Mick Butler: Team-mate to the Rackards and the only ‘All Star’ in exile.
Sky Sports Article – by Robert Mulhern – 02/07/2015
Mick Butler: Team-mate to the Rackards and the only ‘All Star’ in exile.
Wexford’s Mick Butler (left) playing for London against Kilkenny in the All Ireland SHC semi-final in Croke Park in 1971
In a shed on Droop Street behind Queen’s Park Tube station, Mick Butler used to sit quietly and repair broken hurls.
He’d retreat there in the evenings and set them up in a vice grip. Sometimes his grandson Christopher would wander in and watch.
When they get broken now it’s Christopher who fixes them for the Father Murphy’s club.
On this blisteringly hot sunny afternoon there’s a scatter of them spread across the back seat of a silver car parked outside the front of No 40. Inside Mick Butler is sat watching Wimbledon. He stands gingerly when the door opens and extends his hand to shake.
In days past, the same hand out – fielded star forward lines and in 1971, it won Butler an All Star nomination – the only hurler in exile to ever be shortlisted for the honour.
“My proudest moment, no doubt,” he says, resting back into the shade of the front room where old scrapbooks lie open.
Then Butler might be considered hurling blue blood. His All Star nomination was just his reward for consistent form at club and county level throughout the ‘71 season.
But so too was it propped up by a pedigree forged on Rathnure’s fertile fields in 1960s, Wexford. Butler grew up watching the Rackards and would graduate to line out beside the great Nicky, Bobby and Billy at club level.
“Nicky was the best,” he says. “He was big, strong and built like a rock.”
The London team that played Kilkenny in the 1971 All-Ireland SHC semi-final in Croke Park. Mick Butler is third from right in the back row
It wasn’t just the Rackards. Butler hurled against Christy Ring in London too; he bridged rickety grounds like New Eltham with marquee days in Wembley; won an All-Ireland Junior title with the Exiles in 1963 and championships in the purple and gold of Father Murphy’s as well as Cú Chulainns.
Most significantly, he minded the nets against Kilkenny in a senior All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park – the capstone of his nomination – and most impressively, he played for so long after his peers that his longevity feels like his greatest achievement.
“Right up until I was 62,” he says.
“He never thought of stopping,” says his daughter Breda, also sat in the front room. “He always played. It’s what he did.”
What was the secret to his long career?
“I was just always fit,” he says. “And I always wanted to play.”
When his family were young they’d go down to Wormwood Scrubs to see their Da. Where the Fr Murphy’s used to train at the back wall of the prison and use the light that spilled over the wall from the yard.
“I remember him coming home one year and he got hit so hard in the back with a shot that the bruise came out the front of his chest,” says his daughter.
When Butler came to London first he joined the Cu Chulainns club before he fell in with the Murphy’s.
The small square around the edge of the goals in New Eltham was a natural home for a player revered for his cool demeanour, steely nerve and loyalty. But he was a domineering presence too, adept at playing man and ball when necessary.
A snippet of old report from Rathnure hurling club is read aloud in the sitting room. The words hail Butler for his sleight of hand and calming presence but he bats away the plaudits with a dismissive arm.
He put his hands to work as a painter and decorator by day after someone from the Murphy’s sorted him with a job. The roadmap was set.
Later, he’d settle in Kennington before moving to Queen’s Park where he’s lived the last nearly 30 years.
Nicky Rackard was the best. He was big, strong and built like a rock.
When he’d return to Rathnure, old neighbours and club mates enquired about his progress and the All Star nomination that followed in 1971. He received a Power’s Gold Label Award in the same year.
He is part of a great tradition of London goalkeepers, names like Billy Barnaville from Tipperary, the decorated Liam Shanahan from Cork and Kilkenny’s Eamon Walsh.
In the picture of the team he hurled with, he’s stood out the back, long and lean.
“I must have been standing on a tuft of grass,” he smiles.
He played behind a stellar full-back line featuring Pat Cronin from Kerry, Martin Connolly from Galway and his county man Dave Lawlor.
And he’ll be London’s lone star until someone else comes along and plays their way to a nomination in Exiles’ green.
It might be another while you suggest.
“Ah, you wouldn’t know,” he says. “Maybe not.”
Aged 77, he still watches those coming behind and can often be seen in quiet observation on the sideline of a Father Murphy’s training session or pitch-side in the Gaelic Grounds in Ruislip.
“It was the performance against Kilkenny in Croke Park that earned him the All Star,” said former Brian Borus and London player Sean Reid.
“He was the best keeper in London over that season and it was something that he continued playing right into his 60s.
“Mick Butler was one of a great tradition of goalkeepers in London through those decades.”