Andy Fleming

Andrew "Andy" Fleming (23 April 1916 – 27 March 2011) was an Irish hurler who played as a right corner-back for the Waterford senior team and Mount Sion. He was the last surviving member of the Waterford All-Ireland winning team from 1948.

Early life

Andy Fleming was born in 1916 in Belmont, County Offaly, to a Carlow father and Kildare mother. His father worked for the Great Southern Railway of the pre-independence times. From there the family moved to Durrow in County Waterford where his father was transferred to as Station Master while Andy was still at a very young age. As he was growing up in national school Gaelic Football was the preferred sport and Fleming proved very capable at it. When the time came to move on to secondary school it was decided that he would go to the Christian Brothers in Mount Sion as it was easy to travel to Waterford on the early morning train and return in good time that evening.

It as in Mount Sion that Andy took up the hurley for the first time having been encouraged to do so by Brothers Malone and O'Connor and he adapted to the game in style to the extent that he developed into one of the best players in the school, up there with the man who was to become his great friend and colleague with Mount Sion, Waterford and Munster, John Keane.

On leaving school Fleming took up employment on the railway with what had become C.I.E. and continued to play his football with Stradbally. Hurling however was now his primary game and to develop and achieve his potential it was decided that he would join up with his former schoolmates in Mount Sion who had won the senior county title for the first time in 1938. The championship of 1939 saw Fleming make his Mount Sion debut the half line, alongside John Keane and Paddy Dowling. It was a line that was to feature for Mount Sion and Waterford into the early forties and indeed almost carried on into representing Munster in the Railway Cup.

Career

These days, a player's worth is often calculated on the number of All Star awards that come his way in the course of his career. from its inception in 1927 the Railway Cup, played for by the best players representing the four provinces became the benchmark of a hurler's and footballer's greatest. In each province the best of rivals came together in a spirit of comradeship and lifelong friendships were formed. Andy Fleming's standing as one of the greats of his era was confirmed by eight appearances in the provincial blue of Munster in the company of such as Christy Ring, Mick Mackey, Jack Lynch and John Keane on eight occasions including his debut in 1943 and his last outing in the final of 1951 winning Railway Cup medals in seven of those finals.

The amazing thing about Andy Fleming's career was that he did not play senior hurling until he was 23 years of age in 1939 while almost all of his contemporaries had grown up with the game and represented their counties at minor level. When he came to Mount Sion in 1939 he was already a very capable footballer and in that same year he played a big part in Mount Sion's winning of the county Junior Football title for the first time. Fleming was keen on the football however and when Mount Sion declined to go up into senior football, preferring to concentrate on going for three senior hurling titles in a row.

In 1940 Fleming exercised his right at the time to transfer back to his native Stradbally for senior football while continuing to play hurling with Mount Sion as in every club at that time the hurling and football teams were affiliated as separate clubs, a situation that still held up to the sixties as far as I can recall. He played his part in the great Stradbally teams that won five senior football championships in a row between 1940 and 1944 to add to his six senior hurling championships with Mount Sion, his seven Railway cup medals ad the supreme achievement of the All Ireland and Munster Championship medals won in 1948.

When Andy Fleming won his last Railway cup medal in 1951 on St Patricks Day he shocked all and sundry with his decision to retire from hurling completely. Indeed if ever a man went out at the top Andy Fleming did. It was an irrevocable decision at thirty five years of age taken by a man who was now putting the rearing of his young family before all else. Andy Fleming had achieved all that was there to be achieved.

Andy went on to more recent years to have his achievements recognised with Hall of Fame awards from Munster Council and Waterford county board. He was recognised on the Munster team of he century as an automatic choice as well as the Mount Sion and Waterford teams of that same time. He was named at right full back on the Waterford Millennium team.

In his retirement he was instrumental in the amalgamation of the two GAA Clubs that existed in Ferrybank to form the club that is there today and he served as club chairman for a number of years. Andy Fleming was honoured with the role of Vice President of the Mount Sion club in the year 2000.

Honours

References