CERTAIN COUNTIES HAVE an enduring relationship with numbers on the jerseys.
Take Dublin for example and draw the line from Paddy Cullen through John O’Leary and right on to Stephen Cluxton wearing the number 1.
You could take Meath and the lineage that flows from Paddy ‘Hands’ O’Brien, Mick Lyons and Darren Fay as the custodians of the edge of their own square, clad in the number 3.
Clare hurlers Seán Stack, Seanie McMahon and, in the present day, John Conlon? Number 6; centre-backs.
For Tyrone football, the number 14 is as treasured as Manchester United’s number 7 of Best, Robson, Beckham and Ronaldo.
Tyrone have been in love with their full-forwards since the 1950s exploits of Frankie Donnelly of Carrickmore. He once scored the astonishing tally of 4-11 against Fermanagh in a Dr Lagan Cup match.
The man who cemented the legacy for others to build upon was the late Frank McGuigan, who died in the early hours of Sunday morning, aged 71.
Sometimes he played midfield, but it was as an attacker that could do it all that he really excelled.
The example that routinely comes up was his 1984 Ulster final performance when he hit 0-11 for Tyrone in beating Armagh. There was a perfect symmetry to it in that he kicked five off his right boot, five off his left, and fisted the remaining one.
That evening, a 13-year-old Peter Canavan made his way home from the Ulster final with nothing but inspiration and wonderment in his head.
As soon as the car pulled up in Seskilgreen townland, he grabbed his football and started to kick the ball with his left foot, tentatively at first, growing in confidence.
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One of his final acts as a Tyrone footballer was to take a pass from Owen Mulligan and roll the ball delicately to the net beyond the reach of Kerry goalkeeper Diarmuid Murphy in the 2005 All-Ireland final.
Canavan was known as ‘God’, and McGuigan was ‘The King’. To many observers who watched McGuigan in his youth, there was no comparison; McGuigan was the greatest they ever had the pleasure to watch.
Congratulating Tommy Drumm. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
Everyone in Tyrone has a Frank McGuigan story.
Living where I do, the local Aghaloo O’Neill’s club was set up in time for the 1970 season.
Among the club’s founding fathers, they remain proud that their very first game was against Ardboe’s second team who travelled down in work vans and, Aghaloo being a brand-new club named after the parish rather than the town, had no idea where they were heading.
That day, 15-year-old Frank played his first adult football.
Long, long before there was a David Clifford, there was a thriving Gaelic football tourism industry. When he was a mere teenager, word of his legend had spread right along Lough Neagh’s shoreline, through Tyrone and into Derry.
When Ardboe played, it became an event. Gate men were put on for underage games.
The games and the years rolled on right into 1977 and an All-Stars tour of New York. Frank got off, played some football, partied and when the plane returned to Ireland, he was stuck in an apartment without a red cent.
He stayed from 1977 until 1984. He was flown home for the championship in 1982 and 1983. It became an event each year, covered forensically by The Ulster Herald.
He became The King of New York, married Geraldine and had three children there, with more to follow later on back home.
If he was guilty of anything, it was of not conforming to the expectations of others. Some would say he wasted his talent in New York. That’s unfair on the man.
Gaelic football to him was a hobby. He couldn’t be held responsible for others being disappointed with that.
Some stories are dark. In 2003, he shared his story with Kieran Shannon writing for The Sunday Tribune. Stories of alcohol affected his life and ultimately his body when he crashed his car into a low wall in Ardboe after a game with the club that ended in the pub.
He captained Tyrone to the 1973 Ulster title 1973 when he was just 19. The year before, he won the Ulster minor title for Tyrone and came on for the senior team an hour or so later. The pressure of other people’s expectations must have been a burden.
In March 2008, I ventured up to Ardboe to be received by The King. As I was setting down the tape, he went into a colourful rant about referees, their lack of fitness and the authority they show when waving cards.
With son Brian ahead of the 2003 All-Ireland final. �INPHO
�INPHO
We talked about drink. This was a man who spent the duration of the 1995 All-Ireland final in a car stuck on Dublin’s northside, unable to get it together to attend the match.
By 2008, he was working behind the bar for his son Brian, in the old Forbes Furniture social club.
How did that work? Given… you know?
“Sure that’s the best deterrent,” he answered. “It would turn you completely off. You see a guy coming in for the cure and you feeling fit behind the bar – you’d never want to look at it again.”
He let fly on the state of football at that time.
“Get back to the basics and learn the basics of catching and kicking a football,” he said.
“How many fellas can kick a score now from 50 metres with the ball out of their hands? You watch football now and a lot of the kicks land in the keeper’s hands, which is a crime.”
Other times, he became philosophical.
“You can talk all you like about sport and Gaelic football, but it’s only a thing you do passing through.”
How much of that he felt, you couldn’t question. His opinions were flavoured by his experiences. Regret lingered in there, some ego, some humility. His car crash at the age of 30 ended his chance of being fully physically active with his children. The rest of the world mourned that he couldn’t perform wonders on the field again.
Sitting in that living room that night, he said that on many evenings he could take his place on the chair and leave off the television or radio, just sit there in contentment.
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That sounds like freedom to me.
**
On Sunday, a brilliant sun baked Dr Hyde Park for Roscommon’s All-Ireland game against Tyrone.
A stray Roscommon kickout went to Tyrone’s Ciaran Daly. A quick pass to Frank Burns and then on to Mattie Donnelly.
One of Tyrone’s most respected sons, who never treated Gaelic football as a hobby – instead devoting his entire life to it – buried the chance in the net.
With a black armband on his arm and the number 14 jersey on his back.
Tyrone do hero worship very sparingly. But those that are loved, are loved with a frightening intensity.
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Doing it his way in New York and Tyrone, Frank McGuigan was unique
CERTAIN COUNTIES HAVE an enduring relationship with numbers on the jerseys.
Take Dublin for example and draw the line from Paddy Cullen through John O’Leary and right on to Stephen Cluxton wearing the number 1.
You could take Meath and the lineage that flows from Paddy ‘Hands’ O’Brien, Mick Lyons and Darren Fay as the custodians of the edge of their own square, clad in the number 3.
Clare hurlers Seán Stack, Seanie McMahon and, in the present day, John Conlon? Number 6; centre-backs.
For Tyrone football, the number 14 is as treasured as Manchester United’s number 7 of Best, Robson, Beckham and Ronaldo.
Tyrone have been in love with their full-forwards since the 1950s exploits of Frankie Donnelly of Carrickmore. He once scored the astonishing tally of 4-11 against Fermanagh in a Dr Lagan Cup match.
The man who cemented the legacy for others to build upon was the late Frank McGuigan, who died in the early hours of Sunday morning, aged 71.
Sometimes he played midfield, but it was as an attacker that could do it all that he really excelled.
The example that routinely comes up was his 1984 Ulster final performance when he hit 0-11 for Tyrone in beating Armagh. There was a perfect symmetry to it in that he kicked five off his right boot, five off his left, and fisted the remaining one.
That evening, a 13-year-old Peter Canavan made his way home from the Ulster final with nothing but inspiration and wonderment in his head.
As soon as the car pulled up in Seskilgreen townland, he grabbed his football and started to kick the ball with his left foot, tentatively at first, growing in confidence.
One of his final acts as a Tyrone footballer was to take a pass from Owen Mulligan and roll the ball delicately to the net beyond the reach of Kerry goalkeeper Diarmuid Murphy in the 2005 All-Ireland final.
Canavan was known as ‘God’, and McGuigan was ‘The King’. To many observers who watched McGuigan in his youth, there was no comparison; McGuigan was the greatest they ever had the pleasure to watch.
Everyone in Tyrone has a Frank McGuigan story.
Living where I do, the local Aghaloo O’Neill’s club was set up in time for the 1970 season.
Among the club’s founding fathers, they remain proud that their very first game was against Ardboe’s second team who travelled down in work vans and, Aghaloo being a brand-new club named after the parish rather than the town, had no idea where they were heading.
That day, 15-year-old Frank played his first adult football.
Long, long before there was a David Clifford, there was a thriving Gaelic football tourism industry. When he was a mere teenager, word of his legend had spread right along Lough Neagh’s shoreline, through Tyrone and into Derry.
When Ardboe played, it became an event. Gate men were put on for underage games.
The games and the years rolled on right into 1977 and an All-Stars tour of New York. Frank got off, played some football, partied and when the plane returned to Ireland, he was stuck in an apartment without a red cent.
He stayed from 1977 until 1984. He was flown home for the championship in 1982 and 1983. It became an event each year, covered forensically by The Ulster Herald.
He became The King of New York, married Geraldine and had three children there, with more to follow later on back home.
Gaelic football to him was a hobby. He couldn’t be held responsible for others being disappointed with that.
Some stories are dark. In 2003, he shared his story with Kieran Shannon writing for The Sunday Tribune. Stories of alcohol affected his life and ultimately his body when he crashed his car into a low wall in Ardboe after a game with the club that ended in the pub.
He captained Tyrone to the 1973 Ulster title 1973 when he was just 19. The year before, he won the Ulster minor title for Tyrone and came on for the senior team an hour or so later. The pressure of other people’s expectations must have been a burden.
In March 2008, I ventured up to Ardboe to be received by The King. As I was setting down the tape, he went into a colourful rant about referees, their lack of fitness and the authority they show when waving cards.
We talked about drink. This was a man who spent the duration of the 1995 All-Ireland final in a car stuck on Dublin’s northside, unable to get it together to attend the match.
By 2008, he was working behind the bar for his son Brian, in the old Forbes Furniture social club.
How did that work? Given… you know?
“Sure that’s the best deterrent,” he answered. “It would turn you completely off. You see a guy coming in for the cure and you feeling fit behind the bar – you’d never want to look at it again.”
He let fly on the state of football at that time.
“Get back to the basics and learn the basics of catching and kicking a football,” he said.
“How many fellas can kick a score now from 50 metres with the ball out of their hands? You watch football now and a lot of the kicks land in the keeper’s hands, which is a crime.”
Other times, he became philosophical.
“You can talk all you like about sport and Gaelic football, but it’s only a thing you do passing through.”
How much of that he felt, you couldn’t question. His opinions were flavoured by his experiences. Regret lingered in there, some ego, some humility. His car crash at the age of 30 ended his chance of being fully physically active with his children. The rest of the world mourned that he couldn’t perform wonders on the field again.
Sitting in that living room that night, he said that on many evenings he could take his place on the chair and leave off the television or radio, just sit there in contentment.
That sounds like freedom to me.
**
On Sunday, a brilliant sun baked Dr Hyde Park for Roscommon’s All-Ireland game against Tyrone.
A stray Roscommon kickout went to Tyrone’s Ciaran Daly. A quick pass to Frank Burns and then on to Mattie Donnelly.
One of Tyrone’s most respected sons, who never treated Gaelic football as a hobby – instead devoting his entire life to it – buried the chance in the net.
With a black armband on his arm and the number 14 jersey on his back.
Tyrone do hero worship very sparingly. But those that are loved, are loved with a frightening intensity.
**
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