By John Harrington

When Matt Connor was inducted into the GAA Hall of Fame in 2017, it was a due recognition of a footballing genius.

The Offaly legend was one of the classiest forwards to ever play the game.

He was lethally accurate off either foot, had an unnatural ability to weave through would-be tacklers, and was both metronomically accurate from free-kicks as well as being a born goal-scorer.

Over the course of his career he won one All-Ireland title and three Leinster titles with Offaly as well as six Offaly county championships with his club Walsh Island.

He also won three All-Stars, and would have achieved even more in the game were it not for serious injuries suffered in a car crash in 1984.

Connor was a gifted footballer and impeccable sportsman on the field, and is a very modest one off it.

He’s never been one to wax lyrical about his own virtues as a footballer, but there’s never been a shortage of people to do it for him.

When he appeared on the late Weeshie Fogarty’s Terrace Talk programme on Radio Kerry in 2001, it seem as though half of the Kingdom rang in to sing his praises.

Perhaps broadcaster Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh’s contribution to the show best summed up what made Connor such a highly regarded footballer.

“A good player should have the skills of the game mastered, and no-one perfected them better than Matt Connor,” said Ó Muircheartaigh.

“As well as that he was amazing cool. He was always thinking about the football and he always knew when to move.

“He was an excellent fielder and as good a free-taker as I’ve seen. But it was the fast, hard shot that he had for goal that singled him out as being a little bit different than most of the other forwards around at the time.

“Give him a chance and he was able to drive it with power and accuracy and was nearly always on target. I would rate him up with the very, very best.”

Former Offaly manager, the late Eugene McGee, saw Connor in action up close more than anyone else and had no hesitation about giving him top billing in the canon of great footballing forwards.

“I’ve always said that of the forwards that I saw, he and Mikey Sheehy were the two I’d pick out as the best I’ve every seen and I wouldn’t pick between the two of them,” said McGee.

“I saw more of Matt Connor in situations where others didn’t see him because I saw him hundreds of times in training sessions where he had these magnificent duels with Martin Furlong trying to score goals and Furlong getting thicker and thicker as the goals went in.

“It was always fascinating to watch him in training. I can remember many lovely summer evenings in our training ground in Ballycommon outside Tullamore and Matt Connor would arrive with that boyish enthusiasm that he always had.

“Matt always enjoyed football and he enjoyed training. You could see that in everything he did. He was always first there and last to leave and always last to leave. It was a tragedy his football career wasn’t longer, but look what he put into those years compared to a lot of lads.”

Connor was part of a gifted generation of Offaly footballers who did great deeds with the help of McGee’s canny management.

One of the real red-letter days for both Connor and that Offaly team was the 1980 Leinster Final when he inspired a second-half surge that led the Faithful County to their first provincial title in seven years.

“Offaly would not have won an All-Ireland title without Matt Connor in that era because we wouldn’t have even gotten to one without him,” said McGee.

“The most important score he got for Offaly was in the 1980 Leinster Final against Dublin because Dublin had beaten us in the ’78 semi-final and the last second of the ’79 Final.

“If they had beaten us a third time that was it. We were in desperation at half-time in Croke Park with 60,000 people going mad and Dublin ahead.

“We were playing awful bad and took drastic action at half-time by making no less than 12 switches but the one switch that mattered was bringing Matt Connor to the centre-forward position.

“It was from that position that he scored the goal that turned the game around.”

In the subsequent All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry, Connor produced arguably his greatest ever display in an Offaly jersey when he kicked a personal tally of 2-9.

That wasn’t enough to prevent Offaly falling to a 4-15 to 4-10 defeat, but the manner in which Connor torched the much-vaunted Kerry defence remains an iconic episode in football history.

He finished that championship campaign with a personal total of 5-31 which at the time was a new record. No player scored as much as him in the Championship from the years 1980 to 1984.

His and that Offaly team’s greatest day came in the 1982 All-Ireland Final when they defeated Kerry by a single-point to prevent the Kingdom from becoming the first county to win five All-Ireland senior titles in a row.

Seamus Darby has gone down in legend as the player who got the match-winning goal for Offaly, but Connor was hugely influential on the day too, scoring seven points.

“He was a devastating forward who could win games on his own,” said the late, great John Egan on that 2001 Terrace Talk show.

“Everyone talks about the late goal in 1982, but Matt scored two vital points before that goal that showed his composure.

“I know we all suffered a bit of pain in ’82 but if the likes of Matt Connor didn’t win an All-Ireland it would have been very sad. I’m glad he achieved that, because he was definitely one of the best forward I’ve ever seen.”

When he was at the peak of his powers at the age of just 25, Connor was the victim of a serious car accident that has left him confined to a wheelchair ever since.

It happened on Christmas Day, 1984, when he was driving home from Tullamore Garda station where he worked.

In the book, ‘Conversations: Snapshots of Modern Irish Life’, Connor gave an insight into just how devastating a blow it was for him.

"The dreams are a big thing,” said Connor. “Really. In my dreams over the first 10 years or so, I was always able-bodied. But for a long time back, it's been 50-50.

“You'll be dreaming away, running about the place, then the next minute you're in a wheelchair and you're wondering, how did I do that? How did that happen?

"The way it is, there is nothing you can do about this injury. If you damage your knee or get a bad ligament or cartilage injury, you can get back the same if you work really hard.

"With a spine injury, you can look at your toes and your feet and you just cannot move them. You just can't do it and that's it."

His own playing career might have been cut short, but Connor remained heavily involved in Offaly GAA, serving as minor team manager and senior selector at different times.

The injuries he suffered in that car accident might have changed his life forever and robbed him of some of his prime footballing years, but his legacy remains undiminished.

Fr. Sean Heaney put it best in Michael Foley’s book, Kings of September, when he said:

“I always think of the way Greeks commemorate their heroes in ancient times.

“If you see any of the statues of their greats, even the Gods, they’re always depicted at their peak, the moment of their greatest deed.

“They’re immortalised in that. I always think of Matt scoring one of his goals. That is Matt.”