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 someone else going and playing, but Gary?
It was hard on him. I was hard on him and it took me a few years to learn that I had to treat him like everybody else. I suppose there was the fear that people would accuse me of singling him out for special 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