Bill backs Cats to complete Rocky road to success

Bill Murphy will be cheering on his beloved Kilkenny all the way from Denver in Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final replay against Galway.
A former O’Loughlin Gaels hurler, Bill arrived in the Colorado city – which has the Rocky Mountains as a spectacular backdrop – via Toronto in 1995.

And despite being so far away from home, he has retained his passion for hurling and the Kilkenny team who are aiming to secure the county’s 34th All-Ireland title this weekend.

“I haven’t been back home since March of last year, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to follow Kilkenny’s fortunes closely,” says Bill, who is married to Sarah (from Washington State) and has three children, Jack (13), Iris (10) and Nell (seven).

“Like all Kilkenny people, I’m eagerly-looking forward to Sunday’s game. I would take a lot of encouragement from the fact that Kilkenny got a result the last day without playing particularly well. Apart from Henry Shefflin, the rest of the forwards didn’t play to their potential. It’s a long time since Kilkenny failed to score a goal in a championship match, but I’m confident that they’ll be able to put that right for the replay.

“Brian Cody is an astute manager and he’s learning more about Galway with every game. Hopefully, it’ll be another great game and the Cats will be a couple of points ahead at the final whistle.”

Hailing from Kilkenny city, Bill is proud of his O’Loughlin Gaels roots and their county star Brian Hogan, who captained Kilkenny to All-Ireland glory last year. While the Gaels are now recognised as one of Kilkenny’s top senior clubs, it wasn’t always the case as Bill recalls.

“When I played for them, they were an intermediate team and they even went junior for a while after I left for Toronto in 1991. But they turned things around very quickly after that and went senior within the space of a few years. When I was playing, the Cleeres – Paul, Anthony and Ben – were the backbone of the team. Andy Comerford was also starting to come through and went on to have a very successful career with both O’Loughlin’s and Kilkenny.”

During his five years in Toronto, Bill was involved with the St. Mike’s hurling and football club. He became a member of the fledgling Denver Gaels club after moving to Colorado in 1995.

“I haven’t been involved with them in recent years due to work and family commitments, but I hope to go back coaching next year,” he says.

Denver Gaels is an extraordinary GAA club in that the vast majority of its members aren’t from Ireland or of Irish descent. Founded in 1996 by a small group of ex-pats living in the Denver area, the club has gone from strength to strength since then and currently has about 100 playing members, with no more than 20 of them being Irish. The Gaels field teams in men’s football, hurling, ladies football and camogie.

The first Gaelic sports organisation to be formed in the Rocky Mountain Region, Denver Gaels put themselves on the map in 2004 when they hosted the North American championships. The Gaels have a decent record in the same championships. They were junior ‘B’ champions in 2000 and achieved a fabulous double at the 2007 finals when they won both the junior ‘C’ hurling and U16 football championships.”

Bill is managing director of Noreside Construction, which claims to be Denver’s premier general contractor for new construction, additions and renovations. He set up the company in 1996 and has seen an increase in business of late after a number of difficult years for the construction industry in Colorado.

“We specialise in residential building,” he explains.

“Like Ireland, we’ve been affected by the recession in recent years, but there are signs that things are finally starting to pick up in this part of the US. The property market hasn’t suffered as much in Colorado as it has in other States like California and Florida.”