THE TIME the legendary Sam Maguire cup went missing in New York City, prompting FBI intervention, is recalled in a new book by Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan.
My Sporting Lifeby the former Kerry footballer and multiple All-Ireland medal winner will be launched tonight.
In the book, published by Red Hen, he recounts a humorous tale from 1981 when he was asked to bring the Sam Maguire to New York to have it photographed with the Super Bowl trophy and the World Series baseball trophy.
“I felt that it was too much of a responsibility and was against bringing it,” Mr Deenihan said, although he was eventually persuaded otherwise.
The cup was stored in a safe at Gaelic Park in the Bronx while the Feale Rangers team socialised. They lost a match to Tyrone’s Ardboe the following day.
“After the match I went into the bar in Gaelic Park to collect the cup only to be told by the caretaker that it had been taken from the safe by someone unknown to him that morning.”
Panic ensued, and only the intervention of an FBI officer helped recover the cup. “When I called to Gaelic Park the following morning at 11am, the Sam Maguire was in the bar wrapped in a black plastic refuse bag.”
Mr Deenihan also remembers having his nose broken during a game by the Dublin half-back Pat O’Neill in a 1978 game in New York. Later that night, in Rosie O’Grady’s Bar in downtown Manhattan, a message was passed to Mr Deenihan from Mr O’Neill.
The message was “that he was very sorry for striking me and that it was a case of mistaken identity; as visibility was bad, he had mistaken me for Páidí Ó Sé”.
His nose soon healed “and I just forgot about the incident”.
