Only catching up on this thread now.
Go n-eirĂ on bĂłthar leat @Phil_Leotardo. Hope you and the family are doing well.
Surgeons. 
It takes a certain type of person to be able to go in to the human body, not to mention skillfully remove a tumour.
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Well done @Phil_Leotardo. 80 likes. Iâve never seen the beat of it.
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We must have a sight of lurkers on here
Sifting through them will keep some lads busy for the day.
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Time for a few lads to dust off the burner aliases and get @Phil_Leotardo to the century of likes.
Well done Phil and the best of luck with the rest of the journey.
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If there is a power half hour, Iâll be there!
The greenway up your way supposed to be very good. Might bring the kids up there for a cycle some day 
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@BANDAG3_FAT_BASTARD @RockoPlayedRugby @Cunt lets do this
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If it canât be done for this, what can it be done for?
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Great to hear you are in such good form @Phil_Leotardo. Fingers crossed the road ahead is smooth.
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@Lickmyass & @Kellyblue252 were good enough to come on and give a like. Great to see.
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Top posters @ConorL and @Winston_Smith in the mix too.
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Sign in
@WOODY_BLOWS_SOULDRES
@WOODY_IS_A_MICRO_DIC
@WOODY_IS_A_EUNUCH
@WOODY_IS_A_TOSSER
And if we can get a password reset for @RockoPlayedRugby that would be great
@FLANO_GOT_A_FACIAL @FLANO_NEVER_HAD_ANY_ @FLANO_LICKS_MANHOLES @FLANO_HASNT_GOT_A_WA and @FLANO_NEVER_SEEN_HIS
should take us over the line
Jody Gormley passed away this evening. Very sad.
RIP
https://twitter.com/GormleyDamian/status/1866227051105038751?t=oRj98YfWWyI4iJ-BfSS-kg&s=19
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Very sad, he had a great outlook on it God bless him.
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He scored the winning point when Tyrone beat Derry 0-11 to 0-10 in 1995. One of the great Ulster Championship matches of all time and I was lucky enough to be at it. He got got another memorable left footed point to put Tyrone 0-3 to 0-0 up in the final against Dublin, he rightly silenced the Hill and at that moment it looked all ends up that Tyrone were going to do to Dublin what Donegal, Derry and Down had done.
He was taken terrifyingly quickly as itâs only five weeks since we heard about his cancer and only six weeks or so since he was managing in the Tyrone SFC final.
RIP Jody.
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Was he far off being still around in 2003?
Would have only been 32 or so. I guess Harte moved on the older guard bar Canavan around that time.
The way he ploughed on with Trillick this autumn despite knowing his own outlook was remarkable. Diagnosed in mid September but didnt tell the players until after the County Final in late October.
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I donât recall him featuring much after about 1997. The defeat to Meath in 1996 finished that team. Itâs possible he might have been around for the shock defeat by Down in Casement Park 1999 as a lot of that team had played in '95 and '96 but Iâd have to check the line ups. Tyrone were warmish favourites for Ulster that year but they were well beaten and that was the end of Danny Ball who had taken over from Art and Eugene after they stepped down after '96. Art and Eugene then stepped back in and had been reappointed for 2003 but Art had to step down for health reasons soon after and Eugene went with him leaving the way clear for Mickey Harte.
The Tyrone team had changed drastically by 2001 with nearly all of the '95 team moved on bar Canavan and Chris Lawn in favour of the greatest generation. Dooher and Cavlan had played in '96 but not '95.
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Scandalously this under 2 minute clip is the only highlights available of Tyrone v Derry 1995.
When you think of the Ulster Championship, you think of days like this. In many ways it was the most definitive Ulster Championship match ever played.
There was intense rivalry between Tyrone and Derry, almost bordering on hatred. Derry had lorded it over Tyrone since 1991 and Derry had beaten them in the NFL semi-final at the end of April. Tyrone most definitely had a âthingâ about playing Derry. Derry were fully expected to win but I had fancied a Dublin v Tyrone final from the start in '95. Then again I had fancied a Dublin v Tyrone final from the start in 1994 as well.
I remember a few things about this day. It was the generic boiling hot day of the summer of 1995. You could have fried an egg on the pavement. The local BBC Norn Iron went on to do just that for the craic later that summer.
During the minor match, of which I have no other recollection, the announcer on the public address announced through Irish that Peter Canavan was being replaced on the Tyrone team by Brendan Mallon. In ionad. Iâm not sure how many people in the ground understood the announcement, but it seemed Tyroneâs race was already run before the teams had even got onto the pitch.
Then Canavan came out with the team as normal, not a bother on him. The public address announcer was either a liar, a fantasist, or a troll.
Tyrone were all vim and vigour but Derry looked a class above. Their handpassing was cutting Tyrone apart. They were handpassing the ball right through the pitch and Tyrone couldnât lay a glove on them. That frustrated Tyrone to the extent that Seamus McCallan the centre half back got himself sent off on two bookable offences. A couple of minutes later Pascal Canavan punched a Derry player straight in the face. The punch was the lightest punch youâve ever seen and also the most obvious. He was put off and Tyrone were losing the game and down two men.
The true glory years of Peter Canavan overlapped almost perfectly with Oasis. '94, '95 and '96. They came to a shuddering halt when his ankle was snapped in that semi-final defeat to Meath three days after Oasis had played in Cork. The show went off the road for Oasis almost immediately. The show went off the road for Canavan too and he spent the next four years cursed with injury.
The previous night to Tyrone v Derry this day, Noel Gallagher had performed Wonderwall in public for the first time ever. It was the same weekend Oasis played Glastonbury. If that was peak Oasis, this was peak Canavan. He gave the greatest, the most defiant performance Iâve ever seen a player give. He carried Tyrone on his back and ran with them. Every time he got the ball the crowd was in a trance and every time he delivered. By early in the second half he had dragged Tyrone right back into it with 13 men and Derry were rattled as hell. Then Derry got a man sent off. A classic âevening upâ decision but that was the way it was going.
The reason I thought Tyrone would win this was because Eamon Coleman was gone, disgracefully sacked the previous autumn, after which there was a playersâ strike. That decision started to hit home now. One team wanted to win this more the other. But Derry were so good that they could still win playing with a heavy heart.
Kieran McKeever v Peter Canavan was one of the great one on one clashes of our time. McKeever was the one man who got the better of Canavan over the course of his career. He did not get the better of him in this game.
The force was with Tyrone, you just knew it. They had the majority of the support and when Jody Gormley got the lead point, it was not a surprise. There was still a good few minutes left though, pock marked by off the ball pulling and dragging. Tyrone were seeing this out the âprofessionalâ way.
With the last attack, they somehow let big Geoffrey McGonigle in along the end line straight in front of me and big Geoffrey went for goal and smacked the butt of the post, almost in slow motion. The whistle went soon after and Tyrone had held on. The place erupted in a visceral way. Even now I think it might be Tyroneâs sweetest chamnpionship victory ever.
After the game we gave a lift to some young buck who had hitch hiked from Cavan. Then further on down the road south of Cavan town me oulâ fella stopped at a roadside shop, and who pulled up to the same shop a few seconds later only Eamon Coleman himself. He wasnât driving, he was a passenger. Coleman had sat in the seat directly in front of us at the 1993 Leinster final and we were talking to him then. âI remember yis.â
âThey should never 'a lost it.â He bore the look of a man who had just seen his lifeâs work ruined on him through no fault of his own. And thatâs what he had seen.
This dayâs Gaelic football happenings put me top of the Irish Independent Fantasy Football leaderboard, and Sean McGoldrick, recently out of work because the Press had collapsed, was on the phone to me on the Tuesday to do a write up.
I have a VHS tape of extended highlights of this game sitting in an attic with commentary by Jimmy Smyth and Peter McGinnity, for RTE.
I saw Tyrone play five times in 1995.
NFL quarter-final v Kerry
NFL semi-final v Derry
Ulster semi-final v Derry
Ulster final v Cavan
All-Ireland final v Dublin
Iâm pretty sure Jody Gormley played in all of those.
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