Barry Armstrong

“I ended up getting involved in Lámh Dhearg because I was very friendly with Ciaran O’Neill and I was in his class in school. When I went to St. Mary’s CBGS I started playing Gaelic football and hurling but I wasn’t part of the club at the time- I joined the club in my last year of U-14. It was just football at underage- there was no hurling. That’s how I got involved originally”.

“I just played hurling in school and hadn’t really thought anything about there not being hurling in the club. We were already familiar with the club and just went football training and played football under Bukey at U-14 and then Paul Lynch at U-16. At that time we were quite successful so we didn’t really think much of it about there not being hurling. We just played football at the club and played hurling and football at school under Brother Ennis- he was the one that started me in first year”.

“I did have the choice to go elsewhere for hurling- some of lads I would have been very friendly with in St Johns in particular had spoken to me about going down there. I don’t know why but I didn’t go- it was maybe because at the time we were always there abouts and getting to championship football finals and we got to the minor final and won a minor final. we got to an U-21 final and were beaten in the semi-final and we were always knocking about in the business end of the season in football and never really thought much about it”.

“In my last year of minor- Ambrose O’Neill started up a minor hurling team because there was a lot of us that were playing in the minor football team and were all hurlers. You’d have had lads like Kevin Smilie, ‘Bruce’ McKiernan, Sootie [Patrick McCague], my brother Anthony [Armstrong], Alex Thompson and myself and a squad of other ones who were hurling”.

“I can remember our first minor division two match was down in St Pauls against St Pauls – they were a good outfit at the time and they absolutely drilled us. We got better as the year went on and won a couple of games and it turned out to be quite a good venture in the end. That was the only hurling that I played at the club underage”.

Minor football win in 1988:

“it’s quite funny that there are always comparisons between our minor team and the 92 minor team. Our team was quite funny in that a lot of us went to school together at St. Mary’s – even the team that were beaten in the final in 87 by Davitts- I think there were 5 or 6 of us in the same form class and we were a tight knit bunch of fellas. St. Mary’s at the time were still quite strong in MacRory Cup and a lot of us were still playing in that as well”.

“There were personalities like Kevin Smylie – our full-back line would have been myself, Stinty [Paul Stinton] RIP, Kevin Smylie and myself and let’s just say it was a no-nonsense full-back line. We’d great footballers like Frankie Wilson, Ciaran O’Neill and Micky Boyle – great, great footballers that went onto play county football. There were a lot of leaders in that team that would have taken the situation in a game where you came up against difficulty. They would have taken it by the scruff”.

“Big Fitzy was managing and Paul Lynch was coaching and we were well versed in what we should be doing. They were great days and super days because we were always getting to the end of the season and were in finals. Dodger [Pat McCambridge] was the captain and a class act, played at centre-half back and sometimes played in corner-forward and dropped back in- if I can remember rightly he didn’t play up front. In midfield we had Fred and Wawa – Fred Magee and big Paddy Dornan. Across the half-forward line there was Micky Boyle, Ciaran O’Neill and Frankie Wilson. It was a super, super team”.

“We beat St Galls in the final, we had worked on game plans for an awful long time. Our full back line was probably the biggest line in the team and our two midfielders were nowhere near the height of what the St Galls midfielders were – Pat O’Connor and international basketballer Gareth Maguire . We worked on a game plan that the ball was to go nowhere near the middle at all and we implemented it and beat St Galls- thank god”.

“We’d a 25-year anniversary a couple of years back up in the club, our full-back line – myself and Kevin Smilie in particular- we got a rave write-up for what we did that day, more so than the guys up front that did the scoring. It was quite strange because usually it’s the other way about. Maybe I didn’t realise that impact that myself and others had on the final but they were great days”.

“There was a 7s team that won an U-16 county 7s but I wouldn’t have been a good enough player to play 7s at that time. It was big 7s tournament underage but I remember my first football match for the club would have been against St Enda’s up at Hightown on a pitch with a big hole down one side of it and we got hammered. I can remember playing Sarsfields shortly after the pitch was open in Hannahstown and we got hammered and at U-14 level you couldn’t see the success that came four or five years down the line coming – but it did”.

“The credit has to go to Bukey and Paul Lynch and Fitzy for that, Fitzy in particular came in and I don’t know whether it was because he was that ‘figurehead’ type guy – but he came in and gave us that wee bit extra in know-how of getting over the line in things. He would have talked personally to people about doing this and doing that and Paul Lynch was a fabulous trainer, organiser and manager. It was super set-up”.

“Paul Lynch took our U-16 team in the first year I was U-16 and then took it again. He had us in my first year of minor- we got into the final and were beaten by Davitts- they were a good team I have to say. we were young a year or two young and expected to play them in the final the following year- either Davitt’s or Sarsfields but St Galls came through the other half of the draw. You just couldn’t see it coming”.

Progression into Senior hurling:

“I can remember my first training sessions under Father John O’Donovan, although I was still at St. Mary’s at that time- the seniors had just won the Junior hurling championship at that time with him playing. I remember them playing in the final at Casement Park against Rasharkin and big Frankie Fitzsimons jnr scoring the goals and Fr John and Totes [Brendan Toland] were playing”.

“They were still there when I began senior hurling and ‘Bruce’ McKiernan I think came in from the minors as well. Ambrose O’Neill started to struggle a bit at corner-back, he was quite a fabulous hurler and had all these wee tricks playing at corner-back and had the pace to implement them and get away from players but he reached an age whereby he didn’t have the pace to implement the wee tricks and get away from people and started mistakes and the next thing I was pushed into corner-back and played there for about a year”.

“We went up to play in Glenariff one year and we were getting beat quite heavily and were struggling across the full-back line- I think Frankie Quinn might have been manager at the time- he moved me into full-back on Randal McDonnell. This guy was an ex-county hurler, he was about 45-years of age and he was the one doing the damage and I think If I remember right I sealed that up. I played at full-back and moved to centre-half back and then by the time I was coming to my late 20s; Ciaran Herron was coming knocking on the door and I could see the writing was on the wall at 6”.

“Barney [Herron] made a great call, he played Ciaran in corner-back in the first year and then in the second year he pushed him into 6 and pushed me into midfield and it gave me another 10 years hurling – I thought I was on my way out. I can remember the day sitting in the changing room for the first league game and Barney and Kieran [Megraw] moved Ciaran to 6 and I knew it was coming. I thought they might have moved me to 5 or 7 and when my name wasn’t across that half-back line my heart just dropped. I thought Baz what’s the story here? The next thing I was called out at midfield and I never looked back for another 10 years”.

“They were great times too- we should have won Intermediate Championships but we just didn’t get over the line and didn’t have the luck. I played Intermediate Championship for all of my senior hurling and we were playing Randalstown [Tir na Nog], Carey Faughs and Cushendun. Those teams were winning Intermediate and going up and competing at senior. We never made that breakthrough to get up and get a taste of Division One hurling. Cushendun played Division One for a while, Carey might have been up for the odd year, Gort na Mona and Sarsfields were in and around there- all good, good teams. They were very strong and you never knew who was going to win that Intermediate Championship any year because it was so tight. Barney Herron, Kieran Megraw and Colm McKenna would have been involved for most of my playing days. Frankie Quinn managed the 92 minor team and he brought those guys through for a couple of years and then Kieran, Barney and Colm run it for years until I think I came in”.

Going into management:

“I was at Queens at the time and hurling for Queens, I think Jim Brady asked me if I would start a bit of hurling training at the club so we started it about February time and didn’t realise the players we had. Holy ghost – we’d the three Herron’s [Ciaran, Brendan and Micko] – Micko was only about 7 or 8 but he came. The McLarnon’s, Christy Tumelty, Daniel McGreevy came a year later and square head [Terrance O’Hara], Reg [Brendan McComb], Terry Vincent, Joe Hughes, Joe Doone, Charlie McCloskey. We’d a hell of a team and I think that might have been 92 or 93”.

“We won the U-12 league and the B Championship that year and a lot of the clubs that played in the A told us we could have won the A. That was great because I’d played under great coaches throughout my career. I always seemed to touch lucky in underage having super coaches – in St. Mary’s I had Br Ennis and Eddie McToal. At the club you’d have had Bukey, Paul Lynch and Fitzy”.

“When I went to Queens- I learnt an awful lot because it was like an interprovincial hurling team. Seamus Downey would have been playing, Colly McGurk – these guys were playing in their inter-county senior football and hurling teams. Paul Mason and Mick Braniff from Down and Paul and Barry Coulter. The first manager was a Down man called Dick Looby, I learnt so much from Dick and Seamy Fay from Ballygalget. The Ulster Hurling Championship would have been strong in the early 90s, Derry won a couple back to back. We’d Seamy O’Neill from Ballinascreen and Colly Mc Gurk and a few Derry lads, Down lads and Antrim lads. Jim Close was playing and Rory Boland from Dublin- we’d a super hurling team and I learned so much from them”.

“Those guys were very experienced players and they’d be very quick to take you to the side and teach you the wee things. Which maybe through my underage career at Hannahstown – I was maybe lost for a wee bit; I learnt an awful lot at Queens. Neil Pedan and Jimmy Darragh took my last couple of years and I learn an awful lot because we were travelling down to Cork and Kilkenny and that to play- which was super. That was around 92”.

“In the late 90s my first teaching placement as a sub teacher would have been at St. Mary’s CBGS- I coached hurling there and got involved in the Mageean Cup teams. I learnt a lot from that, Tony [Austin] and Eddie [McToal] were taking them down south and we were meeting the likes of Davy Fitzgerald and Liam Griffin [Wexford All-ireland winning 1996 manager]. We went to Wexford with him and we were in Kilkenny. I went with Bukey as well with La Salle to St Kieran’s College Kilkenny because they were stuck for a teacher to go as a teacher suffered a sudden bereavement of a parent.  I ended up going down with Bukey and Sean McGourty and their very talented Year 9 team and it was a tremendous trip”.

“There was a lot of travelling down south involved in coaching and maybe it was me bringing that experience and coaching back into the club, maybe the young lads seeing what I was learning and what I had done- I don’t know, maybe it just brought the whole thing together? I do believe we were very lucky with that U-12 squad. They were so committed and picked things up very, very quickly- that was the only year we played B hurling underage. The rest of the time we played A and we were beaten in the Nipper Quinn A final, beaten in two Feile finals and an U-16 final and beaten two years in a row in a minor quarter-final by the eventual champions”.

“The best underage match that I can remember is a quarter-final match against Loughgeil at Hannahstown one night. We were beating them a goal and the referee kept playing extra time and an injury-time, they got a 21-yard free and one of our defenders forgot to guard the post and it snuck in the inside of the post and they brought us back up the country for the replay”.

‘What a match the replay was- there was a huge crowd from Loughgeil because their senior team were playing that day and it was a late evening throw-in. Their senior team came back after their senior game to watch the minor match and it was packed to the rafters. They only beat us by a goal or four-points up there and they went onto win it. At that time those lads had gone through – Ciaran, Brendan [Herron], Daniel McGreevy and Christy [Tumelty] were all playing county. They were rubbing shoulders with the lads from Loughgeil and Dunloy. You didn’t know who was going to win the minor championship then- it was wide open. You could throw a dart at any name of the team sheet and even in U-16 in those days – Gort na Mona could have won it, Sarsfields were in the mix and Rossa had a fabulous team”.

“Another great memory was U-14, Brian Close was in his last year in U-14 and Micko [Herron] might have been about 10 and he played nets for us. He would have played outfield in his own age group but played two ages above himself in nets and was some keeper. Micko and Brian Close were in a running battle- the more Micko saved the more Brian Close tried to score- it turned into an individual battle. Brian Close used to pick a ball up and run 30-yards and nobody would have stopped him, he’d tremendous pace and skill. Micko saved as many as he scored- it was unreal to watch”.

“Peter had mentioned the big thing was when they were U-14 we took them to Wexford for the weekend in two minibuses and stayed in a scout-hut with sleeping bags. We played Gorey and Naomh Mearnog in Dublin. The guy that took the Gorey team was Billy Byrne- he was full-forward in the Wexford team that won the 1996 all-Ireland. Micko scored two wonder goals and Billy came away raving about the goals that Michael scored. We stopped off on Croke Park on the Sunday to watch the National League finals- we were doing the travelling to and they were great, great days”.

Irish News 7’s:

“That was the first major thing we had actually won and we knew we would be there or there abouts. It was Ciaran Herron’s last year of minor, we went to Corrigan Park that day and a couple of teams hadn’t travelled but Dunloy, Loughgeil and Rossa were there- they were the three big teams at the time. We ended up putting two teams in because we’d numbers for two and by the time we got to the semi-finals our B team were in one semi-final and the A team was in the other”.

“The A team won and the B team nearly won- it was nearly the two Hannahstown teams in the final. it was a huge thing and I remember going into the club that day in the old blue transit minibus and the lads were delighted. That was big thing to win back then and was super. It gave the lads a bit of taste because they’d been knocking on the doors for years and it was nice to get something. They beat Rossa in the final that was a super Rossa team- they’d Gavin Bell and players like that a really strong side. They were good days”.

Promotion to Division One and influence of Jim Nelson:

“We’d always set ourselves targets and had five-year development plans; it wasn’t necessarily to win trophies – it was to produce senior hurlers. We’d always set a target to win a minor title, if we could win a minor it would be great and we weren’t too far away from it – but we were just missing one or two players. Those guys all came through to senior and we were holding our own at the time. Barney, Kieran and Colm had done trojan work and trained the team for a long time in division two but couldn’t make the breakthrough as the panel as always the case was small and we had many dual players”.

“Whenever I looked at it, I said I couldn’t do all the work at underage and then let it go- if I hadn’t have stepped in when I did- it would have been just let go. I was still playing at the time and was in my mid-30s. I had tried to get Jim Nelson [RIP] in but he wouldn’t come in and the next year in 2003 he came in. We had drawn the first match against Sarsfields and played quite poorly- we’d done all the work and were th4 far better team and had 7 county players on the team that day- between the 3 Herron’s, Christy [Tumelty] and Daryl [Fegan] had been on the county squad. We were laden with good county players in minor, U-21 and senior and it just didn’t happen”.

“The Halloween holidays came up and I just thought I’d have a yarn with Jim Nelson- my two mentors through all my hurling coaching was Sean McGuinness and Jim Nelson- they were my two tutors when I was doing my level one. Back in those days when you were doing your level one you had to fill a logbook in for a season, you had to show your coaching- it was like prepping for doing a PGCE and was quite detailed in comparison to what it is now from what I can make out. They were the two that signed off on my book and I brought Jim Nelson in”.

“Bringing Jim in was the best thing- it was just a different voice. He never shouted and never swore but he was just so, so intelligent when it came to hurling. He took training on the first week- there was two weeks between the drawn match and the second match- on the second week it snowed and the weather turned really, really cold. We went to the pitch one night and Jim looked at me and said – “Barry no harm to you, the only good thing we’re going to get out of this tonight is a lot of flus and stuff and you don’t want that ahead of Sunday”. It was blowing a blizzard and I said we’d go into the club and do a wee bit; we went into the club and got the lads organised with responsibilities and positions. We went through a load of stuff on flow charts and stuff and split them into forwards and backs”.

“Jim asked me what way I picked the team and I told him- we would always have picked teams in those days were you put your best hurlers in the spine of the team. He said to me – “no, put your best three hurlers across your half-back line” he asked who were my best three hurlers – I said Ciaran at six, at that time Brendan [Herron] had been playing in midfield or up front and Christy [Tumelty]. So I said I suppose Brendan and Christy could slot in across the half-back line. We went into the replay with a new half-back line, a new midfield and the whole thing totally rearranged”.

“Christy, Ciaran and Brendan became probably the best half-back line in the county for about four years. We were playing Division One and they were undoubtedly the best half-back line I had ever seen playing – a lot of people told it was the best they’d ever seen playing- they were unreal. we went down to Corrigan Park that day and Sean McGuinness was taking Sarsfields. I lifted Nelson on the way down and Sean McGuiness just arrived in as I had arrived in. he seen me getting out of the car and the next thing Jim Nelson got out the front seat- the look on Sean’s face. He put his head into his hands and just laughed and away we went”.

“In the first ten minutes we got a 65’ and Ciaran [Herron] could hit a dead ball and had put on over five minutes into injury-time the first day for us to level. we were behind on the first match and he’d to put a 65’ over to get us a draw and when the ball hit the ground behind the net the referee blew his whistle. The first 65’ we got in the replay was about 10 minutes in and Jim was standing beside me at the fence and said to put in low. I said – what? He said to drill it in low, so I ran onto the pitch with water and said Nelson said to put in low”.

“Ciaran flighted the ball in low and it bounced about the 21-yard box and Daryl [Fegan] caught it on the half-volley and it went in the top corner. I never asked him and to this day I still think- how in the name of god was he so sure that, that was going to happen? Most smart and intelligent hurling coaches would be saying put it over the bar and get another score on the board. I had never come across another call like that in my life- it was unreal and he was so, so intelligent”.

“We were probably one of the best hurling teams in the county, at the time there was a void- Loughgeil had dominated the early 90s and Cushendall. Teams had gone through a rebuilding phase all of a sudden there became a void that there was no dominant team. Us and St Galls came knocking on the door – St Galls had a good team with the McGourty’s and Mackers. But many of our hurlers were also very talented footballers on a strong football side and it was very tough and physically demanding on the players and you had to admire their commitment to both codes”.

“It was big thing to be recognised at the centenary gala dinner at the Europa Hotel- the players were all delighted and Raymie [Herron] is holding the cup. I was standing over to the right and Dinny Cahill was on the other side of the stage and my wife said – I’d a face like a beat-up poker. I was just so relieved that we had reached the top flight and had a chance to play the big guns and was also thinking of the huge effort of everyone involved in achieving division one status.  It was an unreal feeling and experience  for about six-years it was the best thing ever”.

Division One experience:

“I can remember our first year in division one and our first league game was against Cushendall in Cushendall. We knew that there were some teams we were going to go to- or they were going to come to us and we were going to take a scalping. I was thinking happy days- even if we took a scalping- it would bring our game up to that level because we’d be playing to that intensity and whoever we’d play after that- we’d be ready for it”.

“Paddy Tumelty was doing pre-season with the footballers- which I’d no issue with- but I knew from doing both for a while, the senior football league wouldn’t be as intense as what the senior division one hurling would be. It was the just the game the way it was and it was nothing to do with hurlers are fitter than footballers- it was just the games were different and the speed of the games were different. We went up to play Cushendall that day and they beat us by seven points, we had them on the rack for a long time. Paddy came over to me at the end and he was punctured-he was playing in midfield because that was his third competitive game in a week while Cushendall boys had only our game. That shows how hard it is for dual clubs to compete . People started to believe we could do it and the only bad beating we ever got was in Dunloy one night. They went onto win Antrim and Ulster that year and they gave us a bad trouncing on their new pitch. It was the only bad night at the office that we had”.

Senior championship and win over Cushendall:

“The big night was beating Cushendall, unfortunately senior championship over the first couple of years was played over two-legs – you’d play home and away and it was almost like Champions League. The first year we played senior Championship we played the Johnnies and we played them down in Corrigan Park and beat them by two points. In a knock-out championship that’s you done and dusted and through to the semi-final but what that Championship did – it meant that any of the unfancied teams, if they caused a shock on the first day- there was always the chance it would be corrected the next day and they came to Hannahstown and beat us by three-points the next day and one by a point”.

“The secret to then round robin a few years later was winning your home games- we might have played the Johnnies away and in our group we’d Ballycastle and Cushendall at home. We played the Johnnies on a Sunday afternoon at Corrigan Park and the heavens opened- there was thunderstorm and the rain was unreal, they beat us by a couple of points and just got over the line”.

“The games weren’t two weeks apart and we’d the real hard match on the Sunday against St Johns and were to play Ballycastle the following Sunday at Hannahstown. Colm McKenna always told me- don’t be worrying about the St John’s match – we’ll beat these two teams at Hannahstown. I thought maybe Ballycastle because they only beat us a point in the league at Hannahstown. We’d Ballycastle ear-marked and Cushendall we weren’t sure about but Colm McKenna always maintained we would beat Ballycastle in Hannahstown”.

“A senior football game was played on the Friday night and the only dual players that didn’t play were Micko and Christy Tumelty. Ciaran Herron got a dead leg out of it – the hurlers should never have been playing on that Friday night (the problems of a dual club). Ballycastle beat us by a goal and we were running with a team that was carrying injuries from the football match on the Friday night. If you think back now- if we had have won that match we would have got to a county semi-final. We weren’t far away and they were great days”.

“The Cushendall night was unreal- I got the pitch and I said happy days because when you got your hurling fixtures at the start of the year- you looked for Wednesday night matches when you had to go up the country. You didn’t want a Wednesday night match up the country, you didn’t mind it on a Sunday because nobody worked on a Sunday but you didn’t want fellas rolling out of work at 5 o’clock on a Wednesday to be in Dunloy or Ballycastle for a 7 o’clock throw in”.

“That was the first thing we looked for in the fixtures and we’d Cushendall on a Wednesday night in Hannahstown. I got down to the pitch and the fog had come down and it was raining, you could barely just see the bottom goals and I thought the referee mightn’t let this go – but he did”.

“I’ll remember two things – Micko’s speech before hand, we’d done all the organising and stuff for it and got ourselves right. In the warm-up Micko came out with this line – don’t let this lot score any goals, if we don’t let them score goals we’ll beat them – no goals and we’ll beat them. he did the exact same thing in the dressing room and relayed the message. The thing is they did score one goal but on the official score line they didn’t”.

“They did score a goal that night, the ball went over the line and into the net – but Garso [Gary Agnew] being Garso – being the intelligent and witty guy that from that generation of Paddy Tumelty and Daryl- there were really witty and fast thinking. Garso lifted the ball out of the back of the net and stuck it up his jersey, by the time he had got the ball up his jersey he was in the square. That quick thinking was unreal and I remember afterwards with his big grin telling the story. We all thought they scored a goal and was wondering how he kept it out”.

“St John’s were playing Ballycastle at Corrigan Park that night, there was only two teams going to the semi-finals and they went to watch the Johnnies but at half-time in our match all the Cushendall crowd came up into Hannahstown. I remember leaving the pitch at half-time and all the cars were coming in from Corrigan Park”.

“Ciaran Herron was very friendly with a couple of the Cushendall lads on the county team and they’d no doubting of the potential that we had. We just hadn’t been consistent enough for three or four years for people to worry about us. Ciaran gave an exhibition that was just unreal, he played that night in conditions were there was poor visibility and you just thought the ball stuck to his stick – he was unreal. We moved Michael into midfield that night and he was great but Ciaran gave an exhibition that night that was unreal. He was on a different planet to everybody else on the pitch”.

“It was a great night and I remember coming in and Sean Maguire meeting me and saying to me- I didn’t think we could do that- I said just keep the faith. Paddy Tumelty gave me a big hug in the dressing room and couldn’t believe what we done. I told the lads this we could do it and this was the potential we had. After that it was all downhill unfortunately and we didn’t build on that”.

“Our club didn’t realise the potential that was there and if you talk to some the players now they’d say – what we had was unreal and we didn’t realise what we had- especially when Nelson went to Loughgeil and won an All-Ireland with Loughgeil. Maybe in hindsight If we were only hurling we could of pushed on but it was frustrating at times because many of our boys were also good footballers and they were always under pressure serving the club so well in both codes. That’s life for dual clubs”.

County:

“We were in the position whereby for the first couple of years we were a division two side and you needed to be winning division two to be up in senior. Dinny Cahill took the county team at the time and he told the players they weren’t allowed to play for their clubs. I can remember in my first year coaching we couldn’t play the county players and were three or four games short of the deadline and we weren’t allowed to play them. They were matches that we didn’t play because we’d county players and if we’d have won all those matches-  we’d have gone up a year or two earlier”.

“It was hard managing that side of things and in understood as well that the lads wanted to play for the county. They were playing All-Ireland quarterfinals at Croke Park and were close on a couple of occasions of getting to the semi-final. Ciaran Herron was nominated for an All-Star in 2003 and ended up being called up as a replacement on the All-Star tour. We needed all our players to win division two, if we had have been division one and were told there was no relegation – I wouldn’t have been worried and told them to go play for the county and come Championship we would worry about it then. But that didn’t happen- the county never gave us that flexibility”.

“When we did get up were always fighting against relegation and we needed our best players out. There was no point in us going to play Cushendall or Loughgeil without the Herron’s and Christy because you would have been just going for a hammering. We needed our full 15 players on the pitch and it was difficult managing that. Not on the lads part- there was no co-operation from the county or Dinny Cahill. In the end it was Ger Rogan that brokered a couple of deals the year we did go up – to release the lads that weren’t on the starting 15 in the county to play for us in league games”.

“I think that might have got us over the line because if I can remember rightly- we didn’t top the division and the play-off was 1 v 2. We just got enough points to get in and Ger Rogan was one of Dinny Cahill’s selectors and he pulled a few strings so the likes of Micko and Brendan were able to play. It was hard to manage because there was always the risk that we’d be relegated. I wouldn’t have minded being relegated if we weren’t doing enough to stay up but were more than good enough to stay up. I would have been livid if we’d have went down because I was releasing players to the county and it was costing us a senior hurling team”.

“We won a Division 1B at that time, one year they played a 14-team division one – you played everybody once and then they split in into two. We were first or second in 1B and beat Rossa one night at Shaws Road to win division 1B. The boys all have Division 1B medals which was a big thing- beating Rossa down there to win that. It was great”.

Leaving the club and other coaching ventures:

“After leaving the club I coached Sean Tracey’s in Lurgan and they were great to work with- I won a couple of leagues and Junior Championships. There was no football there- which was a big think because you’d all your players there. You just turned up at training and soaked it up. I took them from being a junior team to an Armagh senior team and they played senior for a few years. Middeltown and Keady beat us on a couple of occasions but we were just missing one or two players around the edges”.

“When I moved to Aghaderg – there was a meeting in the parochial hall down here and it was a juvenile programme that the GAA had in place back then- I said I’d come in and give a hand. On Saturday morning you’d go up to the pitch at Ballyvarley and there’d have been 6 or 7 coaches in football, hurling and camogie. It was great and my daughter Caitlin hadn’t really bothered in football or hurling because we were living over at Sunnyside Street when she was younger and there no camogie at the club. She didn’t show any interest but I started coaching down here and she did start showing interest”.

“After that first year in coaching one of my next-door neighbours asked me if I’d look after the U-10 camogie players because they’d no one to look after them. When your daughter is playing with them then you can’t say no. It was a challenge but we have now went onto win a Junior championship last year. from coming from nowhere we are know one of the big hitters in Down underage camogie. I’m chairperson of the camogie and there is three chair people of each code and then you’ve the club senior chairperson”.

“I coached the Down U-14 camogie team a couple of years back in Ballyvarley – which was a good team and Caitlin was in the team. We won Down Junior last year and won promotion to division two and brought lots of county players through ranks. Caitlin has gone from strength to strength as well- she’s colleges All-Stars and Ulster senior club All-star nomination last week as well. she’s got a lot of individual accolades out of it- as have other girls. We were really looking forward to getting our teeth stuck into division two this year and going another step towards division one”.

“A couple of years ago I managed Liatroim camogs, Decky [Declan Napier] was over in the house one night and were chittering about things and said it would be great to get our teeth into something. It was August time and things were starting to wind down and Decky said – I don’t think Liatroim have a camogie manager. I rang a friend of mine who was playing at Liatroim camogie at the time- Ciara McGovern. She went back to their committee and they called us over at the beginning of August. We had a meeting with two of their committee members on the Friday night and the following Wednesday we had first round of Championship. We took them in six weeks from a team that hadn’t won a match all year- to county champions and it was unreal, a journey I’ll never forgot. We were beaten in the Ulster senior but it was a journey I’ll never forget. Nobody ever seen that coming”.

“When I set about doing something it will be done and if it’s not done I’ll near kill myself doing it. maybe that’s what happened two years ago when I had a heart-attack. The same guy that asked to take the team in Ballyvarley said to me- you’ve got to remember this is only a country junior club. I said that’s fair enough but it can be the best county junior club. It doesn’t have to be sitting at the bottom of division four football and the bottom of division two hurling and camogie almost recognisable- it can be the best junior club and that’s what needs to happen. The night we won the junior final last year he said to me- you were 100 percent right 10 years ago, we should have been setting our stall out to be the best and you’ve set standards that we can’t go back on. I can remember that conversation with him”.

“I had helped out with camogie in St. Mary’s University- my cousin Dymphna Burke from Derry had asked me come in and take it and it was the first camogie team I had. It was a real good team with a lot of county players on it- we got the Ashbournne Shield final in Galway and the next year we got the Ashbourne weekend again and were beaten in the Shield semi-final. We were playing top level camogie and St. Mary’s wouldn’t have been one of the big hitters. We had to work hard and we went from underdogs to knocking at the door”.

“I was talking to Gavin Duffy a couple of times and Decky [Napier] and said I’d always have loved to have got the opportunity to take a team that was sitting ready and in place where you don’t have to do ten years development to get it to where you want to be. The year in Liatroim was good in that way because you knew that they had quality players- they were top dogs in camogie and you just had to walk in and get them right to play Championship games. they were very, very good”.

Ronan and coming back to the club:

“I was shocked when I went back to the club and I knew hurling had dropped- Ronan wasn’t enjoying his hurling up here and there were a few issues- not his doing. I said I would bring him up to Hannahsrown and he’s never looked back since. He loves it and loves getting up, it’s almost like me coming in – a wet behind the ears culchie from the Rock end of the parish and meeting up with lads from the west of city. Ronan is in there with Christy Tumelty’s son, Sootie [Patrick McCague] son is there, Damo [McGuigan], Peter Kane’s son is there – all the lads that I coached and played with- their sons are there now”.

“It shocked me to see how standards had slipped- Peter Kane said he would take the team and I said I’d take the training and Sootie was involved- he was in along with ‘Bruce’ McKiernan we were in division one along with Jim Nelson. That wee team really started to come together and there is a real good age group there and good players. Ronan just loves getting up, he loves it and the lads treat him with a bit of respect. He can’t get over the craic- they were up playing in Colaiste Feirste before lockdown. Ballycaslte and Loughgeil had travelled up and it was an U-16 blitz and he was playing in midfield. A ball had gone over the line and the linesman had given it the wrong way. Sootie’s son is a chip off his da’s block and mentioned something along the lines of the linesman being blind. Our Ronan loves that”.

“He went to primary school in Belfast where it was rough and tumble in Newtownabbey – down here that is frowned upon and he loves that wee bit of craic and nastiness. We loves playing Antrim hurling and going to Loughgeil and Ballycastle. I remember he was playing an U-12 game against Dunloy and I was talking to Peter Kane and Tony [Stanley] about something that had been said at Ballyvarley. We were having the conversation and Ronan scored a goal and tony turned round and said – he mightn’t be the most skilful player in world but he works his socks off on the pitch. I’d take him any day and he will always have his place in this club. The lads look after him so well and are unreal with him and he loves getting up. Lockdown is killing him a bit because he has no football and he’s not getting up for his hurling”.

“I had the heart-attack two years ago and I was a wee bit annoyed one year that they hadn’t rang and was walking around the pitch with Bukey. I’d been out of hospital and I was annoyed that I hadn’t been asked to come in and help out – Bukey said are you right in the head? He said you were very  ill and we have a duty to care and don’t want you coming up here and being under any undue pressure or duress.  He said that Ronan would be alright and not be worrying. I love coming up with him too because it gets into contact with the lads and you’re talking with them. Everybody makes you very, very welcome and I do miss the place. I’d love to come back in and help hurling a lot more than I do – but if I do that then our Caitlin’s team will break-up”.

“I know hurling is not in its strongest position at the club at the minute, but I always know that there will be good coaches in that will look after Ronan and look after it right. Whereas If I leave our Caitlin’s team in the lurch, her team will just break up and it will be a total mess. She is a top-drawer player and I can’t leave her in that position. You never know in. a couple of years when she turns into a senior player- she’s moved out of U-16 but in a couple of year time. I’ll think about coming back up and doing a bit more- we’ll see”.

Tribute to Gary:

“I had played corner-back and number 3 in the senior team and Gary came through from the 92 minor team and was a god send coming into nets. He was the bets goalkeeper this side of Dublin the time he played- without a shadow of a doubt- he was the best goalkeeper. Some of the saves he made- I don’t know how he got them; he hardly ever dropped a ball into the back of the net. He told me when I moved into play full-back – anything inside the square is mine- just make sure you keep the full-forward out and that’s all I did. He took everything and stepped out with it”.

“The only thing- we used to laugh about this- wee stupid shots that would have bounced along the ground. He would make these point-blank saves and 20-yard piledrivers but these wee dinky dribbly things going about 5-mile an hour would bounce past his stick into the net. It didn’t happen that often thank god- but he would say to me after- Baz what will I do? I just said there is nothing you can do about that kid”.

“We used to do a drill in training called ‘death ball’ – we’d have put him in nets and lined the seniors up on the 21-yard line with a ball a piece. It would just be one shot after another right along the line and he didn’t get the chance to recover. It was one save and the next one was coming- he hated it and used to come into the dressing room afterwards and he would lift up his jersey and take his shorts off and all you could see was these leather marks from stopping the shots”.

“He was never negative and never down, I can remember sitting with Sootie in the club after the match and he’d have been sitting with a pint of cider. We were pulling our hair out about the thing but he always had positive stint on things and would try and let you see things from a different viewpoint. He’d have said to look at things different ways and take different things out of it”.

“The night we beat Cushendall and he’d a big smile and he was always having a slope on things and that positive outlook. Jim Nelson loved him and he loved Jim Nelson. He brought that wee bit more and were probably the first managers at the time to break training down into forwards trainings, back’s training and goalkeeping training. Whenever we would get a night where the outfield players would get a break- Garso would have got work and he’d have worked on puckouts and lots of things. I just remember him on the pitch, putting the helmet on and this big smile. I’m no doubting he’s up in heaven now with a bottle of Magners and pint of ice in one hand and his hurl in the other  playing with other legends that have passed away. He’s laughing at us all because we’re not getting any games and he is. His passing was very sad”.