Mayo and me: From game smarts to gamesmanship, they’re on a different level

I have always had an affinity with, and somewhat of an understanding of Mayo. We spent plenty of time there as children as my uncle Donal was a Garda and moved there in the early 1980s. He is there since. He has been naturalised up there but is still very much a staunch Kerryman.

One of his sons Shane played midfield for Mayo for a spell. We only came up against each other directly once in the All-Ireland quarter-final in 2005. For summer holidays we often house swapped with ‘the Castlebar crowd’ as we called them. They got to spend time in Kerry with all the relations and we got to be townies for a week or two. We loved it.