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Templenoe County Kerry is the home of the famous Kerry football player Pat Spillane. Many outstanding players have worn the Kerry jersey over the years, but the three Spillane brothers, Mike Pat and Tom, all members of the Templenoe Football Club take pride of place. Between them they hold 23 All-Ireland football medals in Minor, under 21 and Senior grades, a record no family has equaled, and few if any will surpass. Their late father, Tom, also played for Kerry and Munster. The club had many victories over the years in Kenmare district board competitions but the highlight of the playing successes was the winning of the Kerry County Novice title in 1973 and the Junior County Championship in 1975. Nine Templenoe players won Senior Kerry County Championship medals in 1974.

Owen McCrohan wrote about Pat: Pat Spillane, the Kerry footballer, went close to becoming another chilling statistic - a man who ought to have been finished in his prime. Eight days before the All-lreland final of 1981, Spillane sat on the edge of a table, his body racked in pain, his face set in a mask of wretchedness. Out on the Fitzgerald Stadium, his team colleagues went through the motions of playing football, their reflexes numbed by a shattering incident which saw the great wing-forward stretchered off the pitch in excruciating pain. Previously, his injuries had been remarkably few so that he was not equipped, mentally, to handle a serious setback. Unwilling to rest his damaged knee and give the healing process a chance to work, Pat Spillane would learn the hard way that injury is a merciless leveller. It was a salutary lesson. The first half was even, the second half was even worse They have a forward line that couldn't punch holes in a paper bag You get more contact in an old-time waltz at the old-folks' home than in a National League final.

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By Euroka