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The captivating book that has the GAA world talking

THEY’VE been getting a little bit hot and bothered over a book up in Donegal, if you haven’t heard.

Last week one of the local papers ran an extract from Declan Bogue’s This Is Our Year: The Inside Story of A Football Championship in which All Star wing back Kevin Cassidy detailed some of the shortcomings of John Joe Doherty’s management. By the time Cassidy landed back on Saturday morning for the Gweedore launch of the book after a week in New York, he’d learned one of Doherty’s selectors, Tony Boyle, had issued a statement defending Doherty whileDoherty’s successor, Jim McGuinness, called a team meeting to instruct his players to boycott the launch and refuse to talk to the media for the upcoming season.

While that furore couldn’t spoil the resultant launch — with Joe Brolly as the guest speaker, it was hardly going to be anything else but a serious night’s craic — it was unfortunate nonetheless.

Since the book was a fly-on-the-wall account of this year’s Ulster championship, the author and publishers felt it would be only right to salute Donegal’s capture of the Anglo Celt trophy by having a launch and night of celebration in the county itself.

McGuinness at least owed it to Bogue and Cassidy to read the book before so pointedly objecting to it.

No matter; one of the ironies of it all is that McGuinness is one of the heroes of the book, and while that might not concern the Donegal manager as how revelatory Cassidy was about the inner workings of the Donegal dressing room this year, McGuinness should bear in mind the book will only add to his cult, aura and his team in much the same way Donal Óg Cusack’s contribution to Last Man Standing enhanced not just Christy O’Connor’s classic book but the mystique of the O’Grady-Allen regime.

The comparison is an apt one because This Is Our Year is to football what Last Man Standing was to hurling, with Cassidy as its Cusack.

Over the last few years most of the major sports and its followers have been well served by books which offer a vivid insight into how elite sports people now work.

In rugby, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara and their colleagues graphically detailed to Alan English and in turn the nation how the 2006 Heineken Cup and 2009 Grand Slams were won. Hurling had Last Man Standing.

In the meantime football had only the accounts of Mickey Harte and Jack O’Connor to give us an insight in real time in book form as to what 21st century inter-county football really involves — and even then only from the perspective of the manager.

Bogue’s book gives us an extraordinary insight into the commitment, fears and hopes that goes with being an inter-county footballer these days.

We meet the 33-year-old goalkeeper Mickey Conlan who packs in his job driving a bakery delivery van to try to make a Rocky-style comeback with Derry. Barry Owens returns from heart surgery and two cruciate ligament injuries only to find Fermanagh football at war with itself and that during a dispute Croke Park didn’t know about the GPA never consulted the players that stayed faithful to John O’Neill, only those who walked.

Paddy Cunningham reminds us how little we know what’s really behind the under performance of certain players; Antrim’s ace free-taker went into his team’s opening championship game against Donegal having been in hospital only three days earlier suffering with the inflammatory bowel condition, Crohn’s Disease.

Dick Clerkin reveals the lengths Banty McEnaney’s Monaghan went to in search of that elusive Ulster title, from all going on a radical Caveman diet to Clerkin becoming an overly-robust player, something he now regrets.

Ryan McMenamin isn’t quite as apologetic about his own past misdemeanours but his likeable side shines through as does his respect for Mickey Harte; the moment in which Harte shows up in a team hotel for a Dr McKenna Cup game, just six days after burying his daughter, is just one of many captivating scenes throughout the book.

There are plenty of laughs as well, courtesy of the garrulous and philosophical Cavan manager Val Andrews and the hugely personable Cassidy. McGuinness and Doherty might not be happy with his candour in some parts but there’s no one Cassidy is harsher on or more frank about than himself. He admits to trash-talking opponents and his own troubles with alcohol and how he is now estranged from his father who he sometimes sees stumbling on the side of the street, bottle in hand, as Cassidy drives home from work.

All through Cassidy and the book is raw and honest, just like football itself. For supporters who love the game and value a greater understanding of it, Bogue has done some service. This Is Our Year is an inspired title but his book could just as easily be called This Is Our Sport.

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So Cassidy is a bender?

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McGuinness not coming out of this well.

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Not a fan of MacKenna, but worth getting the view of someone who knows the player and read the chapter

Cassidy was wrong

Ewan MacKenna

As a journalist it hurts to say it. Much the same as it’s been hard for many fans to admit it. But put personal interest aside and you’ll realise that Kevin Cassidy was wrong. It’s not a nice sentence to have to write in an era where Gaelic footballers are told to be as bland as rice cakes and where a player who speaks the truth is as rare as a Danny Dyer moment of reflection. However, there’s a very good reason it’s all gone that way and if Donegal’s tactics can be defended because winning at all costs comes first, then Jimmy McGuinness’s decision to drop his All Star wing-back can be as well.

It feels dirty taking that stance because I remember interviewing Cassidy very late on in June of 2006, days before his county played Fermanagh in the Ulster championship. Only he was nowhere near the game. Instead he was in Boston having been dropped from the panel after he met his girlfriend for a meal following a Division Two semi-final, only to bump into his teammate Eamon Magee and hit a bar. He was the ideal subject as he was articulate but more importantly he was brutally honest. By the end of sitting there listening, attempting to mask an ever-growing smile for a couple of hours, the only challenge was trying to fit as many of his quotes as possible onto a newspaper page.

From talking to journalist Declan Bogue during the year I know he had as enjoyable a problem when it came to dealing with Cassidy for his book ‘This is our Year’. It was only this week that I picked up what is an account of each Ulster county’s season via a diary of a player or manager but news of the rift in Donegal saw me flitter straight to Cassidy’s section. As you read it, you can be easily fooled into thinking it’s a vast overreaction to drop the player for taking part in what is a rare insight into the modern game. After all, firstly Cassidy had the decency to come out of retirement for his new manager and was vital in Donegal’s resurrection. And secondly, as interesting and provoking as his thoughts are, they are actually very complementary towards McGuinness and what he has done.

For instance, should the following really start the curtain being pulled on a very good intercounty career? “We weren’t bad enough. That’s not going out and hitting off the ball, but getting in people’s faces. That’s what the likes of Ricey [Ryan McMenamin] and them do, get inside people’s heads, put people off their game, extra stuff that we weren’t doing.” Or should this? “It just jumped out at me that this guy [Denver Broncos safety Brian ‘Wolverine’ Dawkins] was exactly like half of our team, a lovely lad off the field, but an animal on it… I wondered if there was anything of this that we could tap into because we were too nice… we knew we had to be more ruthless.”

But you need to realise that it’s not what Cassidy said that has seen him dropped, it’s the fact he said it. So much of the new Donegal has been built on unity. Given their style of play and their reputation it had to be that way, from every man working for each other in tactics that had the physicality and imagination of shoveling coal, to a group renowned for off-field indiscretion all buying into a new way of life to such an extent that they even gave up their pre-championship night out for a trip to the Scottish league cup final way back in March. There was a trust and a bond amongst this Donegal team across 2011 that helped them come from nowhere to be genuine contenders and one of the core values of the squad was what happens on Donegal duty stays on Donegal duty. What made it worse was that Cassidy never even told his manager he was doing the book, and by extension gently rebelling against something they had all agreed on. And in going against this core value, Cassidy not only went against his manager but his teammates too, who had all acted on their promise to stay silent. In a set-up like Donegal’s, no man can be an island.

Whatever about McGuinness’ decision to ban the rest of the team from attending the launch being way over the top and whatever about Cassidy’s decision to go to an event as an amateur player in the depths of winters, these are only symptoms, not causes. The damage had already been done the moment Cassidy agreed to his role in the book and while some might say it’s a pre-season spat to make headlines, dealing with two such stubborn characters in McGuinness and Cassidy makes it hard to see them working together to anywhere near 2011 levels, if ever again.

Reading back on the quotes from our chat in 2006, there’s an uneasy symmetry to all of this. “So at the start, the first couple of days, I was thinking, ‘Here, I’m telling you what happened, you’ve seen the effort I put in over the last few months so, Jesus Christ, why believe someone else, this really isn’t on Brian [McIver, then manager]. But the more things broke, I noticed he was put on the spot and he had to act. I was told I was off the squad and that was it.”

Cassidy may come to that realisation again after the first couple of days of this latest debacle by which time McGuinness should also come to an uneasy realisation. After the blame game is finished, it’s Donegal who are the real losers in all of this. A thread that should have been left alone by Cassidy has now been pulled. We wait for all the progress of 2011 to unravel across 2012.

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Talk about a complete and utter overanalysis of something pretty trivial by a man who is merely commenting about his past time.

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Zzzzz…

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Made the same point on the football championship thread. You have these manager and player clowns going on as if they’re the biggest show in the world. Get them to fuck. It reminds me, Wexford need a new football goalkeeper for the same reason.

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I could probably pay these chumps to mow my lawn and they think they’re fucking celbrities.

:lol:

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The GAA players do need to row themselves in a bit in fairness. Social media and their general spot light in Ireland has them losing it a bit. Thats not saying they are not some of the biggest sporting stars on the island, they are, but its its much to our credit that our often over achieving sports stars are the approachable and quite type. I’d much prefer to have a pint with Cassidy or John O’ Se or Sean O’ Brien any day than Ronaldo or Mayweather or any of those wankers. But there is signs of certain people getting a bit carried away.

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Wouldn’t cross the street to meet either Cassidy or O’Brien, Kev. They’re nobodies who think they are somebody. In fairness to the likes of Mayweather and Ronaldo, they’re up there with the biggest sports stars in the world, at least their arrogance or perceived arrogance is justified.

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You are who you are, the sport or the level of it shouldn’t matter. Arrogance is never justified, thats the most ridiculous statement that i’ve ever see you post.

I’d admire Mayweather & Ronaldo for their commitment to excellence in their trade, but thats about it. I know a few carpenters who are particularly talented and i’d have more time for them to be honest.

Kelly Slater is an example of how to be absolutely miles better than anyone else and remains grounded (except when he’s surfing).

1 Like
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Surfing is not a sport.

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Anyone who saw Ear to the Ground last night will know how much of an alright sort Sean O’Brien is :clap:

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Sean O Brien missed the World Cup Final because the cattle had broken out in Tullow and he was out trying to get them back in. A hero of rural Ireland :clap:

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Kev, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue who Kelly Slater is, which is exactly my point. It should be pretty easy to remain grounded when in reality you’re nothing, that’s what the GAA players don’t get, outwit the GAA circles they mingle with they are nobodies. GAA players by and large - even the non-entity club players have a love affair with themselves, primarily because they play a fairly skill limited game in their spare time. You see lads who hold down big jobs earning a couple of grand a week who are far more down-to-earth than these utter morons.

I don’t mind arrogance when you have reason to be, GAA players have absolutely no reason to be.

And for what it;s worth I have heard that Cassidy is an arrogant prick who is not very well liked in his local community.

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Anyone who saw Ear To The Ground last night must only have a handful of TV channels.

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Ciaran Murphy was discussing it on Off The Ball last night and his disgust at how he hasn’t gotten a feature yet himself.

Can you adjudicate on Surfing as a sport mate?

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What the fuck are you on about, as much as you don’t care who Slater is, nobody cares that you don’t know who he is. There are millions of people who know who SLater is, but thats not the point. Its not about popularity. You and half the world are painfully missing that point.

As well as the fact that you don’t understand the real meaning of the word arrogance and are badly mixing it up with confidence.

Its all about doing your own thing (whatever that may be) and earning respect from your peers. GAA players get and deserve this for the most part. Now a few seem to be getting carried away lately, but they still have a great sense of loyalty generally, which is incredibly lost in professional soccer. Even NFL & AFL have managed to keep some loyalty alive, soccer is a joke in that regard.

As for appreciation of a sports skills, well its subjective and all about taste. Neither of us can win that argument.

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From what I’ve seen of them LOI players seem to keep low profiles and really only mingle amongst themselves. The GAA players love to be out in their locals getting their balls licked from the simpletons who latch on to them and have a high opinion of themselves. There’s a reason for GAA players ‘loyalty’ as you put it. In real life, outwith their little cliques they are nobodies. This is more or less a recent trend that has taken off in the past 10-15 years. I put this down to the huge resources being spent on an amatuer sport and their perceived sense of importance of being attached to a team. LOI soccer players are professionals who view as a job, they don’t go out seeking attention and slaps on the back from the sycophants who love to be seen with them. Also the Sigerson Cup has alot to play in these chaps view of themselves.

They are to be pitied really, at the end of the day they are nobodies, it probably won’t sink in until their 30’s.

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Loyalty is diminishing in GAA circles too with the trend of players accepting kick-backs to transfer from their home clubs to other clubs. Not to mention managers & trainers chasing the shilling and getting involved with different teams from season to season depending on who’s paying the most. In fairness, this is something Christy Cooney has tried to clamp down on in the course of his outstanding GAA Presidency.