In the summer of 1963, a week before Dublin played Kildare in a Leinster semi-final, Kevin Heffernan visited an old comrade.
Des Ferguson, the great Dublin dual player, had by then left the intercounty stage and was getting on with a new life in Meath. But the old life was about to pull him back in.
Heffo persuaded Ferguson to return and swore him to secrecy. Ferguson paid in as a punter at the turnstiles on the day and when he walked through the Dublin dressingroom door, only Heffo was expecting him. Ferguson scored 1-2 and Dublin went on to win the All-Ireland that year.
Dublin comeback stories, they are kind of a thing.
Some 60 years later, after two seasons away, 41-year-old Stephen Cluxton’s old life paid him a visit. And just like Ferguson, he made his comeback in a Leinster semi-final against Kildare.
Cluxton has amassed 118 championship appearances, the most in history. Sean Cavanagh on 89 is next. During his championship career, Cluxton has kept 71 clean sheets and conceded 65 goals. He last conceded a goal in the 2019 All-Ireland final draw against Kerry, Killian Spillane doing the damage. Cluxton is on a run of 13 games without conceding a goal.
He made his debut in 2001 with some team-mates who had been born in the late 1960s, while several of his current colleagues are babies of the noughties.
The 2019 Footballer of the Year is one of the most decorated players of all time, a winner of eight All-Irelands and the man who captained Dublin to six in a row. Should the Dubs win on Sunday, history will recount this as one of the greatest comebacks in Irish sport.
His return has also gifted us probably one last showdown between the greatest player of all time in David Clifford and the game’s greatest goalkeeper. Clifford has never scored a goal on Cluxton.
Here is Cluxton’s career as seen by some who have been part of goalkeeping’s greatest show.
The Early Years
When it popped up during a table quiz several years ago, a friend who had been in attendance rang Pádraic Davis and put the question to him.
Who was the first player to score a goal on Stephen Cluxton as a Dublin senior goalkeeper?
“Had I been at the quiz, I wouldn’t have known the answer,” smiles Davis, the first player to score a goal on Stephen Cluxton as a Dublin senior goalkeeper.
It was a Leinster quarter-final at Croke Park on May 27th, 2001, the afternoon a slight, boyish Cluxton made his senior debut for Dublin because regular goalkeeper Davy Byrne was injured. Dessie Farrell was in the Dublin attack that day, Jim Gavin came off the bench.
Dublin won 2-19 to 1-13 but late on Longford were awarded a 21-metre free. The Dubs expected Davis to pop the ball over the bar but he noted a laissez-faire attitude among the Dublin defence
“Only Paul Curran had made his way back to the line. I just said, ‘f*ck it, I’ll go for it.’ It caught them unawares,” recalls Davis.
But the bony 19-year-old kid between the posts left his mark on Davis. During one challenge with Cluxton, the Dublin goalkeeper met him with a leading elbow. Managing Mohill several years later, Davis was lecturing his players on the importance of standing up in the tackle when one of them pulled out an image from another time.
“There was a photograph of that incident and the lads had it, they were slagging me, ‘You went down fairly handy yourself that day’. Stephen was able to handle himself from early on.”
By the following season Cluxton was first-choice Dublin goalkeeper. From 2002 until 2018 he missed just one championship game – suspension ruled him out of a 2004 Leinster quarter-final against Westmeath.
Bryan Murphy, originally from Beaufort in Kerry, replaced Cluxton that afternoon. For the best part of 17 years Murphy was the only person apart from Cluxton to play a championship game in goal for Dublin.
Murphy, an All-Ireland minor winning goalkeeper with Kerry in 1994, had moved to the capital and after impressing in trials he accepted an invitation to join the 2002 Dublin squad, where he quickly struck up a strong relationship with Cluxton.
Night after night the pair would abscond to a corner of the training pitch and work on drills. In the shadows, a bright new age for Gaelic football goalkeeping was dawning.
“The two of us would go off on our own because this was in an era before professional goalkeeping coaches were involved with intercounty squads,” says Murphy. “We would have both had a fair bank of drills, we’d compare notes and work on them.”
The Glory Years
Jimmy McGrane can still see the Dublin players milling through the doors of the clubhouse in Parnells, for it briefly became an annual event.
“They were great days. The Sam Maguire would always come to the club the day after the final because Stephen was captain,” recalls McGrane, who is currently managing the club’s first team.
It was during this period Cluxton revolutionised the game. Murphy stepped away at the end of the 2005 campaign and started to work as a goalkeeping coach with Farrell’s development squads, staying involved until 2019.
As the underage teams picked up minor and under-21 success, at senior level the silverware poured in.
“Stephen was redefining the game at that stage,” adds Murphy.
The Final Years
Kick-outs had become an attacking weapon because of Cluxton and that shift forced everybody to adapt. Marc Ó Sé remembers endless summits to try to crack the Dublin goalkeeper’s code.
“We had meetings after meetings about Cluxton,” recalls Ó Sé. Eventually, for the 2016 All-Ireland semi-final, Kerry opted to squeeze. The time had come to see if Cluxton had the juice for it.
“We were the first team to actually do the press and we did it really effectively in that semi-final. We put Cluxton under pressure in that first half, we thought we had him rumbled.” Kerry led by five points at the interval.
“But he came out in the second half and was the old Cluxton again, it was incredible mental strength.” Dublin ran out 0-22 to 2-14 winners.
His final game was played at an empty Croke Park, captaining Dublin to the 2020 All-Ireland title. Nothing about it felt right. In the months that followed Farrell tried to explain Cluxton’s absence as him stepping back, not retiring. But whatever he was trying to sell, nobody was buying. Cluxton was gone.
During the Covid lockdown, Cluxton put together programmes for players in the club to train on their own and formulated systems of play they could look at when games resumed. He had moved on from Dublin. But even at club level last season injuries impacted his involvement. It appeared he was slipping quietly away from the game on all fronts.
But factors elsewhere changed all of that. Evan Comerford’s recovery from groin surgery was taking longer than anticipated and while David O’Hanlon was deputising during the league, the Dublin management felt they needed more goalkeeping cover. If Cluxton’s Dublin career started because of an injury to Davy Byrne, then it received a second coming because of an injury to Comerford.
The Comeback Year
Dublin’s goalkeeping coach, Josh Cullen, who had remained in touch with Cluxton, put the feelers out. He was open to the idea, the unthinkable was about to happen.
“In Dublin, people were pleasantly surprised and everybody else outside of Dublin was like, ‘Oh no, he’s back,’” smiles Murphy.
Few teams have tested Cluxton this year like Roscommon. Davy Burke’s side really frustrated the Dubs with a high-possession game in the round-robin series. Roscommon felt there were chinks in the armour.
“We knew we could squeeze the kick-outs further up the field because it looks that he has lost his range when it comes to that ball he used to hit to half forwards,” says Burke. “We were fairly sure we could squeeze and that we’d be safe enough, that we wouldn’t be done over the top.”
But Cluxton found another way.
“His midrange kick-outs are absolutely devastating, they just open you up,” adds Burke. “So, while his range might be limited now, I think he has actually got better at the midrange ones. The accuracy of them is frightening.”
Murphy’s daughters have Dublin jerseys signed by Cluxton, oblivious to the fact Daddy was alongside him at the start of this incredible journey. “He’s the best we have ever seen in the position. His return is a great story,” he says.
Burke reckons Cluxton has bolstered the Dublin camp with more than merely his goalkeeping ability.
“He has transformed that team, they were probably trudging along there for a while, whereas now they are a completely different outfit. I think people underestimate the loss of Jonny Cooper and Cluxton in quick succession, two big leaders, because regardless of all the talent in the world, leadership voids are very hard to fill.
“Cluxton has raised the standards of that group. The security and assurance he gives them is unbelievable.”
McGrane has been in regular contact. Cluxton’s return to intercounty action is likely to benefit the club too. After Sunday, the hope is he will return to Parnells.
“That’s the plan,” says McGrane.
“I wouldn’t say there are many players over 40 who could come back and play at the top level, but nothing surprises you with Stephen. He’s a leader and hopefully he can get Dublin over the line on Sunday.”
It would complete the comeback of all comebacks.
Over the hill, no longer.
King of the Hill, forever.
Heffo would approve.
