This essay appeared in the Thurles - Names and Faces Annual and is reprinted by the kind permission of the author Andy Cooney and the publisher's Glenmorgan House.  Bunny - A Lambe For All Seasons. As Thurles sporting legends go they don't come much bigger than the late, great Bunny Lambe. It's true that Bunny did not enjoy the national acclaim of other local legends such as hurlers Tom Semple and Jimmy Doyle but locally his fame is just as strong. Samuel Lesley Lambe, was born on the first of April 1901 in the family homestead in Pudding Lane, Thurles. He was the youngest of the nine children of Godfrey and Alice, pillars of the town's local Protestant community. The nickname Bunny was bestowed on the young Samuel because of the fondness for the cream buns that he was so partial to as a child. Little is known of Bunny's early life except for his passion for sport and the scholastic ability that marked him out as a future university candidate.  The course of the young Lambe's life though was to dramatically change when he ran away from home at the tender age of fourteen and enlisted in the Royal Irish by faking his date of birth. Possessed of a first rate mind, exceptional character and a strong physical build, Bunny was to excel within his regiment. His neighbours from the time believed that it was in keeping with Bunny's idealistic outlook that he went off to fight the "Bosch" on the battlefields of Europe. Lambe distinguished himself as a soldier by winning the Victoria Cross for his heroics, in what is commonly regarded as one the Great War's bloodiest encounters, at the Battle of Passchendaele.  After the war and demobilisation, Bunny lived and married in England till the commencement of the Irish Civil War in June 1922. Incensed at the behaviour of the Republicans or the "enemies of Irish democracy", as he liked to call them, Bunny and his English bride Boodie moved to Dublin where he enlisted as an officer in the army of the Irish Free State. Captain Lambe's military nous and derring-do proved to be a great asset to the various brigades he was attached to. After the cessation of hostilities in 1923 Lambe resigned his commission and joined the ranks of the newly established Garda Siochana. It was the Garda life that brought Bunny to Clonmel in 1925.  The Clonmel years were to be some of the happiest of his life, for it was there in town on the Suir that Bunny developed a love of hare coursing and pigeon racing. It was well known that Bunny was ecstatic over the gold medal winning performance of his close Clonmel friend, Dr. Pat O'Callaghan in the LA Olympics of 1932. Bunny's idealism came to the fore again that very same year when he resigned from the Gardai in protest after General Eoin O'Duffy was removed from his Commissionership of the fledgling force. It was typical Bunny behaviour when he followed O'Duffy to Spain in 1936 as part of the Irish Brigade that fought alongside Franco against the nationalist rebels in the Civil War.  His Spanish experience left him with a lingering suspicion of Fascism and a natural abhorrence of war after witnessing German bombers destroy the Basque town of Guernica. It was this suspicion that would later prompt Bunny to join the Local Defence Forces during the wartime Emergency. It was in the late 1940's after a few years as a successful butcher in his native Thurles that Bunny finally resolved to take an active interest in local soccer. To fulfil this goal Bunny established Pudding Lane FC along with his friends Jobey Knox, Bob Benson and Jock Ryan. The club was named in honour of the street he grew up in which was by then known by its current name of O'Donovan Rossa Street.  Bunny also immersed himself in local life on a political, social and spiritual level. His involvement in politics, through his membership of Fine Gael, is well documented particularly his attack on his fellow member of the Oireachtas, Charles J. Haughey after Haughey's alleged role in arms movements to Northern Ireland. Lambe famously described the Dublin T.D. in the Dail as "the degenerate son of an honourable Free State officer."  Not to take from his many achievements in other spheres of life, but it was probably in football that Lambe earned his greatest fame. His stewardship of Pudding Lane brought the club to a succession of junior A titles in the T.S.D.L. none as rewarding as those won in the years following the Mullinahone Coach Disaster of 1963. Bunny was as strict a disciplinarian on the football field as he was on the parade ground and his courage in the trenches was reflected in the brave choices he made as a manager.  Lambe was at the height of his footballing involvement in 1975 when one day on an away match to Cashel Town, he dropped dead on the sideline with "Lane" two goals up. It was a testament to Bunny's popularity that his funeral was one of the biggest ever seen in the "Cathedral Town." Every local body in the town was represented and the attendance included the Protestant diocesan bishop, Dr. Gould as well as Taoiseach of the day Liam Cosgrave. His coffin bore the colors of the Irish Free State and the Royal Irish Regiment, but pride of place went to the flag of his beloved Pudding Lane. The burial in St. Mary's cemetery was restricted to immediate family members that included his wife Boodie, brothers, sisters and children as well as his special friend Rosie and her daughter Miss Jean Lambe.  Bunny Lambe's death was strongly felt locally and it was hardly surprising that Pudding Lane were soon to fall out of the top flight in the Tipp South and District League. Old and fond stories were told of Bunny this year at the official launch of a fundraising committee for a statue in his honour. The Lambe memorial is to be located across from the Premier Hall in Rossa Street or as Bunny liked to call it himself, Pudding Lane. It should be a fitting tribute, to the war hero, politician, community activist and football administrator.