ALL WEEK, HE’S been in Majorca, a last-minute thing that he and Lorna spotted and thought it was too good to pass up on.
Since moving to rural Monaghan and Cremartin Shamrocks, Kevin Nolan has thrown himself into local life and sport.
The thread has run through work, rest and play; teaching in Our Lady’s in Castleblayney, living across the road from the club pitch, coaching a succession of Monaghan underage teams alongside Rory Beggan.
But on weeks like these, with Monaghan losing the run of themselves, it’s easier to be a Dub abroad rather than being the focus of all the slagging.
With the county team in full flight, all he is missing with the club is one training session. At 35, this is his second year as captain. He wants to keep going as long as possible so little Fionn, now 2, can have some memories of him playing.
It’s 12 years since he was part of Pat Gilroy’s side that put all the chaos years behind them and bridged the gap back to 1995 by beating Kerry in the All-Ireland final.
Back when Gilroy was performing his personality transplant on the Dublin senior team from startled earwigs to Spratans, he would bring them to the wetter, windier parts of Monaghan for a series of challenge games. To get a few thick lugs and late hits.
Nolan never looked forward to those evenings, but he never shirked them either. Now, Monaghan football is his sporting life.
“As a blow-in to the club here in Cremartin, I was named captain last year and I am captain again this year,” he explains.
“I don’t think I have many years left in me so I want to be leading on and off the field as much as possible. If you are preaching that, there is no point in heading away for a summer. Probably down the line it is something I would look into.”
The contrast with Kilmacud Crokes is one of the more extreme examples of its’ type.
When he was a younger man, he lived on the DCU campus during term time and the rest of his time at home in Dún Laoghaire.
“With Kilmacud, there would be some players in underage that you wouldn’t be sure of, that you never really seen,” he admits.
“Up here, it’s massive. Everybody knows everybody and you see each other in the local shops, at Mass, and they all come out to support the club.
“But in Kilmacud, the only way I would have seen underage kids was maybe when I was co-ordinating the summer camps on the summer holidays. Yes, you were trying to help out with underage teams as much as possible, but I was never fully immersed in it because you were involved with county teams and every night you were doing something.
“Not having that commitment up here, you are getting to matches on a designated night, a Tuesday or Thursday, so it’s a quick walk down the road and you are watching a game with the local young lads.
“Football is like a religion up here in Monaghan and in Ulster. They are just mad about it and everyone knows everybody. If there are any deaths in the area, everybody lends support. If there’s success, you see people wishing each other well, and so on.”
In a place like Cremartin, the school intake every year is an area of concern and interest to the local club. To some, that is an obvious weakness. Another way of looking at it is how valued each underage player is and how much attention they are afforded. Bonds and links can be that little bit stronger.
“The numbers are precious. Unfortunately for some of the clubs they might have to play 13 a side. I remember years ago there were four teams at Feile for Kilmacud Crokes, and Naomh Olaf, the local neighbouring club, were struggling to field just one team,” recalls Nolan.
“And it’s not diminishing what Naomh Olaf were at, but some parents would be reluctant to send kids to Naomh Olaf as success breeds success.
“For a club like Cremartin, it is small, but the rivalry up here, when I experience it against some of the local clubs in the last number of years, it’s like the old times when Dublin used to play Meath or Kilmacud playing the likes of Ballyboden. It’s intense and enjoyable.
“It’s a different style of football up here. As you see with the county team, it’s a never say die attitude and hard work is the number one thing. Doesn’t matter how big or how small, they always give it their all and it is some characteristic to have.”
The ink on his transfer form was barely dry before he had a taste of the ‘Gut yer man’ football style so vividly captured by Patrick Kavanagh.
“When I first came up, you might have had a target on your back, the fact that you were an outsider. An extra couple of kilos would have helped that,” he states.
“It is hard football in the sense that it is hard tackling. But again, the biggest thing is it is competitive. A lot of teams feel they are in with a chance of winning a league and a championship and that’s what makes it so great.”
In Dublin, he was a serial winner. A Sigerson title with DCU. Two county titles with Kilmacud, Leinster titles and an All-Ireland in 2009. The 2011 final was his high point, putting in a Man of the Match performance and scoring a point from the half-back line.
Around that time, he was driving to training and on the journey itself might have drank two cans of Club Orange. Diabetes was eating away at him until he was diagnosed.
For years he lived with it, but in the last two years he has come as close as possible to mastering it. The last two of his six-month tests have shown up readings that would be consistent with a non-diabetic with only a slightly raised blood sugar level.
“Thinking back to when I was finishing up playing with Dublin, all the percentages count. Back then, there were times I was going out to play or train where my sugars were maybe four or five times what they should have been,” he recalls.
“It wasn’t because the fact that I was poor at it, but more uneducated, unfortunately. One regret I have is that I didn’t educate myself enough about what I was doing.
“Yes, I was doing all the right things and what the doctors were saying, but again it’s all individual. Everyone is different. You could try something that works for you and not for another.
“If you are 1% down, there is always another man who is willing to fight for your position on the starting 15 or on the squad.”
Last winter, he watched on, completely at peace, as Kilmacud Crokes won another All-Ireland club title. And then came the fall-out.
At the time he was doing a Level 2 coaching course based at the Monaghan training complex in Cloghan. His fellow students were from all over Ulster and, in that way of theirs if they feel a misjustice has been done, they were on the side of Glen in seeking a replay after Kilmacud had too many players on the pitch for the final play of the game.
Nolan was put in the dock but he feels he gave as good as he got.
“It was sort of me against the rest of them with the integrity of the competition at stake!” he says now.
He feels Kilmacud might have won a refixture anyway, but all the same is willing to believe that, “It might have taken the gloss off it a small bit for some of the Kilmacud players.”
The night of the final was the first game back for Paul Mannion. He had injured his ankle in September and only had screws removed in late November.
His return was a surprise but he was a prominent figure on the night. He, like Jack McCaffrey and Stephen Cluxton, were once contemporaries of Nolan and he’s hardly surprised to see the old guard returning.
“I know earlier on in the year, I would have been chatting to people about Stephen Cluxton coming bac. For the position he is in, he would have always have kept himself in serious shape to play at the highest level,” says Nolan.
“If he’s available, brilliant, go with it. The likes of Paul Mannion and Jack McCaffrey, they are still young enough lads. Paul would have shown it at the highest level last year and it looks as if Jack is nearly quicker than he was years ago.”
He draws the parallel with Monaghan.
“The players up here are being relied on for a long time; the likes of Karl O’Connell, Conor McManus, Rory Beggan. They get the most out of them and I think Dublin are trying to do that too.
“Pat Gilroy being involved as well would have been a big help in bringing Stephen Cluxton back into the group. He never officially retired so having him there gives you that bit of extra confidence and reassurance.
“They haven’t conceded a goal in a number of games and it’s great when you are under massive pressure with kickouts. He’s the best in the business.”
There are no regrets around anything he has done in a sporting sense, but there’s a nagging curiosity around what might have happened in soccer. A promising player with St Joseph’s Boys in Sallynoggin, he went for trials with Blackburn Rover and Leicester City.
One weekend on trial at Leicester almost 20 years ago, he and Alan Judge were walking down a corridor when a Scottish man stopped them, introduced himself as Craig, and then walked on. They were bemused until they heard another trialist talking about seeing the senior manager, Craig Levein.
It didn’t prevent him being asked back for another weekend’s trial. But it clashed with a Crokes minor game. He made his decision.
The day is coming soon when he will be throwing himself head and shoulders into management. A role with the Monaghan set-up seems a nice fit. But for one who won so much, he has come to realise that all the medals in the world matter little.
“You hear of teams talking about how they were successful or unsuccessful. The memories and relationships that you create is what matters,” he explains.
“I spoke before about certain regrets I had around soccer. But the big regret of mine is that I treated football nearly too seriously, like it was a job, and if you were taking your eye off the ball slightly, then you weren’t concentrating.
“And maybe the relationships with team mates weren’t as strong as you would have hoped?
“Looking back at it, they were nearly sort of colleagues you were working with. A lot of people say now that it’s almost family on and off the field, which is a phenomenal way to have it.”