Legends: Willie Joe Padden Monday, September 16, 2013 The Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour Series draws to a close for another year as former Mayo player Willie Joe Padden leads a tour of Croke Park Stadium on the eve of the GAA Football All-Ireland Championship Final on Saturday, September 21. I was moved out to midfield to where Jacko (Jack OShea) and Tommy Doyle were. I was doing alright, in fact, I must have been doing alright because Kerry saw fit to put Seán Walsh out on me in the second half Willie Joe Padden Willie Joe Padden is one of Mayos most iconic players of all time. The Belmullet man was one of the best midfielders in the game during his long career in the red and green, which lasted at senior level from 1977 until 1993. He won five Connacht Senior Championship medals, in 1981, 1985, 1988, 1989 and 1992, and played in the 1989 All-Ireland football championship final, which Mayo lost to Cork. That was the closest Willie Joe came to winning the Sam Maguire Cup during his career. He won All Stars in 1985 and 1989, and this Sunday, he will be honoured on the pitch at Croke Park as a member of the Stars of the 80s team, a collection of some of the best players from that decade to never have won an All-Ireland senior championship medal. Ahead of his Legends Tour, GAA.ie conducted an interview with Willie Joe about his long career in Gaelic football, and what Mayo football means to him. Click here to book for Willie Joes tour. *** GAA.ie: Take us back to your earliest memories of playing Gaelic football. What was that time like and who were the players you looked up to? WJP: As a young fella of 10 or 12, there was always a bunch of young fellas around the locality. We would all gather around in the evenings, and you would always have nine or 10 guys kicking ball and playing games. Obviously as young fellas, we were aspiring to be like some of the names that we heard on the radio during the championship. From our own Ray Prendergast and John Morley in Mayo to Mick OConnell, to all the great fellas who were around at that stage. We would all copy different styles of different fellas. That was basically it. That put the interest of Gaelic football into all our heads at that stage. Q: Were you always a midfielder? A: I was. We used to have little parish leagues and it just seemed to be that I always ended up in the middle of the field. It wasnt that I was the biggest fella, but it was just where I ended up. Obviously at my own age group at club level I always played midfield, but when I was 13 and 14 I was playing midfield for the U14 team, centre-half-forward for the U16 team and corner-forward for the minor team Q: Did you have a strong family background and tradition in Gaelic football? A: Not particularly. My uncle played a bit of football but it was only parish league stuff. My older brother played a bit for the club and played colleges and schools football but apart from that, no background whatsoever. Q: You played for Belmullet all your life. What kind of a club was it during your time? A: Belmullet was a very good club and there were some very good guys there who had a great interest in underage football. Eddie Cuffe, God rest him and Fr. Seán Keane, who was the coach in the local school. There was always good attention paid to it from U14 all the way up to U21 and obviously that being the case, the club benefited from it. I won divisional U16, minor and U21 championships with Belmullet and by the time I got to senior, Belmullet had become a senior club, they had come through the ranks, having won Junior and Intermediate titles in back to back years. Q: When did you first play senior football for the club? A: I played championship for Belmullet at 16 and I might have played a league game or two when I was 15. I played a championship game against Knockmore at 16 and from there on, I was kind of always part of the set-up. The club is very good. We had some very good years at senior level and some very good players. John Gallagher who played for Mayo, Liam Donohoe, Michael OToole, Eugene Walsh, Tom Reilly. All these guys had played together at minor and U21 level, and then at senior level We were unlucky in that Garrymore were the kingpins in Mayo for a number of years. We always met them before the final stage and we often got them to a replay, or to within a point. Then in 1981 we finally got to the county final, but it was Garrymore again and we got beaten by a couple of points in that game. So we didnt win a county senior but we were always there or thereabouts, down to the last four and stuff like that. We won a senior league which was a little bit of a consolation at that time. But then some players started to retire and so on. Q: When was the first time you wore the Mayo jersey? A: The first time was at minor level in 1976. I had been a sub on the minor team the year before but I played for Mayo in the 1976 championship. The following year I was captain of the Mayo minor team that won the Connacht Championship, and we went on to play Down in the All-Ireland minor semi-final in Croke Park but we lost out there by a couple of points. There were McCartans on that Down team, Greg Blaney, and a couple of the other guys that went on to win senior All-Irelands in the early 1990s. Anyway, that was the first taste of Mayo football and I went from minor then in 1977 straight into the senior team for the 1977/1978 league and we ended up in the league final that season against Dublin. So having played with the minors in Croke Park for the first time in 1977, I was then playing a few months later for the seniors in the league final against Dublin there. Q: Having been used to playing above your age group as a young player, was such a rapid transition to senior football difficult to adapt to? A: It was a big step up, no doubt about it. Some of the guys who were playing for Mayo at that time were guys who were around for a long time at that stage and were well-seasoned. Fellas that I had looked up to for a number of years beforehand, never realising that I would get a chance to play with some of these guys. I was picked on the panel and just by chance, on the day of the game against Dublin, Seán Kilbride didnt appear and I was thrust into the full-forward position. I ended up playing midfield. Subsequently, Seán Kilbride didnt play for Mayo after that, he went on to play for Roscommon, and won two or three Connacht Championships. So that was the beginning of my time with Mayo as a senior footballer. Q: It was close to 30 years since Mayo had been to an All-Ireland final when you first started playing for the county. At the time, were All-Irelands a genuine aim? A: At the beginning, we certainly were focused on Connacht because in the 1970s, Mayo won no Connacht Championship at all. It was a very lean period for the county team. Youd always feel the team was getting better and getting places. The real aim at the start was to win a Connacht Championship and it was 1981 before we won our first one. That win signalled a new beginning for Mayo football. Roscommon had dominated a lot of Connacht football in the 1970s and it was our turn to start. It might reflect a little bit on our game against Kerry in the 1981 All-Ireland semi-final, that while we were with them, or were nearly as good as them for about a half, in the second half they pulled away from us fairly comprehensively. That was more or less a wake-up call to us as a county team that that was where you needed to be if you wanted to be in the serious hunt for honours. Q: Having finally made that breakthrough in Connacht in 1981, you faced a Kerry team in the All-Ireland semi-final that had won the previous three All-Ireland titles. In the end, Kerry won very comfortably, winning 2-19 to 1-6. What are your own personal memories of that game? A: I started centre-half-forward on Tim Kennelly, God be good to him. After 25 minutes or so, I was moved out to midfield to where Jacko (Jack OShea) and Tommy Doyle were. I was doing alright, in fact, I must have been doing alright because Kerry saw fit to put Seán Walsh out on me in the second half. That took a little bit of the wind out of my sail, and the second half turned into a training session for Kerry. They were so far ahead and they were obviously a very talented bunch. We had a serious learning curve from that. Q: That Kerry team won their fourth All-Ireland in a row in the final against Offaly later that season. Having played against them at their peak, were they as good as history has recorded them as? A: If you look at the time, Kerry had brought training to a new level. Most other county teams were training on a Tuesday and a Thursday at the time but Kerry were training five and six nights a week. At the same time, you have to just look at the team and their performances. Every single one of them were absolutely talented and at that stage, they had another bunch of lads on the sideline that were as good as any other county team. Dublin realised under Kevin Heffernan that Kerry had taken the game to a different level, and that they had to be as good to compete. Thats what subsequently happened in that era. Q: Roscommon were a strong team at that time also, so you must have had quite a few good battles with Dermot Earley? A: As a young fella marking Dermot Earley, youd just take a look at him sometimes and the man alone was a fine cut of a guy, and obviously a fine, fine footballer. And also a very fair player. I was delighted to play against him. They had John OGara as well, Seamus Heydon too. If we look back at that Roscommon team, they were probably unlucky not to have beaten Kerry in the 1980 All-Ireland final. That was a good Roscommon team. Q: In 1985, Mayo reached the All-Ireland semi-final again but there was more disappointment in the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin... A: Yeah, in 1985, we won the Connacht Championship and lost to Dublin in an All-Ireland semi-final replay. I believe the Mayo team that was around in 1985, 1986 and 1987 was when we were at our best. Unfortunately we lost to Roscommon in 1986 in the Connacht semi-final and four or five of our guys were injured on the day. Having lost that game in 1985 to Dublin, I feel that if we had got out of Connacht in 1986, the team was at the right age to have gone on and do better. By 1988, a few new lads had come into the team, Liam McHale being the stand-out. We got out of Connacht, and going back to the All-Ireland semi-final that year against Meath, we were well in the game. I think we lost by two points in the end. We had been well capable of winning it. Q: Pat Spillane said in his Legends Tour interview with us last year that he felt the Kerry team that won All-Irelands in 1984, 1985 and 1986 were not a great team and that the standard at that particular time wasnt very high. Do you agree with that and is there a sense that there were All-Irelands left behind in that period for counties like Mayo? A: Kerry would probably look back to that period in the mid 1980s and say they probably did hoover up one or two handy All-Irelands but at the end of the day, you have to go out and play the game. Certainly, some other counties, ourselves included, look back on that time and wonder if we had been more clinical, or done something different, maybe Kerry wouldnt have won all the All-Irelands but thats water under the bridge. Q: In 1989, Mayo finally reached the All-Ireland final, the first time they had done so in 38 years. What are your memories of that season? A: In 1989, we had a few epic games. Roscommon took us to a replay in Connacht and then we beat them after extra-time the next day. Being back in the All-Ireland semi-final, it was good to be back for the second year in a row and to have two Connacht Championships back to back. We were looking to go one better. Tyrone had come through as well, and they had been there before. They probably felt they were more seasoned campaigners than we were and we were underdogs going into that semi-final against Tyrone. On the day, we played well enough and we came away with the win against the odds. Q: Having finally won a semi-final, was there a huge sense of relief afterwards? A: You look back on all the semi-finals that we had lost. When you started off as a young fella playing for Mayo, you might think to yourself it wont be that long until we get to an All-Ireland final but as it turned out, it was a long time. By winning that semi-final, it was a huge relief. We felt we had progressed and we were looking forward to playing Cork in the final. Q: Was the 1989 All-Ireland final against Cork a game you should have won? A: We were well in that game. We conceded four points at the start but then we came back and we started to play well. We were well on top and when Anthony Finnerty got the first goal, we were right in it. Unfortunately, one or two of our guys got hurt. I know that Seán Maher or Greg Maher had to go off, and for a few minutes, we seemed to lose our way and Cork got back at us with a couple of points. Certainly, it was one that got away. If we had gotten a second goal, I couldnt see us being beaten. It might be easy to say now, but it was one that got away. I havent watched it recently. I watched it once or twice. But theres no point dwelling on it. You just have to close the book on it. Q: When did you finish playing with Mayo? A: In 1992, we won Connacht and were beaten by Donegal in the All-Ireland semi-final. I was disappointed that day that I didnt get a chance to play, I was on the bench. I played a few league games after that, and I quit for good in the spring of 1993. By that stage, I had been around from 1977 so it was a long time! Q: In the Saw Doctors song Hay Wrap, there is a famous line that runs Will Galway beat Mayo? Not if they have Willie Joe!. That lyric has immortalised you in the West to some extent. What its like to be remembered in song? A: It was nice to hear to hear your name mentioned in a song and it was certainly something that was funny to me. You just take it as it is, its only a song. It was probably as much that the name blended in nicely with the lyrics as much as anything else. The Mayo people have been great to me. Both when I was playing and afterwards. The one thing that was good was that they really appreciated our effort, even though we didnt get over the top of the hill as they say. Mayo people are passionate about their football and they respect fellas who give it their all. Mayo supporters, looking at it last year and looking ahead to Sunday, they are still as mad and as crazy about football as ever. Thats the type of people we are down here. Q: Is the All-Ireland final this Sunday Mayos best chance since 1951 to lift Sam Maguire? In one way, its as good a chance as Mayo will ever have. In another way, you have to remember who we are playing. Dublin have looked fantastic all year. They conceded three goals to Kerry and still came back and won the game by seven points. We would be looking at our team as having learned from the experience from last year and having not thrown in the towel. Since being beaten last year, they have shown the resolve to come back, get on with their work and be back again where they want to be. Its a credit to the management and to the players and their belief in themselves that maybe they didnt do justice to themselves last year. Theyre very determined to finish this thing off now. Q: You won two All Stars in your career, and on Sunday at Croke Park, you will be honoured as one of the Stars of the 80s team, a team of players from the 1980s who never won an All-Ireland. Are individual honours like that any consolation for not having won the All-Ireland? A: Its no consolation for not winning the real thing because as a footballer, from when you start off until you finish, your main aim is to win an All-Ireland. You do your best and if that doesnt happen, its very disappointing. If youre with a team thats not capable of doing it, then maybe its not as bad. But with a county with such a tradition of Gaelic football as Mayo, a county that probably was capable of doing it during my career, its disappointing not to win it. But on the award on Sunday week, its nice to be recognised that at least I contributed something to the game and to the excitement of the game. From that point of view, its nice. Its also nice to get out with some players that I admired myself, players that didnt happen to get the old Celtic Cross as well. Its enjoyable. And at the end of the day, you cant turn back the clock. When you get to my age, any recognition you get you take it! Q: Finally, if Mayo win on Sunday, what would it mean to the county and to players like yourself who played for years without winning the biggest prize? A: It would mean everything in one way. The most thing it would mean is that the supporters who were there in my time, those who followed the game and thought that we were going to win the All-Ireland in that time, those who are no longer with us, when I think back on them and a lot of the players that put in a huge effort and sacrifice, to finally see the county get over the hill would be huge. For a county with the tradition Mayo have to be waiting 62 years is a long, long time. When you look back at all the near misses, if any county deserves one....then at the same time, you dont expect them to be handed out. But for what Mayo football has contributed to the game as a whole in Ireland, it would be great to see them win it and for all the supporters who have been down the long, long road, it would be the icing on the cake.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:49:31 +0000
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