BUT it all started in Terenure, where the young Hoey learnt his craft and honed the skills that would earn him those 42 caps.
"We had great times in the Clee in the early years; I remember the atmosphere when Eddie came onto the scene. Brendan and Se‡n Clarke were playing, the Kellehers, Morgans, Macey, John - we had great banter; we had a great side but we probably underachieved. We won a few Alan Murrays but for the talent that we had we didn't string enough wins together to be consistently challenging. I think most years we had a crap start and then rallied by the end of the season."
"We played some extraordinary games there. The most memorable was definitely the game against Malahide when we were 50 for 5 and dead. I will always remember Pricey's face (Kevin Price was Malahide captain). They thought the game was over. I think Eddie got a fifty as well and I got 129. Tom O'Neill and Gilly were bowling - it was such great crack. On the back of that I won the player of the month in Leinster!"
"Indiscipline was probably the greatest problem in our cricket. If you look at our greatest rivals at the time - YM with Lewy, Angus, Tim Sullivan - they really worked at their game, netted twice a week. I can count the number of times on one hand that we made a serious attempt to net twice a week. And whether we like it or not, we always struggled a bit on grass. The mat was the only way forward in Terenure on that ground, but there were other opportunities that never came to pass, like buying Carlisle for example."
"CYM was very much a family club, which made it interesting? There was always a good buzz. We played hard but clubs enjoyed coming out to CY at the time - there were always a few beers afterwards. We had lots of nice guys like Moggy, the Clarkes, Macey - that was important. The classic sound of CY was from Moggy ÔIron Gloves' - all you heard all day was ÔSorry Beany' and ÔSorry Eddie'. His brother Colm was a great keeper though.
"I remember Eddie Moore's debut in that match in Arundel. It was a tough game for Eddie to come into, Robin Dyer of Warwickshire got a hundred that day. Eddie was a bit unlucky - he moved the ball around a lot - he played an awful lot of one day games so we wouldn't have had a huge haul of wickets. He's gone off the face of the earth too, as regards cricket."
Beany always played it hard. There was one notorious incident when he ran out a Pembroke player backing up. What does he remember about that?
"Oh, the famous Peter Davy incident of the early '90s when we had great chance to win the league. Peter had been warned coming up the hill - not by me directly. Then when I went back to my run up he jogged back with me and then jogged in with me to bowl so I held onto the ball and he laughed at me, so I flicked off the bail and didn't call him back. I felt I was completely right because he was acting the maggot. I don't think Briain O'Rourke and Co were too happy!"
There was another controversial incident which cost CY a league title which still pains Beany to talk about: "We had to go out to Clontarf and win out there to win the league - John was captain - and they stonewalled very early. Reaser played for the draw from the off and it was very bad".
Beany's time in Terenure came to a disappointing end. He regrets what happened but is annoyed that it cost him his first club. "I was pissed off with what happened in CY, especially after captaining the club and putting an awful of lot of work into it. I got a lot out of the club too, especially in the early '80s with the professionals, Marlon Tucker, and all that."
But would he ever see himself back in Terenure? "Frank Flanagan approached me last year about going back and although I love Frank - he's a really nice guy - I think it's too late now. I don't really have the time to put enough in - it's not totally out of the question but I would doubt it in the short term. I know I'll never play there again but whether I get involved in some other capacity, who knows."
"But I've great memories - even my nickname of Beany comes from Marlon Tucker. I was aged 13. He played with us in 1981/2; he arrived as an innocent young teenager and went back as a man who knew how to enjoy himself. He had just started his career with Jamaica - I don't think CY added anything to his progress!
"The pros we had really loved the kids. CY had a great network with Terenure College and the tennis club. I remember summers when I got the No. 17 bus every single day, whether to cricket or tennis, from the age of 13 to 18. That was what it was all about - Panjuram Salgaonkar cooking chicken curry in the kitchen for 10 kids. It was brilliant. Great memories."
"Funnily enough I always scored runs for Trinity against CYM." (His only century for the college was against CY). "I remember in the early years when Paul Farrell was captain and I was trying get away to a Fleetwood Mac concert - I was trying to get out and I couldn't!"
With such a large chunk of top level Irish cricket under his belt, it is interesting to hear Beany discuss the most impressive players he played with.
"Alan Lewis, definitely - for his enthusiasm. He never gave up. He was treated very badly at the end by Hendrick. He was a great motivator. He knew what his limitations were but made the most of his ability. If I had a criticism of Lewy it was that he was over enthusiastic, over optimistic. He played the game to win - even in the two day games he always tried to get a result. If there was a risk of us losing he would take that risk and play attacking cricket."
"Justin Benson impressed me, but he was a little lazy. He had loads of talent. Michael Rea was great, very tenacious. Reaso was quite selfish in the way he played cricket, but that was the way to do it. There's an element of being selfish in cricket, but it's for the benefit of the team - you don't give your wicket away, you bowl dot balls. But there's also a time when sacrifices have to be made."
As Ireland's foremost leg spinner for many years, has he seen any other practitioners of the wristic arts that impressed him?
"There was a little guy called Andrew Dunne from Belvedere who showed me how to bowl googlies when he was about 15. But since him I haven't really seen anyone.
"At the moment cricket here is in the doldrums. If you took away the pros it's a bit of a shambles. They're not necessarily a good influence - although we had a good Trinity side over the last couple of years, 90% of the times we came up against a pro he hammered us. There are too many bad teams relying on a pro. And there's too many clubs if we want to take it forward. We need fewer sides playing better cricket."
"Look at YMCA now, they can't really field a side of 11 senior cricketers. It's crazy how a club can let itself get to that situation. They're so dependent on the same few people year in year out."
How does he see the international team progress over the next few years? "Ireland will have to get a couple of overseas players when the counties are entitled to play two. We need to develop a centre of excellence. It is very difficult to compete with the counties and with the other developing nations. A few people have done great work moving us forward, people like Br’ain O'Rourke has helped lots of clubs, he's so thorough and enthusiastic. But you're not going to be able to improve the Irish team overnight."
"The big thing is the batting. Ed Joyce is the only one who has consistently performed at the big level. But he's going to be gone now and a player that good only comes along every three or four decades in Ireland. The likes of Merrion and Clontarf have done a great job developing young players, getting links with schools, building structures. North County have been very successful but that seems to be all money."
Conor Hoey was one of the best leg spinners we ever had, and for a while he was very good indeed. I remember a game against a county side in the early 1990s at a time when the England team were giving Ian Salisbury one of his first chances. Beany was bamboozling the professionals and keeping it tight too. "That bloke's really good", said the county pro, "he's twice as good as Salisbury".
But those days have passed, and Beany's folded his tent for Ireland, for CY, for Trinity and now for Belvo. Maybe he'll flick his wrist in the back garden when Gavin gets his first bat - and you can be sure he won't let the youngster away with anything.
Debut M wkt runs conc ave 5wi 1985 261 601 10,573 17.59 29
I NO Hs runs ave ct 31 8 34 190 8.26 14 O M R Wkts Ave 5WI 696 128 2366 78 30.33 4 HS: 34 v Middlesex (Clontarf) 1992 BB: 6-19 v Mashonaland Districts (Wedza) 1991
- Zimbabwe tour 1991: G Patterson (2), A Waller, A Shah, D Goodwin, K Arnott, G Whittall
- Scotland 1991: O Henry (SA)
- West Indians 1991: B C Lara, P V Simmons
- MCC 1991: R D V Knight (Eng)
- Middlesex 1992: M W Gatting, A R C Fraser (Eng)
- Durham 1992: D Jones (Aus)
- MCC 1993: D L Houghton (Zim)
- Sussex 1995: A P Wells (Eng)