Brothers in Sport Read Free

enthusiast. Their sister Margaret ensured the hurling bloodlines would remain blue when she married into the Fitzpatrick family, well known in hurling circles in Kilkenny and beyond. They shared in the family pride. Pat recalls the 1967 victory fondly for another reason. His father saw him win an All-Ireland. Two years later, at the age of fifty-nine, Gerard Henderson passed away. Ger was just fifteen years old, while John was eleven and still in national school. ‘Pat became more of a father-figure to us then than a brother,’ says John. ‘He became a huge influence in every way. He was fourteen years older than me so I looked up to him in every way. But he didn’t just influence us. He influenced the whole of north Kilkenny. As a hurler he broke the mould and many others would follow him.’
    Pat himself was greatly influenced by Kilkenny’s trainer at the time, Fr (now Monsignor) Tommy Maher. ‘He was a great mentor. Himself, Donie Nealon and Snitchie Ferguson invented hurling coaching during the 1960s and 1970s. They spent their summers in Gormanston studying the game, working out new training and coaching techniques. It was a whole new approach and those of us lucky enough to learn from him applied all the tricks of the trade when we began coaching ourselves.’ Fr Maher’s legacy continues to the present day – Brian Cody was one of his students as well.
    ‘Fr Tommy’s philosophy was that the best way to train was playing hurling, but he also realised the need to prepare physically. For that he brought in an international athlete, Michael Lanigan, who showed us how to get fit. Dr Kieran Cuddihy looked after our diet and everything else relating to our well-being. He was an excellent guy who made a great contribution.’
    Johnstown had been home to a number of different clubs over the decades. In 1968 the town had both St Kieran’s and St Finbarr’s. They decided to amalgamate and took the name The Fenians, winning their first Kilkenny Senior Championship in 1970. Pat was captain and was given the honour of captaining Kilkenny in 1971. They won another Leinster Championship and again faced Tipperary in the All-Ireland final. It was the first of five consecutive finals for the team during the period of experimentation with eighty-minute games. They were considered good enough to win all five, but were stopped in their tracks in 1971 when Tipperary won by three points in a high-scoring game, 5–17 to 5–14. They did win three of the next four Championships, the sequence being broken when they lost to Limerick in 1973.
    ‘People talk today quite rightly about the achievements of the current Kilkenny team,’ observes Ger, ‘but that team from 1972 to 1975 was very unlucky not to win four Championships in a row. It was an outstanding team and, no disrespect to Limerick, but surely they would have done it if they had not got so many injuries in 1973.’
    Ger had made his Senior Championship debut in the 1974 Leinster campaign, but lost his place on the team for the All-Ireland series. He was on the fringes during the 1975 campaign but was kept busy with a very talented under-21 side that won a second All-Ireland Championship that summer. Kevin and Ger Fennelly, Dick O’Hara, Joe Hennessy, Brian Cody and Billy Fitzpatrick would all graduate to senior status. They too would come under the spell of Pat Henderson, this time in the guise of coach.
    At club level, Pat and Ger played side by side in the 1974 Kilkenny and Leinster Club Championship successes. They lost the All-Ireland club final to St Finbarr’s of Cork, however, in the spring of 1975. But they won another title in 1977 and that meant that Ger would captain Kilkenny the following year. ‘What sticks out most in my mind about my career,’ explains Ger, ‘was being the captain in 1978 and leading the team out for the All-Ireland final in Croke Park. That moment was a brilliant feeling. Cork won the final, but it is still one of the highlights for