Once upon a time, the great scribe and Derry man Seamus Heaney was being interviewed for the Irish Times. The questioner was attempting to discover ways in which Heaney was aware of his Irishness, and he listed family and the church, both to the silent approval of the poet. Then he tried to reach for a third, and faltered for a brief second. Heaney quickly interjected with two words that summed up what was missing. That summed up what key to his Irish identity had not yet been named. "Gaelic football".
And thus Heaney summed up what runs deep in the veins of many men, women and children from his part of the world in south Derry, where gaelic football is not simply a hobby, a past-time, but an integral part of one's identity, one's Irishness. It is part, too, of an intense pride in one's parish and community, a pride that contributes to what is traditionally one of the toughest and most competitive club championships in the country.
Pride. The word sums up why a man from Ballinderry will take it personally if he loses to the Loup. But it is something that the Derry county team was accused of lacking in their flaccid Ulster championship performance against Tyrone. How Tyrone relate to Derry is akin to Rangers and Celtic, albeit within similar political and religious boundaries. Whoever wins can look over the garden fence and smirk at their cowering neighbour, who dwells in shame, dreaming of the next encounter and a chance to make amends. So Derry's performance against Tyrone and their submissive lethargy in defeat caused serious alarm bells to ring within and without the county.
Michael McMullan is well placed to discuss what, if anything, is wrong with the county's senior team ahead of their Round 1 Qualifier game against Louth this weekend. McMullan trained the Derry minors to within a kick of an All-Ireland in 2007 and is back on the management team this year. He also writes extensively on GAA within the county as a sports journalist and agrees that the tribal club scene has a detrimental effect on the performance of the county side.
Derry's club championship is very, very competitive. And there would be a school of thought in the county (that says), 'Let’s get this Louth match out of the way and get back to play for the clubs’...That does exist. People would say, 'The county’s going nowhere here. Let's wait 'til it's all over and the club will be back in action.'
Eamonn Coleman, the manager of Derry's sole All-Ireland winning side in 1993, is a figure whose absence is keenly felt every time an Oak Leaf side fails to produce a performance. Former Irish News and Examiner sportswriter Paddy Heaney once wrote of playing club football in Derry in the early 90's, when Coleman was guiding the Oak Leaf seniors, that "weeks would pass by without league games ever being played. When we did get a game, we usually had to field without our county players." Heaney was highlighting Coleman's attitude in his column after a season (2014) when a Derry side heavily decimated by injuries in club games had been beaten by Longford in the championship.
Derry manager Damian Barton outlined a scenario this week that is not much different from his ill-fated predecessors. Managing the club scene, Barton said, was "a huge task made a little bit more tricky by things like quite a lot of fixtures, club fixtures not operating like they should be, stag weekends-it has been quite amazing". And McMullan tells Balls that the guidance of someone like Coleman is badly needed for a county that has gone downhill since his departure from the inter-county scene.
At the end of the day, the club is very important. It’s where you start and where you finish. But in a lot of other counties they are able to play county and club and marry them together. Derry has struggled. Whenever Eamonn was manager back in the 90s, he seemed to just pull everybody together and Derry was number one...I suppose since then that hasn’t really happened.
But there is no point in placing all the blame on the club game in Derry. Like Cavan, Tyrone and Donegal have done, all stakeholders need to look at their role within the set-up and ask themselves what can be done to improve how the county senior team fares on the pitch. Monaghan also provide a good example of a county that has progressed. McMullan highlights a 1-10 to 0-1 drubbing his Derry minors gave their Monaghan counterparts in the Ulster semi-final in 2007. Lining up for Monaghan that day was a Colin Walshe, future Allstar, and Kieran Hughes, one of the country's most lethal forwards at the moment.
And yet the innocent face of youth seems to be providing hope for Derry. An All-Ireland semi-final appearance last year was complimented by a Hogan Cup final this year for St Pat's in Maghera. Conor Glass was at the forefront of both of these runs. Since his early teens, Glass has been a human manifestation of hope for Derry football, his almost unnatural ability whispered about in pubs and clubhouses, along country lanes and at the back of churches. But they never boasted about this great talent they had discovered in Derry, for fear that somehow he might just be a myth, a dream. Or that something might take him away from the county, from football, from their hopes.
And that is exactly what happened. Glass is off to Australia, to forge a career as a professional ball player with Hawthorn FC. Hopes persist that, like Martin Clarke in Down, he might yet return to lead his county into battle. Either way, McMullan is placing his faith in Derry's youth. All they need is a catalyst, an inspiration. Some heroic player to rise from the ether and give them something to dream about.
There definitely is enough players in the county, it just needs some sort of spark to take it off, and I think everybody in the county wants to know what the answer to it is.
For me, it’s translating minors into under 21s and making sure that the cream of underage doesn’t drift away. That they step into under-21s and say, ‘Well, here we’ve got a taste of winning something in the red and white, and we want more of it.'
Yes, we’ve lost Conor to Australia, but the crux of them all are still there, and there’s more there. There’s more to follow.
Derry people have heard it all before. All-Ireland under 21 and minor wins in 1997 and 2002 were never reflected in senior success. The 2000 and 2002 Ulster minor wins came and went while the senior team failed to deliver.
Still, they aren't that far away. A few wins and the dormant red and white beast may yet rear its head come the late summer months. A talented Derry under 21 side narrowly lost to a highly rated Donegal outfit in March. The minors hammered Tyrone in their opening championship game in May. The summer is approaching and it is a fine time to be hopping ball as a youngster around the pitches of Maghera, Dungiven and Slaughtneil.
All they need is something to aspire to, somebody to light the flame.
They'll be hoping that starts against Louth on Saturday.
