David Murphy on finals heartbreak's and leading St Kevin's to glory

Sport is a cruel mistress and success is far from guaranteed for those who give their time to it. St Kevin’s club stalwart and current manager David Murphy has been at the heart of club action since the late 80s.

In that time, the club suffered several heartbreaks with the loss of six Intermediate Football Championships finals.

In 2008, with David at the helm, they finally climbed that mountain. The team, once cruelly dubbed ‘the bridesmaids of Kildare football’, had their big day and the pain that had gone before made it all the more special.

David explained, “Do you know what? I was lucky. If we had never won one I would have looked back on my career in football as a waste of time. I thanked the players in the dressing room after it. I said that it made me feel that all those years were worth something because I didn’t before. From the moment I retired I felt I had contributed nothing.

“My exact words to them after the game was ‘thanks for taking the sour taste out of my mouth’ regarding my journey with this club.”

Intermediate final losses; 1995 Caragh 1-11 to St Kevin’s 1-4
1996 Eadestown 0-9 to St Kevin’s 1-5 (replay)
1998 Kilcullen 2-11 to St Kevin’s 0-10
1999 Maynooth 0-11 to St Kevin’s 1-6
2005 Maynooth 1-11 to St Kevin’s 0-4
2006 Confey 0-14 to St Kevin’s 1-9

David recalled, “We lost in six Intermediate finals. I played in five of them and we lost each of them in a different way. We lost when we didn’t turn up on the day. We lost when we started brilliantly and let the opposition back in. We lost to a last-minute point. We came back from nowhere to challenge and lose. It wasn’t a pattern in how we were losing these finals, we lost in every way possible.

“It was frustrating and actually quite hard (to keep going). If you lose a county final, normally you’re back the next year and let’s go again and take the next step. But as the finals got more and more, it felt harder and harder to believe that we were going to finally succeed.”

The current St Kevin’s boss began his first stint in charge almost immediately following his retirement from playing after their county final loss to Confey. The team that would go on to be 2006 Leinster Intermediate Champions.

“The manager who was over the St Kevin’s couldn't continue in June. The chairman asked me as an ex-player if I would do two weeks until they got someone else. I was adamant it was only going to be two weeks because all these players were my ex-teammates and I thought the familiarity would be too much. As it happened, I ended up managing them for five years,” David said.

“No it wasn’t in my mind at all (coaching). As a player, I was probably one of the quietest men on the team. I never got too involved or had too much to say. When I went in for those two weeks, it was really sink or swim regarding having to change my attitude, but really change my personality to manage these lads.”

David’s young managerial career was partly inspired by a man who coached him late in his career, Brian O’Keefe. David referred to the Kerryman from Valentia Island as “a revolutionary in what he brought to the team compared to what any of us had ever encountered before.”

The man who taught in Clongowes Wood College was a coach ahead of his time and would do invaluable work in terms of improving the team and shaping the man who would become their manager for a period of five years not long after.

After fending off requests to take the St Kevin’s job full-time, David finally agreed to lead his club into the 2008 season and the local papers gave the club stalwart plenty of fuel for the fire.

“It was in the Leinster Leader and The Kildare Nationalist, I hung it up in the dressing room early that season, that St Kevin’s were the bridesmaids of Kildare football. That was something that really, really hurt me,” David recalled.

St Kevin’s reached the 2008 Intermediate Football Championship final and drew the 1-8 to 1-8 against Monasterevan. David’s side had far from dazzled that day and didn’t score until after the 20-minute mark, but surged late to secure a replay.

“I always loved using examples from other sports for us. Anthony Kim played in the Ryder Cup in 2008, earlier that year. He played Sergio Garcia and on the 14th hole he was far enough ahead to win the match, which would have been a huge upset. He was so focused on the job at hand that he didn’t realise he won. He wasn’t looking at the finishing line and that is something we did when we lost a lot of finals. We would be halfway through the second half and three points ahead and start looking at the finishing line,” David explained.

“I got a clip of that moment and kept showing it to the players and reminding them that all he believed in was the process and not the finishing line. That helped us on that first day against Monasterevan because, as badly as we played, we scraped a draw. We got a wonderpoint from Mark Fitzharris who was my captain, now my co-manager and one of my best friends, and a goal from Barry Noone.

St Kevin’s would win the replay 2-9 to 0-6 in convincing fashion, but I don’t think anyone could judge David’s scepticism of the result right until the final whistle.

“Frank Kilcoyne came over to me when there was five minutes left and he said ‘will we start giving lads runs?’ and I said no way. As much as I would like to have rewarded those lads, I just was never going to do that. I think I said ‘f*ck sake Frank, they could score three goals’ because I had lost so many finals,” David laughed.

“The celebrations were wonderful. The next night we were back in the club and I was with an ex-player who I had played with for years. He said ‘I feel a little out of place, how do you feel? Because you played yourself and weren’t on the pitch when the final whistle went’. I said that I didn't feel like that at all, if anything I felt more involved than I ever had as a player. I felt as if I was responsible for everything that went into it.”

The win capped off an exceptional year for the club, who had also won a Division 2 title. A trophy of huge significance following the passing of St Kevin’s man Jerome Casey, husband of the then secretary and father of the current secretary of the club. Jerome’s son John also played in the Division 2 final.

After his two week stint turned into five years, David stepped away from managerial duty in 2011 after being convinced to do an extra one the year prior by a heartfelt letter from the players.

“We were competitive at Senior. But I was afraid, because it was such a long stint, that it would turn bad and lads would get sick of listening to me. I thought it best I go before I passed my sell-by date. ,” David said.

“I was also afraid to go back this time and, selfishly, I didn’t want to spoil the legacy that I’d had. I had no intention of coming back and one evening at 9pm in October last year the doorbell rang. Over the last year or two I had been asked sort of unofficially, but it impacted me that the players took the time to call to me.We chatted for ages. I couldn’t sleep that night and the next morning I rang the captain and said I’d do it. So myself and Mark Fitzharris, my captain when I managed and a groomsman at my wedding are at it now as co-managers.”

After many near misses as a player, David led his club to glory in 2008 and is now back alongside one of his best friends at the St Kevin’s helm once again in 2024.