 3.15pm), he can’t help but feel they are living in the most golden of golden ages.

A few months back, they celebrated 70 years on the go as a club. It was part hooley, part reminder of how this current team stand on the shoulders of giants.

The team of the ‘60s were given due recognition, along with the founding members of the club. But also, those that toiled in lean times.

“We have a big history. We are a relatively young club compared to other clubs. But we have a history of down time as well as winning as well,” he says.

“My early days, as a child at underage, was so different from the present youngsters.

“They are seeing the senior team dominate Waterford for so many years whereas I think my first match watching them, as a 7 or 8 year old, they were playing intermediate hurling and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t too much.

“Now, every child aspires to play senior for their club and they got to the senior matches and it’s great. But it wasn’t the inspiration back then.

“I wouldn’t have understood it that way either. I wasn’t going to a match to be inspired. I was going to a match to see the senior team but they were playing intermediate at the time and they didn’t get back up to senior until 1984.”

If they hadn’t seen such riches, they could live with being poor.

He casts his mind back to a rotten day in November, 1992. To the day when his side finally delivered a championship, 24 years after the last of the three-in-a-row team.

Back then, Paul Flynn’s father Pat was the trainer. He had previously been the goalkeeper in the ‘60s team.

“I always remember him saying to us that it would happen. And I used to say, ‘would he ever shut up about this?’” he says.

“I used to think we were never going to win because Pat wasn’t driving us hard enough. But he was assuring us, ‘this will happen. Do not panic, it will happen.’

“Because we had lost a county final after a replay to Mount Sion and a couple of semi-finals before 1992. Pat used to say that we had to be patient and that it would happen for us. But we weren’t thinking like that.”

The dam burst with a 1-12 to 2-7 win over Mount Sion.

Frampton playing for Waterford in 1998. James Meehan / INPHO James Meehan / INPHO / INPHO

That night there were exuberant celebrations. But not for the players. Such was the scheduling mess of the Waterford championship, the players had to park it and get home as they were facing Clare champions Sixmilebridge in the Munster championship the very next day.

They were the proverbial lambs to the slaughter, dismissed 3-12 to 0-5. For Frampton it was doubly painful as he suffered a broken arm that proved complicated and took a long time to recover from.

Still. Progress had been made. Pat Flynn’s patience had been rewarded.

From 1995 to 2005 they hoovered up six county titles. They secured their first Munster title in 2001. Many of the next team to win one in 2018 have some formative memory of it.

That’s not the case for the youngsters round the place now.

One final thing. The last year, he’s been helping manage the club U11s.

“I enjoy it. You see real progress in kids that maybe at the start of the year they are a bit… They don’t look like they are going to be hurlers and then all of a sudden they start to get it and by the end of the year they look decent hurlers,” Frampton says.

20 years ago he started coaching and brought groups up from U9 to senior. Now he’s gone back to repeat the process.

“It is great to have a little perspective now and not get too excited about matches. Not too excited on the sideline when matches are not going too well.

“You have other guys who might have kids involved and they get a little bit animated. It’s good to have that perspective now on it.”

The wheel keeps turning. They take nothing for granted.