Bobby Beggs recalls an aeroplane being used for the throw-in between Dublin and Kerry at Croke Park.
Bobby Beggs was one of the greats of Gaelic football. He played senior intercounty football with Dublin and Galway. He won his first All-Ireland Senior Football Championship medal with Galway in 1938 and collected his second All-Ireland Senior Football Championship medal in 1942 playing with his native Dublin.
Born in 1911 in Skerries, County Dublin Bobby Beggs played with the local club Skerries Harps.
We won nearly anything there was to be won in Fingal.
Bobby Beggs remembers Gaelic football and cricket being the main sports in the area. At the time there was nothing else to do except play Gaelic football so by default the team was reasonably strong. Rugby did not arrive until 1927. During the GAA ban on foreign games a number of the Skerries Harps club attended a rugby match between Skerries and Balbriggan, 35 of them were suspended which fairly decimated the team.
Bobby Beggs was first picked for the Dublin Senior Football team in 1932. He recalls the McKee Clancy Memorial Tournament at Croke Park on 16 October 1932 when he played with Dublin against Kerry.
The throw-in for this match used the novel feature of dropping the football from an aeroplane. At 3:15 the football was thrown from the aeroplane by the honourable secretary of the Memorial Committee Domhnall O Donnchada.
It landed right in the middle of the field.
The plane dropped the ball from a great height somewhere around Mountjoy Square.
It hit the middle of it, he must have been practising it a good while.
The football bounced the height of the Hogan Stand and when it came down for the second time, the first man to catch it was Dublin player Paddy Hickey from Clondalkin.
The next occasion to use an aeroplane for the throw-in was the opening of the new Cusack Memorial GAA Park in Mullinagar, County Westmeath. The aeroplane dropped the football over the pitch and the teams from Cavan and Kildare began to play.
'Talk of Times Past' featured interviews with Irish sporting greats when they are in their seventies or older.
This episode of 'Talk of Times Past' was broadcast on 15 September 1983. The presenter is Brendan O’Reilly.
