REMEMBERING TIM ‘ROUNDY’ LANDERS
One of the greatest ever Club and County footballers, Tim Roundy Landers, died on this day 30 years ago, aged 80. At Club level he excelled at both Hurling and Football, winning three Hurling Co. Championships (1928, 1929 and 1931) and five Football Co. Championships (1928, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1936). He won five All Ireland Senior Football medals with Kerry (1931, 1932, 1937, 1939, 1941).
His brother John Joe Purty also won five All Ireland medals and his older brother Bill won two – twelve medals in the one household in Rock Street’s Urban Terrace where Tim’s niece still resides. Roundy made his Club Championship debut in that historic game in Dingle on 6th May 1928 – our very first game in the Co. SF Championship. We won that quarter final clash by 3-1 to 0-1 and went on later that year to win the first of our twelve Senior Football Co. Championship titles. Eighteen seasons later Roundy played his last Senior Football Co. Championship game in Castleisland on the 5th August 1945. We lost that game against Dick Fitzgeralds by 2-8 to 2-3.
Urban Terrace, Rock St. – where an incredible six Stacks players from this terrace of 20 houses collected 21 All Ireland senior medals during a period of 18 years. “One club a Street of Champions”
His inter-county SF Championship career began with a Munster Final clash against Tipperary in Tralee on 9th August 1931. Roundy was one of the goalscorers that day in Kerry’s 5-8 to 0-2 win against the premier county. Another Rock man scored a hat-trick of goals that day – the one and only Martin Bracker O’Regan who was also making his SF Kerry debut on that occasion. After winning ten Munster titles and five All Ireland medals Roundy played his last Championship game with Kerry on the day he won that 5th medal – in that All Ireland Final win over Galway (1-8 to 0-7) on 6th September 1941.
One of the great Sport writers of his day, the late Joe Sherwood (1891-1974), was fascinated by the style of play of the Landers Brothers. Joe came to Ireland in 1931 to take up a job as Sports Editor of the newly established Irish Press and afterwards became famous for his ‘had-to-be-read’ daily column (In the Soup) in the Evening Press which ran from 1954 to 1971. Joe arrived at the right time (1931) to see the Lander Brothers at their best and in his columns later he would regularly refer to the way they could drop the ball and, soccer-style, would dribble it up field passing to one another which, more often than not, would end up in a score.
Jan 2018 at the unveiling of the ‘Street of Champions’ sign on the gable of no. 20 Urban Terrace, Rock St.