Below is a section of an article written by Tony O Donoghue, Limerick Lawn, on the Munster Senior Cup. I have played in the Munster Senior Cup on a few occassions and I have had this article for a while now and never really read it properly. This Cup has being played for by some of the finest tennis players, not just in Munster, but in Ireland since 1907. If the Cup could speak it would have some amazing stories to tell of hardship and joy. I really enjoyed reading the article and to be honest am disappointed in myself now that I didn't make a bigger effort to play in this fabulous event more often.
I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did and if you are a player who is able to take part for your club please do and continue creating the history of this fine Cup.
I would like to thank Tony for all the obvious hard work he put in to put this article in place and hopefully I can convince him to bring it up to date soon. Enjoy!
The Beginning
Norman Brooks a tall left-hander from Australia was the first male overseas player to win Wimbledon. The year was 1907. History was being made. Picture the time it took, six weeks to travel by boat from Australia to Wimbledon.
No two or three cars per home. You would be lucky to have two or three cars per club. Your Ford car could be any colour as long it was black. They had just taken the man with the red flag away from the front of the car. The speed limit was how fast you could get it to go.
All this made it very difficult to play competitive matches between clubs in Munster. Matches were probably played over the weekend. With only grass courts available there was no play before 11am because of the dew on the grass and then of course the need to finish before bad light.
Rumour has it that if a player owned a car their chance of being selected greatly enhanced. This was the first year the Munster Senior Cup was played for - history was beginning.
First Winners
The first winners of the Munster Senior Cup were Rushbrooke - who they defeated in the final is unknown. Then in 1908, Blackrock had to travel to Cobh to win and get their name on the Cup.
I know it's hard to believe but Tralee were the winners in 1909. Can you imagine the journey and the time it took for Tralee? 1910 saw Inishannon just outside Cork won. So in the first four years four different clubs shared the Cup.
From 1911 to 1914 Blackrock took charge of the Munster Cup. Included in these teams were F.J. Daly, J.J. Daly, M.J. Daly, and Capt J. Higgon and Rev. J. Connolly. The ladies were Mrs. Madden, Miss Haughton, Mrs. Lyons, Miss Tivy and Mrs. M.J. Daly.
Ben Haughton who played in all of the four teams went on to win eight Munster Cups with Blackrock and was a major asset to the team.
War Interuptions
The Cup was put in cold storage from 1915 to 1919. This was during the First World War and as we were still part of the British Empire, and Tennis in those early days was mostly played where there was a British Army Barracks, naturally tennis ...........to continue reading click here
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