Barney Breen: Gaels force can halt Clonmel
Correct on both counts.
So, how then does a man who held the Leitrim managerial post as recently as the summer of 2013 wind up on the sideline with London club Tir Chonaill Gaels?
“How long have you got?” chuckles Breen, when asked of the road that brought him from Ballinamore to Greenford in West London.
Tomorrow afternoon in Ruislip, Breen will oversee Tir Chonaill Gaels’ bid to become the first London club to progress beyond the quarter-final of the All-Ireland club football championship.
It is a club he first came into contact with when spending a summer in London in the mid-’80s.
The recession at home meant jobs were at a scarcity so, when his academic year at DIT was done and dusted, he packed his bags and went to live with his uncle Patsy McGovern.
McGovern and his wife, Pam, were heavily involved with Tir Chonaill Gaels and Breen wound up togging out for the club on his first summer there.
He’d return the following two summers, but thought no more of the club until approached by present chairman Tom Mohan at Pam’s funeral in November 2013.
He had arrived across the pond a couple of weeks earlier to look after Patsy when Pam took ill. By this juncture, he was no longer involved with Leitrim and work was again scarce at home.
“Tom came over to pay his respects and we would have known each other from when I was out there in the ’80s. He asked me what I was at,” recalls Breen.
“I told him I wasn’t doing a whole pile and he said: ‘Why don’t you come over, we’ll get you work on the condition that you get involved with the Gaels.’”
Breen mulled over the offer during the Christmas, upping sticks in March of last year.
“I had a lot of thinking to do, because even though I had no ties at home, it is a big thing for a man of my age, late forties, to relocate to London. To leave home was a big step.”
Since his arrival, though, Tir Chonaill Gaels are undefeated in both league and championship on the domestic front; the sole blot on the copybook came at the hands of Corofin in the All-Ireland quarter-final this time last year.
Clonmel Commercials are the visitors this weekend.
“We didn’t do ourselves justice last year. If you had told me before that game that we would hold them to nine points, I’d have asked you how much did we win by. To score only 0-2 was very disappointing.
“We want to rectify that this year. We want to give a performance.”
Leading their charge will be Donegal’s Seamus Friel and Adrian O’Hanlon, Derry’s Brian Duddy and Mark Gottsche of Galway.
“We have played in eight All-Ireland quarter-finals since the year 2000. That will show we have experience at this level.
"The biggest difference is that any club that comes over here to us, their players have grown up together; went to school together, played U10 together.
"From last year, we have eight or nine of a turnaround. The continuity isn’t there.
“We have a number of lads with inter-county experience and we have to make that count this weekend.”
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