attention because of who he was. I did but not in the way everyone expected.
And he had no escape. The rest of them could go home and mouth me off to high heaven. He had to look at me again. But he’s a quiet boy and said nothing. He stayed a player on the field and a son when we were at home. I eventually learned how to separate being his manager and his da and that if things weren’t going well I couldn’t take it out on him.
The team started coming together during the league of ’91. We put together a run of wins – which eventually stretched to sixteen – and the boys began believing in their ability.
My first championship game in charge was a preliminary against Tyrone in Omagh. The Red Hands looked like winners all the way until Damian Cassidy scored a goal in the dying minutes to send us through to meet Down in the championship first round proper.
It was the first of some mighty clashes with Down who we met at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh.
Anthony Tohill had come home out of Australia the Wednesday before the game and made his debut that day at midfield. Both he and Brian McGilligan showed us what was possible after Greg Blayney was given the line. Having been five points down at half time, we fought our way back into it only for Ross Carr to force the replay with the last kick of the game. Down beat us in the replay and went on to win the All-Ireland. That was a special moment. We felt we had pushed Down to the limit and if they could win an All-Ireland then we were very close.
Disappointed that we hadn’t beaten them, we approached the National League of ’92 with all guns blazing. The stall was set out; we were going to win the League, which we did for the first time since 1947, the year I was born, beating a very fancied Tyrone team in the final at Croke Park. We played badly in the National League final and should have been beat but got a very lucky goal. But on those occasions, it doesn’t matter how you win as long as you win.
The wave of enthusiasm I felt had been lacking in Derry for so long had started to roll through the county. Watching Derry teams play before I was involved, I felt that they never believed they could win an All-Ireland. Now people wanted to play for Derry, we were winning games, everybody wanted to train and the family was getting stronger. The hype was high and so were the expectations.
We couldn’t wait to get at the ’92 Championship and two weeks after that final, we played Tyrone again, this time at Celtic Park, and gave a definite answer that day. We beat them by five points but we were superior all through. Only that Gary scored an own goal, we would have won much easier. It wasn’t his fault – the ball bounced out of him and there was nothing he could do about it so he escaped an eating that day.
Next, we played Monaghan in Castleblayney and after being nine points ahead at half time, Monaghan came storming back into it, needing Declan Bateson to score us a goal in the dying seconds to draw the game. We beat them in the replay in Derry city by seven points.
When the semi-final draw threw up Down, boys we were chomping at the bit. The big meeting at Casement Park – that was the one we wanted, the big clash everyone was waiting on. The All-Ireland and Ulster champions of Down and the National League champions of Derry. Derry had been unbeaten since the previous year’s Championship defeat to Down and we approached the game like it was an Ulster Final.
A tremendous amount of work was being put in by the players and management. We were training three nights a week and the management team met another night, talking about the games and how the players performed. Everyone knew where we wanted to go and we were pulling in the one direction.
Pete McGrath’s men had gone to Croke Park in ’91 and smashed any notion that Ulster teams were there just for a day out. If they could do it then we were a stone’s throw from it and we intended to give a definite answer that day in Casement Park.
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