“ARE YOU SURE now you’re not one of the girls from the football team?” a woman says with some suspicion down the phone.
The person in question, Mayo Ladies stalwart Yvonne Byrne, has repeated pranking offences on her record, and she’s wary that this might be one of the countless teammates she has targeted over the years coming for revenge.
“I’m going to get caught badly at some stage because I’ve played so many pranks on people,” she tells The42.
Impersonating journalists is her preferred mode of attack, and after years of developing a reputation for being ‘a messer’ in the team, she’s had to be more tactical about picking her prey.
Most of the seasoned members of the team can immediately sniff out her plans when she calls them up, while long-time teammates Cora Staunton and Martha Carter have been ruled out of her devious schemes for a long time.
“I couldn’t prank them you see,” she laughs. “I actually value my life.”
The prankster in Byrne doesn’t really come out in any other aspects of her life outside sport, although she did catch out one of her former colleagues at the Camogie Association while on a conference call.
Byrne is affectionately known as ‘Crazy’ as a result of all this, and was previously known as ‘Killer’ for her robust playing style outfield. ‘Crazy’ is the nickname that has stuck with her, and it’s unusual for people to call ner Yvonne anymore.
Her practical jokes are mainly reserved for the younger players on the Mayo panel who aren’t wide to her tricks.
But Byrne is about more than just providing entertainment on the team.
She was part of the Mayo Ladies movement that collected four All-Ireland titles between 1999 and 2003.
In addition to starting every one of their victorious finals, she was centre-back on the team that won the maiden title at just 16 years of age, before moving into goals later on in her career.
The 2001 All-Ireland final was the only one she missed, where a torn cruciate ruled her out of Mayo’s defeat to Laois.
She understands and appreciates the level of hardwork that goes into building an All-Ireland winning side, but she also likes to balance that sense of diligence at training with a bit of divilment.
The Ballyhaunis native confesses that her comical behaviour tends to reveal itself ‘at all the inappropriate times,’ and when she’s not calling up to conduct fake interviews as a journalist, she’s concocting other creative ways to make playful victims of her teammates.
“We actually did it last year to one of the young ones. There was a gang of us at one of the matches and we rang her pretending to be one of the local journalists.
We were asking her heaps of questions, she was being awful compliant and I think one of the questions I asked her was, ‘how do you eat your Cadburry’s Creme Egg?,’ she laughs.
“So, any time I can catch one of them I do it.
“It’s mainly just the journalist route I go down. I used to get away with it way more when I was younger, because I didn’t have the reputation but now that I have it, people are kind of expecting it.
Someone could be in the shower washing their hair and if their eyes are closed, you’d just keep pouring more shampoo on their hair. You could keep them going for five minutes washing their hair.
“But I’m getting caught out little by little. We do have great fun.”
Byrne first joined the Mayo panel in late 1998, which coincided with the appointment of arguably the county’s most successful manager ever, Finbar Egan.
Staunton was already on the panel a year by that stage, and the pair would gradually become close friends in the years that followed.
Byrne came into a professional environment from the outset, while some of the older members of the squad had suffered through some tough years with Mayo.
Former goalkeeper Denise Horan told The42 last year about her memories of some players ‘smoking at half-time in the dressing room’ during that period.
The early stages of Byrne’s time in the Mayo dressing room were far more progressive, and she has never opted for a year out since joining the panel in ’98. Even during the years when Mayo were struggling, Byrne never contemplated leaving.
Injuries sometimes interfered with her football but J1′s or travelling abroad never interested her. Education and sport were the basic pillars of her life, and that was how she liked it.
Outside of that, I didn’t know much more and I didn’t want to know much more either. I was really happy in the world that was created for us.
“The level we trained at back then was something else and it bonded the team together at the time. Back then, other teams weren’t training that hard so it was maybe what set us apart at the time.
“We worked so hard for things but we enjoyed it. We gave up family weddings the same as every other county player, but it was never a sacrifice or a chore. That was our lifestyle, that’s what we wanted and that’s what drove us on to win.
“If you didn’t enjoy it, you wouldn’t have stuck at it because it was so tough. The training was difficult and we worked hard but the craic we had was something else.”
Byrne and Staunton have been close friends for over a decade now, and went to college together in Athlone. Along with Staunton’s Carnacon clubmate Martha Carter, they’re among the oldest members of the Mayo team that played in last year’s All-Ireland final.
During their years at AIT, Staunton’s profile in Ladies Football was steadily growing and she was being asked along to more and more functions.
Staunton was still quite young at the time, and she told the Independent.ie last year that Byrne helped shield her from some of the increasing attention, although Byrne says she was merely helping a friend through a period of her life when she was a bit shy.
“She’s really come out of herself in the last few years.
“I was always known as outgoing and bubbly and talk to the wall, so I could do all the talking. It kind of happened organically but she’s well able now to fend for herself so she is.”
GOAL for Cora Staunton in the first quarter of AFLW 2.0! Not a bad way to start the debut! #aflw #arfliw pic.twitter.com/vxvClF4BRy
— ARFLI Womens (@arfliwomens) February 3, 2018
Staunton is currently in Australia, plying her trade in Women’s AFL with the Greater Western Sydney Giants. Byrne has been keeping an eye on her friend’s progress in the league and is delighted to see the Mayo star thriving in a different sport.
She’s often been asked over the years if Staunton getting most of the attention ever provoked resentment in her, but that has never been the case.
I’ve seen both sides of success and I’ve seen the negativity Cora can get for being Cora and I wouldn’t be able to deal with that at all.
“Most people at this stage appreciate Cora for what she is, most people have good things to say about her but there’s always a couple of idiots that have something irrational or irrelevant to say.
For every clap on the back, there’s a kick in the hole and I just prefer to stay under the radar, do my own thing and nobody to know me. That kind of suits me so I could never be jealous of Cora because I prefer just to have none of it, the nastiness or the niceness.
“Cora’s kind of become accustomed to it. She’s worked really hard for what she’s achieved and even the opportunity she has now, it couldn’t have happened to a better person. She’s given everything to family, friends, football.
“Cora rarely goes and does stuff for herself.”
Winning an All-Ireland is indeed a family occasion, but for Byrne, the 1999 triumph carried an extra bit of significance for her as both of her parents had a direct involvement in the Mayo team.
Her mother was the liaison officer, who assisted management with all the logistics, while her father was the kitman.
Football was the number one topic of conversation at home, and even customers who came to their family shop got regular updates on the Mayo Ladies.
“It was brilliant, and I probably didn’t appreciate it enough at the time,” she explains, “because I was so young. But we’ve a picture at home of Mam and Dad in Croke Park with their Mayo jackets, and the crowd behind them.
“And it’s just a savage picture to have that they were part of it. And there was nothing but football in our house. It was always football, football, 24-7.
“If I wasn’t talking about it, Mam was on the phone or organising something. We had a shop at home, so Dad was out in the shop telling people who were coming in all about it.
She continues:
“It’s a great memory to have because in the last couple of years, Dad has been sick, he can’t get to the matches anymore. But you’ll always have those memories and to have the success on top of that was an extra bonus.
He got Parkinsonism there a couple of years ago. In 2016 he was getting poorly, but we managed to bring him to the Connacht final. It was one of the only matches he would have got to.”
After dominating the Ladies game throughout much of the late 90′s and early 2000′s, Mayo have since been displaced by a Cork side who have eclipsed Mayo’s four All-Irelands with 11 victorious displays in the All-Ireland final.
Byrne concedes that she’s often jealous of Cork’s triumphs, but has never begrudged their achievements.
Even after finally overcoming them in the All-Ireland semi-final last year, she could only admire the graciousness they showed in defeat, after enjoying such a sustained period of success.
That win saw Mayo qualify for their first All-Ireland senior final in 10 years, and a lovely photo captured Staunton, Byrne and Carter embracing after the final whistle.
Byrne had agonised over whether or not to return to the Mayo panel at the outset of the 2017 season, and after a few conversations with Staunton and Carter, the three of them decided to re-commit.
Although their season ended on the wrong side of a 4-11 0-11 scoreline against Dublin in the All-Ireland decider, Byrne insists that coming back was worthwhile in the end.
Mayo have appointed a new manager in former All-Ireland intermediate winning boss Peter Leahy, and he’s eager to have Byrne in his plans this season. The four-time All-Ireland winner is normally back with the squad before the league, but has yet to make a decision on this year.
“Peter said not to rush the decision and to take my time. I was probably swaying towards leaving it and he kind of talked me round to have a think about it.
“And he met me a few weeks later and we went through everything. He said to take time and he’s not really taking no for an answer so it’s left to take time at the minute.
“It’s like trying to break up with a boyfriend that doesn’t want to break up with you.”
Even in the midst of talk about serious things, there’s still room for a bit of divilment.
