Updated at 09.23
MOST PEOPLE FALL out of sport at some stage in their life.
To many, it is as early as after school. To some who play professionally, it can be once they retire, or following a couple of years working as a coach.
Tommy Harkin is an exception, however. For virtually all of his 83 years on this planet, he has been immersed in the beautiful game at one level or another.
“He’s spent a lifetime in football,” Glengad United boss Shane Byrne told The42 recently. “Everyone in Derry City, Sligo, Finn Harps knows Tommy. During the FAI Cup, he was in Tallaght the night before with Finn Harps playing Shamrock Rovers. He went back to Donegal. He got in a car the next morning at seven o’clock and drove to Tipperary to be with [Glengad] in St Michael’s. There are young fellas at 23 [that would find that schedule too intense].
“Tommy’s somebody else. I’ve never met anyone in football like him — his enthusiasm for the game at his age. He drove down last night after training in The Crua — he lives in [Donegal village] Carrigans. He’s very important to the club.”
Harkin works as a physio and kit man for both Finn Harps and Glengad, while he also helps Byrne in his work with Letterkenny Institute of Technology’s football team.
Despite being at an age when most people would feel entitled to sit back and take it easy, Harkin is constantly on the go. When The42 calls for a chat on Thursday afternoon, he is preparing for a Finn Harps training session that evening ahead of tonight’s crucial play-off second leg against Drogheda.
Moreover, it was roughly 40 years ago that Harkin began working in football as a physio.
“I started out with Fanad way back when, and I spent about 27 years there. But I was training with Ulster underage teams with U17s and things like that. Donegal schoolboys, Kennedy Cup, Milk Cup, Foyle Cup, I’ve been all over the place with football.”
He laughs: “All them young fellas I’ve worked with, they all remember me, but I don’t tend to remember half their names. I’m getting too old.
“At present, I’m with Harps and I run with the LyIT and I’m with Glengad, so I’m always out somewhere. It’s a good job I’m getting a pension and I’m not working.”
On his longstanding role, Harkin adds: “I never qualified as a physio, but I did it all the time down in Fanad and I did it with Harps’ 19s and 17s for a while. I still do it with LyIT and the Glengad team.
There’s nothing [substantial] you can do out on a football field. A qualified physio told me one time, you can only get a bit of water, some spray and stop the bleeding or whatever. It needs an x-ray and to be seen to before you can [properly treat it].”
Harkin is coming to the end of his sixth season at Finn Harps, moving there with Ollie Horgan ahead of the 2014 campaign, having previously worked with the long-serving manager at Ulster Senior League outfit Fanad United.
“I was going to pack up football when Ollie left Fanad. I said: ‘Well, I’ll leave now and just do schoolboy.’ He said: ‘Why don’t you come up to Finn Harps with me?’ So that’s why I’m in Harps.”
Having spent several decades working in the game at this stage, Harkin would be forgiven for feeling jaded by now, but he insists he enjoys it as much as ever.
Asked about his remarkable longevity in football, Harkin says: “I couldn’t put it down to anything, because I’m not a healthy eater or anything like that. I eat all the rubbish you throw at me. I just seem to keep going no bother.
“I don’t carry weight, so that’s another big bonus for me. If I was carrying weight, I might have to say ‘goodbye’ to it soon, but I’m still running about like an old eejit, as I say. That’s the main thing. It’s no bother for the boys, getting them this and that.
“I’d go out to a training session, carry the water and make sure they all have water and drinks and things like that. If they want something, I go and get it for them. Even going to the shop getting a bar of chocolate for some of the boys.
“After the game, we’d carry everything up and get all the [equipment] sorted for the next day.
“Then in Glengad, I’d strap a few ankles for them and give someone a wee rub on their calves or back, strap up ankles, nothing too serious, nothing major.”
And before occupying his current role, Harkin was a keen footballer himself.
I played in the Inishowen League up until I was about 40 years of age. I played for two seasons along with a son of mine, on the same team, way back years ago. Dunmore United [were my team] and I played with Killea for a while. Junior stuff.”
He will be among the many interested observers tonight as Finn Harps host Drogheda in the pivotal second leg of a promotion-relegation play-off. Tommy’s grandson Gareth Harkin is likely to be in the home side’s team, having featured in the first leg.
“Hopefully, they can get through,” Tommy adds. “I think they will. They’re good enough. They’ve enough experience there to do it.”
And while Finn Harps’ season is set for its conclusion regardless of the outcome this evening, that does not mean Harkin will be able to relax for a few months. He’s heading down to Cork on Monday for a match involving LyIT, while he will continue to work regularly with Glengad in the Inishowen Football League over the coming months.
I don’t stop, I just keep going,” he says. “Football is brilliant for anybody who wants to get involved in it. I just love it, and people that get involved will be the same. It’s just a matter of getting involved in it.
“No matter what part of the area I go at the minute, everybody knows me, but I can’t remember all their feckin’ names, that’s the problem.
“You keep yourself fit and stay away from the cigarettes and drink.
“I used to smoke the cigarettes myself, but I’m off them a long time. I’m not a drinker, I like to take one or two, but that’s it.
“[I stopped smoking] about 35-40 years ago now. That just was it. I always said, you either want to have them, or you don’t. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t bloody want them, you’re not going to have them. You have to want to go off them.”
And Harkin says he has no plans to step away from football anytime soon, so long as he remains fit and healthy.
I’ll keep going as long as I can and as long as anybody wants me, I’ll be there. I can go away anytime. I’ve no ties to it. But I enjoy it, and I want to be with it as long as I can. But if Ollie’s sacked, you never know.
“I was going to stop Glengad this year, but all the boys wanted me back. I get on very well with them, that’s the thing. They can slag me and I can slag them and it’s a lot of fun. There’s no animosity with anybody as far as I’d be concerned anyway.
“I enjoy life, I enjoy football, I enjoy the all the people I’ve worked with. Everybody’s looked after me. They would never do anything against me and I give all my best to everybody. I’ve no qualms or anything. You win some, you lose some, and you just carry on. That’s the way I look at it.”
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