ON ANY OTHER day, Mickey Harte has a certain way of standing on a sideline that seems permanent.
Shoulders slightly hunched. Baseball cap pulled down tight. Arms folded. Studying and assessing. Occasionally he might have a word with someone nearby, most of the time he doesn’t.
In Celtic Park here, managing Derry against his native Tyrone, he stood well back from the line. He barely needed to venture forth and get his shoes covered in sideline chalk as his new side ran up a 1-12 to 0-9 win.
Afterwards, it was a long wait for any reporters to get to speak to him. When he came out of the dressing room he was steady and measured. The theme of the day was to fly under the radar.
After the first game-specific questions were dealt with, we got down to the juice. Was it more than a game? Surely it was?
“Well for some people it was but I don’t really live that way,” Harte said.
“I just came along here today to manage Derry as I have done for the last four or five games, so it happens to be Tyrone who were the opposition.
“They have their own set-up, they are on their own journey, I am on this journey now.
“A lot of people make more of it than is necessary. I don’t see any big deal in it.”
There are some in Tyrone and the odd one in Derry, that aren’t happy about all of this.
It irks them on some fundamental level that Derry are now managed by Mickey Harte.
His All-Ireland winning captain from 2005 and 2008, Brian Dooher, was flying solo for the day as joint-manager Feargal Logan was absent through sickness.
Harte and Dooher managed to get over the awkwardness of it all.
“I couldn’t get him immediately after the game. He was in close conversation with a few of his people around him so I left it at that but he came over to the middle of the field after that, and I saw him before the game even started. I have no issue with anyone in that camp.”
Asked if it was surreal to face his former captain and most loyal servant, Harte said, “It is not a unique phenomenon. I have seen plenty of managers go from their own county to other counties for years, and I have seen plenty of our own county men going to other counties and there was no particular fuss about it. So I really don’t see the point of a fuss now.”
Still and all though. It must have felt, to himself and Gavin Devlin who he managed to underage and senior titles and who has been coaching alongside him for over a decade now, odd.
Was it hard to block out the outside noise?
“Personally I don’t read too much of it anyway, so I didn’t really get the noise bit but I know obviously it’s out there in the ether and players can’t avoid hearing it and all,” said Harte
“But as Brian Dooher always said, it never was about the line, it was about the people on the field. And the people on the field had to do the business and that’s who it was left to ultimately.”
He has a point about all of this. There’s a lot of sanctimony around all of this, amplified by those not in touch with the realities of what it takes to manage at this level.
How much of Tyrone’s rich footballing culture is owed to Harte’s 30 seasons put down from minors to seniors is impossible to measure. The bottom line of three All-Irelands and six Ulster titles looks handsome, though.
And at the end of it all, Tyrone decided they did not want him. It ended with a lonely scene outside the Garvaghey complex, people leaving a meeting having voted against giving him an extension, shuffling off to their cars and driving past Harte without a second glance.
He has shaped the careers of many. Let’s just have a quick head count.
Justin McMahon is coaching Antrim. Stephen O’Neill is in the Cavan backroom team.
Fermanagh had Ryan McMenamin as coach and later manager. He brought Joe McMahon in to assist him and Joe is now with the Tyrone backroom team. Ronan O’Neill is a coach there now.
Peter Canavan managed Fermanagh for two season.
Enda McGinley was Antrim manager and brought Stephen O’Neill with him. John Devine is coaching the Down goalkeepers for Conor Laverty.
Paddy Tally has been coaching Kerry now for years.
All men that played or coached with Harte and were part of successful teams.
Hard as it might be to stomach, but Harte owed Tyrone nothing when they ended the relationship.
However. You wouldn’t go reading too much into this evening either beyond the pantomime.
The margin of win and the manner will come and go. The most enduring image of the whole evening was afterwards as the teams were togging back into their tracksuits.
A glance across at the door to the Tyrone dressing room afterwards told a story. Peter Harte, Kieran McGeary, Cathal McShane, Frank Burns, Conor Meyler, Matthew Donnelly and Con Kilpatrick were all loitering about, all out with injuries of various degrees.
As Harte pointed out, this was a Tyrone team.
He will know better than anyone, it wasn’t the Tyrone team.
Onwards now to the summer.