As if compiling a results archive isn’t a frustrating enough task, I’ve been pondering whether to go down the even more traumatic road of creating a gallery of Waterford match programme covers. My father has been renovating the house of late and programmes occasionally squirt out from inside cupboards or under carpets, blearily squinting at the daylight. I’ve been pooling them together, and while it’s hardly comprehensive some of the older ones are an intriguing insights into the GAA of the day. One of most recent ones to surface was this:
Initially I assumed it was the 1992 Munster final, featuring as it does players from Limerick and Cork. Then closer inspection revealed the words ‘leath-cheannais’. Flick straight to the middle for the teams from the senior match – some thing never change – and there we were. Presumably they couldn’t find an adequately contemporaneous image, Waterford not having played Limerick at senior level in a whopping eighteen months. I can live with that though – the introduction of sponsor’s logos probably would have badly dated a photo from that game. What’s really galling is the mentality revealed by the ultimate choice. Failing to find a decent shot of Waterford AND Limerick, therefore faced with the choice between Waterford OR Limerick, there was ever only going to be one outcome.
Things have improved. In fact, the first steps on that road came several weeks later when the Minors would shock everyone by drawing with Tipperary in the Munster final. Some day I might be able to stop whinging about this. But not today.
Come on the Déise 