Tipperary veteran Brian Fox says a first Munster senior football title in 85 years has raised the spirits of everyone in the Premier County.
100 years to the weekend of Bloody Sunday, the players wore white and green jerseys with Michael Hogan's image on the sleeve. They then went out and beat Cork by 17 points to 14.
Fox's uncle, Pat, won All Ireland senior hurling titles with Tipperary in 1989 and 1991. Pat was one of the first people on the phone after history was made at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Brian Fox says the emotional win has touched people's lives.
"He (Pat) rang me Sunday night. He was delighted. Same as all the family. Pat has the experience of having that huge success himself. He just wanted to wish congratulations and say 'enjoy it' because it's only when he looks back at it now, he doesn't appreciate it for what it was. Definitely, over the last few days, I have been really trying to enjoy the whole atmosphere around the place. There is just a big lift around the county. The mood has changed from being one of depression shadowed by COVID to one of real sunlight."
Comparisons have been made between now and 1987, when Tipperary won the Munster senior hurling title and Richard Stakelum famously said 'the famine is over'. However, Fox says this is a brand new feeling for everyone involved in Tipperary football, past, and present.
"We obviously knew it was 85 years. Because Tipp in the hurling had spent so many years of being so successful, that having that gap of 16 years was huge for them. It's just not talked about in Tipp football circles. When you have had no success on a provincial level, you can't even just call it a famine. There was no one alive last Sunday who has a Munster medal in Tipperary. Now you have 41 lads who have Munster medals. It wasn't even a famine, it just was just non-existent as far as we were concerned."
Everyone who has a connection with Tipperary football has a story to tell, and Fox has been receiving congratulations from many, some of them poignant. He knows the magnitude of the victory will sink in at some stage.
"I probably don't appreciate it now fully, but I'd say in time I will. I got some really nice messages from people who said it to me what it meant to them. Even people who have passed on. I know one man, he was speaking about his father-in-law who actually died back in 2015, in the stand at the All Ireland Under 21 final - and how much it meant to him. He (his father-in-law) would have been a young lad back then, in 1935. It meant a lot to a lot of people."
Fox also revealed that some friends of the squad cashed in on predicting Tipperary's shock, as the romance of a knockout provincial championship and the headline-grabbing wins for Tipperary and Cavan captured the imagination of the country.
"A lot of friends of players had bets alright. The boys in fairness would be pretty good not to put bets on themselves. One of the boys showed me a text he got from one of the lads afterwards. It was ourselves and Cavan. He stood to win two grand or something. Odds were phenomenal anyway. This lad didn't put on a huge bet, but he still got over two thousand euro, so."
Brian Fox was speaking at the GAA's launch of the All Ireland senior football championship. Tipperary face Mayo in the second semi-final at Croke Park on December 6th.
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