Railway Union

The story of Railway Union cricket has been likened to a renaissance painting. A mixture of light and shade. The Italians have a great word for it – chiaroscuro. What a musical word! We have had our years of shade – recalling the years from 1930 to 1945 when we had our babylonian captivity, our papal exile to Avignon, when we fell out of senior cricket, only to be restored by the skills and dedication of men like Kyrie Tanham, Louis Sumerling and Billy Whelan.

There was relative shade in the 1990s as we struggled to rebuild after the retirement of some of our greats. The green shoots were appearing at the turn of the century and 2002 saw us winners of the Lewis Traub league and Section B of the WhitneyMooreKeller League and runners-up in the Royal Liver Irish Senior Cup in 2003, followed by winners of the Alan Murray Twenty20 Cup in 2004 and again runners up in the Irish Senior Cup in 2005.

But none of that prepared us for the annus mirabilis of 2006. Captained from the front by Kenny Carroll, we won the Irish Senior Cup, the Dublin Grass Machinery League, the Lewis Hohn Williams Alan Murray Twenty20 Cup and Section B of the WhitneyMoore League. That was the year when Kenny Carroll and Kevin O’Brien burst their way into the Irish senior team to join Kevin’s brother Niall who had been our first international player since Kevin and Niall’s father, Brendan (Ginger) had retired as captain of Ireland in 1981.

And what if Ginger could have his friends of yesteryear with him on the verandah at Park Avenue to watch today’s players? Ginger was our little master, our Sachin Tendulkar, as he stroked his way to 21,765 runs in 705 senior
appearances (a Leinster record). As he enjoys today the success of Niall and Kevin, how much more would he enjoy the music of our chiaroscuro if he could have with him the eternal Niall McConnell, our Muttiah Muralitharan, who wheeled his arm over for 1033 wickets in 459 games, and the impish smile of Joey O’Meara with his 411 appearances, our Ian Botham, as he hit ball after ball out of Park Avenue for mighty sixes and, almost likely, into the afternoon teacup of the reverend mother in the convents at either end of the ground. And behind it all, stood Dessie Byrne, stumper supreme whose 478 dismissals in 493 appearances had the amazing majority of 254 stumpings to go with 224 catches.

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