Grangenolvin legend Fran Miller discusses wins, losses and staying afloat

Fran Miller and Grangenolvin GAA were born in the same year, 1955. Since then, they have been inextricably linked. The early years of Grange were positive, the club found their feet relatively quickly and claimed Junior ‘B’ and Junior ‘A’ Championships in 1964 and ‘65.

Fran explained, “I wasn’t much of a player, but I did play. I played up until I was 28 and got an injury, but I wouldn’t have been a star performer or anything like that. 

“There were five brothers in the one family and we were all playing. Johnny, my eldest brother, who passed away three years ago, was on the Kildare U21 team in ‘65.”

Football was a family business for the Millers, the patriarch of the family won several Senior Championships over the border with Annanough, as well as winning the first ever National Football League competition after beating Dublin.

The echoes of that 1965 All-Ireland winning U21 Kildare team reverberates right through the county’s history at this time, and Grange took great pride in having two representatives on the famous team in Johnny Miller and Martin Mannion.

“We had a good team then and could beat most in the county on and off. We used to play a lot of our challenge matches against Senior teams in Carlow, which gave us a great bite. We were watching teams like Éire Óg, who were very skillful, and playing tournaments down there. Matching against those teams stood to them in Kildare then,” Fran said.

After some stern challenges at Intermediate level, the club’s apex during this time would be a 2-9 to 1-5 loss in the final to Monasterevan in 1971.

“I remember it well. We had a very good full-back at the time, Tom Tighe. He was a tough man and we felt that he was targeted to get him out of the way. Tom and one of the Monasterevan players got into a tangle and both of them got sent off. We think it was definitely something they planned,” Fran laughed.

“It was a great time for the club. You were playing in the farmers' fields most of the time. Wherever there was a field of grass, you stuck the posts up.

“It started to fade after that. Some players started to retire and we just went downwards. There was parish rule in Kildare at the time, so we had no feed of young players. We were in the parish of Castledermot, but we were on the borders of Athy. We were stuck in a corner with no chance of getting underrage teams together.”

In the same year as their Intermediate final defeat, Grange made a bold move in purchasing their own pitch, a rare occurrence for a club of their size at the time. The action on and off the field throughout the following decade was a struggle.

“I went through three chairman in one year (1978). I was nearly running the club on my own. I was talking to County Chairman at the time Hugh Campion and told him that I don’t think we (the club) can go on much longer. He told me to just try and give it one more year and see what happens. Things advanced and now here we are today,” Fran recalled.

“I had seen the lows before that and we were very low coming into the late 70s. The parish rule really had us snookered.”

Fran had been at the administrative level of Grangenolvin GAA since he was 20 years old and despite airing his concerns to the man to whom the Intermediate Football Championship trophy now owes its name, Fran was going to do something to change his club’s future.

“I put in a motion to the county convention in ‘78 and I have to complement the late Sean Duffy of Monasterevan for helping me. I was only 22 and he called me to one side and looked at what I was putting in. He said that he didn’t think I would get it through this year, but I had a good chance if I put it in for a trial period only,” Fran explained.

“He told me to add that to my motion and we got it through for the trial period, then we punched it home in ‘79 to get rid of it. Over two years we got rid of parish rule in the county and that gave us the start we needed.”

Fran had changed the course of football in County Kildare and massively altered the trajectory of Grangenolvin GAA.

He recalled, “Around that time, my brother Johnny, Tom Tighe and a few lads started getting young lads together for a street league. We didn’t have enough for teams so we had this with five or six on each team and joined forces with Barrowhouse, who were in a similar position to us strength wise. We joined the groups together and started a street league and out of that basically came our next team.

“We won an U17 and Minor winter league in ‘81 (and ‘84), which was the first underrage competition we ever won, that was those young lads coming through. That same team was the one that won the Junior ‘B’ Championship then.”

Grange faced a strong Straffan side armed with O’Donovans and O’Briens of solid reputation. After a non-scoring first half on their end, Grange hit 2-6 after the break to win the 1985 Junior ‘B’ Championship. 

Two years later, they were in an ‘A’ final and beat Ballyteague 2-4 to 0-7 to achieve Intermediate status nine years after Fran feared they would fold.

“I was a selector at that stage. I was involved with county minor and U21 teams from the early 80s onwards. It was a tough game and they were expected to win it. I think Tony Keogh was over them. A man by the name of Tommy Garvan was training us. We were smaller than them, but we were very fit and we ground them down,” he said.

This Grange squad’s rise would also culminate in an Intermediate final loss, this time against Castlemitchell, losing 1-8 to 0-8 in controversial fashion.

“I was very sore over that one. There were a couple of, what I would still consider wrong, refereeing decisions in a close game. I remember reading the headline in the paper that said ‘the tale of two penalties’ and it was one that wasn’t awarded and one that was. I think John Roddy wrote it. Anyways, both decisions were wrong,” Fran explained.

The club’s next major silverware would once again be a Junior Championship in 2005, with Grange also making a run at provincial glory that year. Grange’s 0-9 to 0-7 loss to Westmeath champions Ballinagore in the Leinster Junior final was a part of a wider boom period in the club, as the ladies side bagged several Championship titles.

“We had incorporated the ladies team into the club so that they didn't have to try to find money, a pitch and jerseys etc. All they had to do was run the team and the ladies flourished. That was unusual at the time when we did it because some clubs treated them like a nuisance. But when we were low, they brought us up.”

The Grangenolvin ladies won a Leinster title and reached an All-Ireland Ladies Junior Football Championship final in 2005, coming up short against Cork’s Rockban 6-7 to 3-9.

“It was a fabulous time,” he added.

Fran has since left club responsibilities in the capable hands of PJ Doyle and has praised him for his continued work.

Fran theorises that the club’s Championships wins come in 20 year cycles and with wins in ‘65, ‘85 (and ‘87), as well as 2005, it is hard not to see the pattern too. The Grange men's side are now a young and exciting outfit at Junior level and it certainly looks like they could keep that trend going.