Colin Sheridan: Mayo and Tyrone have more in common than they think

If defiance has defined Tyrone’s legacy, persistence and resilience has defined Mayo’s, writes Colin Sheridan

Thu, 09 Sep, 2021 - 16:52

In the late nineties, as the country continued the slow and painful healing process following peace in Northern Ireland, I found myself stationed in the border town of Lifford, Co. Donegal.

Hours from anywhere remotely close to home; Lifford offered little by way of distraction.

More than once, I was the sole customer at the cinema.

I saw Gladiator three nights in a row, and the Drew Barrymore masterpiece Never Been Kissed, twice. More an Association Football town, the Gaelic Football pitch was neglected and more lopsided than a Russian presidential election. Before too long, I understood that Lifford was not so much a town, but an addendum to another urban sprawl, Strabane, Co. Tyrone.

Eventually, I had the gumption to pass the old checkpoint and watchtower and cross the bridge. Gumption grew to bravery as I cycled my bike through the housing estates to find the home of the GAA club, Strabane Sigersons.

The clubhouse and pitches appeared like an oasis in a desert of concrete. These were the days before google maps and social media. Wrong turns taken more than once. For a socially anxious young fella of limited footballing ability, this was a cold call well outside my comfort zone.

“Are you getting”?

Somewhat used to the dialect from just across the bridge, I understood this to mean, was I being looked after.

Like a young boxer walking into a Bronx gym, I explained I was hoping to train with a team – any team – or even just use the place to kick a ball.

To that end, I was left in no doubt; I was welcome to tog and train whenever I wanted.

There was, I admit, nothing too remarkable in any of this. What was true of Strabane would likely be true of a hurling club in Waterford or a cricket club in Wicklow. What was remarkable, however, was my coming to understand what football meant to the people of Tyrone.

Sigersons were an intermediate club at the time. Strabane had one of the highest unemployment rates in not just the north but the United Kingdom. The club was like nothing else I had ever seen. Literally, hundreds of people gathered on a Tuesday and Thursday night, from cradle to grave.

Being from Mayo, I thought I understood what it was to be cracked about football. It was the middle of a boom in my home county – consecutive All-Ireland appearances, Croke Park regulars, nations darlings – but, what I saw in Strabane was a subculture completely oblivious to me and most others like me. This was a county that had won very little, ever. Yet, there, underneath the floodlights in this border town, something was growing.

As their success unravelled in front of me, like everyone else, I tried to make sense of it.

What made them the way they were? In 1997, as Mickey Harte guided a minor team through the Ulster Championship, young Paul McGirr from Dromore was playing wing-forward for Tyrone against Armagh when he sustained an injury which later resulted in him losing his life. Later that summer, his team lost an All-Ireland minor final. The following August 29 people tragically lost their lives in the Omagh bombing.

Twenty-nine people and two unborn children. In 2003, capitalising on years of underage success, Tyrone captured their first of three All-Irelands in five years, thanks in no small part to their full-back and leader, Cormac McAnallen.

The following March, McAnallen died because of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SAD). He was 24, and, in his short sporting life, he had won one senior All-Ireland, two U21’s, a minor, a Sigerson with Queens University Belfast and a Dublin Senior football championship with UCD. He was more than a player; he was a totem of excellence from a county that had slowly then very suddenly discovered its identity. There was nothing tragic or browbeaten about Tyrone, but was real life fueling the fire of their success?

It’s perhaps overly simplistic and frankly a little patronising to attribute Tyrone’s emergence as a footballing force to the hardships they have suffered as a people, but, if the narrative of this summer has taught us anything, it is that there exists a disconnect between those of us cracked about football “down south” and those cracked about it “up north”.

Tyrone, like the flame-haired wi

ldling Ygritte in Game of Thrones, are looking the rest of us deep in the eye and telling us, “You know nothing, Jon Snow” This is born out in the dichotomy of coverage of the Covid-19 saga, the palpable distrust of many regarding motive.

Some of the suspicion has derived from selective messaging from the county. This is laughable. When was the last time a county – any county – gave a genuine team selection in advance? Almost every team in the country, including Mayo, treat their supporters and media with contempt when it comes to communication.

Tyrone being discreet when it came to Covid was at worst par for the course. The “they are capable of anything” agenda that has subconsciously and very directly been put forward by many is as much down to it being Tyrone and not Kerry or Mayo as it is anything else.

Why?

Because they invented sledging, (they didn’t)?

Because they aim to physically intimidate, (who doesn’t)?

To me, the shallowness of this commentary only serves to highlight the ignorance many display when it comes to understanding what makes the likes of Tyrone tick. Ask anybody who has lived or studied or played football in Queens and Jordanstown. It is just not the same. Maybe not better or worse, but it is not the same.

Mayo and Tyrone have maybe more in common then they both think. If defiance has defined Tyrone’s legacy, persistence and resilience has defined Mayo’s. Both counties have suffered the wrath of condescension from those who deign to understand what it is to be from a certain place. Both will use the doubts of others to drive them towards glory.

“Marvelous” Marvin Hagler once said that “it’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5am when you’ve been sleeping in silk pajamas”.

Both counties have long been going to bed in old boxers.

Whoever wins, victory will be earned. There will be nothing dubious about it.