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| Peter Makem was the manager of an Armagh team which one the Ulster Senior Championship. Most of those players were in the squad pictured above in an All-Ireland semi-final. |
I was lucky to have entered the conscous world of footbll with the arrival of the Down team before I was aware of any Armagh misgivings; my first sighting of them
was in the Ulster Final of 1960 against Cavan at Clones, and never saw them again until the Ulster Final of the following year. In between I imagined they had
migrated, and came back somehow transformed and serene.
In that 1961 Final, Armagh were leading at half-time by 1-6 to 1-2. Everyone looked very serious. Down folk, probably because they were quite dumbfounded with the scoreboard. Armagh folk because they were equally dumbfounded.
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| James McCartan - "the myth of the broken arm." |
I think the real reason for Armagh's second-half demise was lack of fitness compared to Down. They simply could not keep up the pace after the Interval, nor had they returned from a journey of self-discovery as Down had.
Then there was the legend or The Great Entry. It's strange how the hero sprouts wings, slays dragons, contrives wooden horses, wrestles with bears and snakes, brings down the house on the Philistines with one arm in a sling. If James McCartan came on wlth one arm in a sling in that Ulster Final, it must have been both invisible and elastic. He simply came on!
Point by point, mostly from Doherty's frees, Down drew level and then went into the lead. Sometime in the last quarter of the game, with our hopes still undaunted, the ball hit the Armagh upright and bounced back into James McCartan's hands (both hands, note), near the edge of the square. Two seconds later it was in the net.
The ball had 180 degrees to play with, maybe the whole 360, but it came out to McCartan more or less deliberately. It also had an array of vertical possibilities, but it arrived in perfect catching position. He had been following that kind of prey for some time, and suddenly it crossed his path.
Armagh made a late and controversial assault on the Down goals. Did the ball go over goal-line or not? Leo Murphy is adamant it did not, - he standing like Horatio on
the line behind Eamonn McKay. Just as the umpire began to grow agitated, one of the Armagh forwards did a Bob Beamon into the goalmouth melee and liberated the
referee into a quick decision. That was that.
I remember thinking at the time that the Armagh team of that year was a very good one, but were too cavalier in their general approach. They did not have the legs to respond; and if the legs are gone the heart is quite useless. Armagh had potential flair and some outstanding individuals, but they did not have the base of fitness or the cunning of their neighbours.
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