could play on the team as a boy and even Damian Cassidy, who knew her well, didn’t know she was at right half forward for the second half. They lost the game that day because they didn’t start her. But even at that stage, I knew Gary was a bit special. I could see him thinking way ahead of the other kids and felt then he was good enough.
Vivian too had his share of footballing talent, winning an underage championship with Magherafelt and playing with the Derry minors before retiring at the grand old age of nineteen. It wasn’t that the expectations were too much, or that his footballing career was bad, more a case of his social life being too good.
So, it was Gary who stuck with it and made the most of the talent he had. I never saw him as following in my footsteps – you can’t take football after anyone. It’s a help if you’re in that environment but after that it’s just how good you are in yourself.
He had grown in those years I was away but hadn’t changed at all since he was a cub of fourteen. A bit bigger and bolder like myself, he was happy enough to have his da as manager but perhaps thought privately that it might make things hard for him.
I don’t think either of us realised just how tough it would really be on him, or rather how tough I would turn out to be on him.
For years, Derry football had been in decline but at the start of the nineties, I could see the shoots of something there.
Adrian McGuckin had done great things with St Pat’s in Maghera, winning the All-Ireland Senior Football Colleges championships in both ’89 and ’90. That, bolstered by the growth of St Pius’ in Magherafelt, had meant the young boys coming through had already had their first taste of success with the schools.
At university level, St Mary’s, Queen’s and Jordanstown had got their hands on the Sigerson in ’89, ’90 and ’91 and the success of the county minors of ’89 had yet to be built upon.
As for me, I was ready to do the job. I felt I had something to prove, not to Gary as his da or manager or to anybody else for that matter. I only had to prove I was good enough to myself and I felt I was.
Starting with the minors had allowed me to learn and develop away from the pressure of attention. I’d say we were in the All-Ireland Final before we’d seen a county official at training so that had given us time to grow and learn together, the way we wanted, the way I wanted.
Now I had a belief in myself and the players; if that hadn’t have been there, then I wouldn’t have been there. If I hadn’t thought I could do it better than everyone else that was there before me, I wouldn’t have taken the job.
Even if I wasn’t better than everybody else, I had to believe I was.
I came home out of England in February 1991 and things weren’t very rosy. Mickey Moran had been looking after the training and, with my two selectors Dinny McKeever and Harry Gribben, operated from October until the first three matches of the National League of 1991.
We’d won the first game of the league against Cavan in October but were beaten by Kildare and Antrim. We needed a win against Tyrone to have a chance of staying up.
I had moved home for that crucial game. Tyrone was never easy and with a young, up-and-coming team that included footballers of the class of Peter Canavan and Adrian Cush, who had already won at All-Ireland U21 level, we knew it was a tough one. But we got the victory at Celtic Park and another over Leitrim and then another at Longford where we hammered them off the park.
I called a meeting straight after the match in Slashers GAC in Longford. I had seen what I needed to see and it was time to introduce myself. My message was very simple: I am now in charge and if you want to be on this team, you have to train, you have to train when I tell you to train and you better put the county first. I knew we had the core of a good team in Derry. Some of the minors of ’83 had already stood out, boys like Damien Cassidy, Dermot McNicholl and Johnny McGurk, and of the 1985 U21s, Enda Gormley was one to watch.
Their confidence was rock bottom. But I knew where we had to start. A bit of organisation, give them a system to play to and instil a tactical awareness. There had been a lack of enthusiasm in Derry football through the years, a feeling that they couldn’t expect any level of success never mind an All-Ireland. That had to change.
I had always had a good relationship with my players since winning the All-Ireland with the minors. I’d been at Kildress in County Tyrone but at county level, the Derry minor team of ’83 was my stepping stone. I talked to them, explained what was needed so everyone could discuss what was happening and be a part of the overall effort. The night after training, I would have brought the forwards down to the house and we’d have watched tapes of the senior teams. We’d have took a bit from Kerry or from Meath and brought it into our own play, watched them and tried to develop them in training. And I was learning along with them – you’re always learning. No matter how long you’re there, everybody learns or they should do.
Since starting coaching, I got on well with players. Be straight with them and you’ll get the best out of them – it was a simple enough philosophy. Having won two Sigersons back to back with Jordanstown in ’85 and ’86, I guess I had earned a reputation as a winner.
Fair and direct was the approach from the start and to let the players know I believed in them. They knew exactly how I approached the game and what I expected from them. That, to me, was crucial.
They hadn’t been winning matches but once we started to put a run together they became more positive and assured in themselves. It spilled out. When you’re winning with a team, even if you’re not a great player, you start to believe you are better than you are. The belief and the commitment grew from there. The training which Mickey Moran put them through was tightening them up as well.
It hadn’t been hard from me to settle into things as manager. Once I’d made up my mind to take on the team, it was just a matter of putting things into practice. I tried to build a family, every man playing for each other. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t; like everything else it all depends on the players.
The family connection was important in Derry where we had four sets of brothers strengthening the team; Fergal P. and Damien McCusker, Henry and Seamus Downey, Johnny and Collie McGurk and Hugh Martin and Anthony Tohill. Then there was Gary and myself but for him it wasn’t so much of a help.
Gary is any manager’s treat: dedicated, hard-working and committed but when I came on the scene he was being judged as my son and not the great footballer he is.
Then there was me. People wouldn’t believe it but I would be soft and at the start of my senior stint with Derry, it was easier for me to pick on him because he was my son. I was sorer on him than anybody else. I could say things to him that maybe I should have been saying to another man in the dressing room and he bore the brunt of my tongue.
Mind you there was the odd time he more than deserved it. I had made a rule that the boys could play soccer but they weren’t to be playing the Saturday before a Sunday game. Gary went and played for Newry Town ahead of a League game against Kildare in Ballinascreen. I knew about it, knew about it before he ever did it, but I never mentioned it. I gave him an awful eating before the game on Sunday. I don’t think another man would have sat and took it and I wouldn’t let him tog out.
The wind and the rain was that bad that day, that what little crowd there was was in the stands. Kildare wouldn’t keep a ball behind the net because they were trying to slow the game down. I made him go out and stand behind the goals and every time the ball went over the wire he’d to go and get it back. He came in drenched. That put an end to Gary’s soccer. I could maybe even understand
