Thirty years on from one of the most memorable All-Ireland finals in history

Back in the mid-1970s, when Tommy Dowd was only a youngster, the Canadian band Backman-Turnover Overdrive had a major hit with ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ which reached number one in the American Top 100. It was also heard regularly on Irish radio and in local discos which were all the rage at the time.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet/B-b-b-baby you just ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet/ Here’s something that you’re never gonna forget/B-b-baby, you just ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet” runs part of the chorus.

It’s a catchy tune, the chorus line memorable, and it was swirling around in Dowd’s consciousness when in the summer of 1996 he climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to receive the Delaney Cup on behalf of his colleagues.

Meath had just beaten Dublin in the Leinster SFC final after a typically tight, uncompromising encounter between the two old rivals. In his speech the Meath captain, who enjoys his music, trawled up the line from the hit song. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said amid loud cheers during his acceptance speech, delighting the big contingent of Meath supporters who made up the 60,000 plus attendance.

The line from the song was an affirmation of Dowd’s view that the newly-minted Meath team of that year, that he led, had as bright a future ahead of them as a beaming spotlight in the dance hall.

“It was purely spontaneous for me to use that line,” he says now looking back on that great day for him and Meath football. “I would be a big fan of music so it kind of just came into my head when I was making the speech.”

He was right too. GAA fans hadn’t seen nothing when it came to Meath and the kind of football they produced as they pushed on to overcome Tyrone with a swashbuckling display in a highly controversial All-Ireland semi-final before going on to defeat Mayo in the final, after a replay, in another game that kept the pundits and public talking for weeks, indeed years.

“It did come to fruition (that people hadn’t seen nothing yet) too in the way, for example, Graham (Geraghty) nearly single-handedly defeated Tyrone. It was one of the best displays I ever saw anyway from one player in Croke Park that day. Absolutely outstanding,” he recalls.

That Tyrone game also contained a number of flashpoints with some complaining – on shows such as RTE’s Liveline the following day - that Meath were over-physical in their approach pointing to how one of the Tyrone players, Brian Dooher, had his head heavily swathed in bandages after Martin O’Connell had accidently clipped him with his boot.

Other Tyrone players absorbed hefty challenges with accusations of “dirty Meath” morphing into a chorus of criticism directed towards the new Leinster champions.

“We weren’t bothered by it, not really, we were fairly thick skinned,” recalls Dowd. “They were on about these hard men on the team, dirty Meath, but you have to bear in mind there was six players on our team who were u-20 or u-21 so I don’t know where all that was coming from, they were a bunch of young, inexperienced players.

“All the publicity didn’t bother us, Meath always got flak even going back to the 1980s or end of the ‘80s so the criticism was never going to annoy or bother us in any way. We were well able to look after ourselves. We let it all go over our head so to speak!”

Further controversy – and criticism - was directed towards Meath following the All-Ireland final replay in which they defeated Mayo. Fortunate to survive the first day – they were rescued by a late Colm Coyle point – Meath were better in the replay that included a mother and father of a row that erupted soon after the throw in.

It has since gone into legend as one of the most famous, if not THE, most famous row in the history of the GAA. Coyle and Mayo’s Liam McHale were subsequently sent off but at least a dozen players could have met the same fate.

Dowd was one of the few who didn’t get involved in the mass punch up. “I was marking Noel Connelly, the Mayo captain, he was a wing-back and I was a wing-half-forward and we were at the opposite end of the pitch. I remember even talking to him and saying ‘ah sure it will be over in a second or two.’ There’s no point in going down we said to each other but it kept developing and developing. By the time we did go down to the Hill 16 end the row was over.

“It’s something that shouldn’t have happened, it’s not something we were proud of in the heel of the hunt. After the replay everyone was on tenterhooks, it was do or die in the replay.”

Meath went on to win that rematch, 2-9 to 1-11, with Dowd getting one of the goals, the Dunderry man turning the ball into the net while still lying on the ground after he was heavily tackled. Afterwards he once more had to climb the Hogan Stand steps and accept a trophy – this time the Sam Maguire itself. Later in the year Dowd was nominated as an All-Star, his fourth such award.

REMARKABLE SEASON

The row, the replay, the Liveline phone ins, the triumphs, the All-Star, the plaudits, the big performances, the controversies, the after-match speeches were all part of a remarkable season for Dowd who had been on the inter-county scene for six years by then and had established himself as one of the top forwards in the country.

He had experienced good times but plenty of pain too, with Meath losing out in two All-Ireland finals in 1990 to Cork and the following year to Down. That 1991 showdown was also one of an unprecedented 10 matches Meath played in the championship, a run that included the famous four-game, first-round saga against Dublin with Kevin Foley scoring his famous goal after a pitch-length move that has become part of GAA folklore. The move started at the Canal Hill end and finished in front of Hill 16 with Dowd passing the ball to Foley who lashed the ball to the net from close range.

Championship success proved elusive for Meath in ’92, ’93, ’94 and ’95 (when they lost 10 points to Dublin) as Sean Boylan went about rebuilding the team. Because Dunderry won the SFC in ’95 Dowd was asked to lead Meath in 1996. A Meath team that included a plethora of young, untested players at the highest level. Few gave Meath a chance.

“We certainly didn’t envisage we were going to win an All-Ireland in ’96 after been beaten by Dublin by 10 points the year before,” Dowd now recalls.

Someone who loved playing for Meath, the Dunderry man wasn’t burdened down by the captaincy. He was chuffed to be asked durIng a chat with Boylan and selectors Eamonn O’Brien and Frank Foley one evening at training in Gormanston.

“It wasn’t a big weight on my shoulders being captain. All it entailed was making a few speeches and saying a few words before we went out on the field because there were already great leaders in the team – Trevor Giles, Graham, John McDermott, Brendan Reilly – any of them.

“The one thing about Sean is that everyone had their say whether it was at a meeting or half-time or whenever. He was never one to rule to roost, he always wanted everyone to have their say and be clear on what we were doing.”

As it turned out 1996 was to be one of two years Dowd won All-Ireland SFC medals. He claimed his second in 1999 when Meath got their hands on Sam once more, although he played only a cameo role in that success, his summer dogged by a debilitating back injury.

He came on for the final seconds of the victory over Cork in the final in what was a cameo appearance. He had another go at the inter-county scene the following year but he knew the game was up. Instead he focused on the club scene.

In time he left Dunderry and turned out for Wolfe Tones which had become his local club after he moved to Gibbstown, where he and his wife Geraldine brought up their two daughters, Emma and Mandy. He played his part in helping the Tones move up through the ranks and win their first Keegan Cup in 2008.

He spent some time as a selector of the Meath team when Colm Coyle was manager, happy to play a part once more, although it proved to be something of an eye-opener. “It’s different to be involved in management as opposed to playing. There is an awful lot more involved.”

In his job distributing home heating oil to people around Meath, the ever affable Dowd, gets plenty of opportunities to talk about football.

From time to time he might be asked about 1996 – that unforgettable year when he used a well-known line from a famous song to underline just how he felt about the team he happily led into battle.