Brewster’s belief is echoed in wee county
Last winter, he realised he had nothing left to give. His knees were buckled. With Raymie Gallagher absconding to the capital, Fermanagh football had now lost its copper-haired soul. The man who made them tick. A season of disaster loomed.
Today, in Croke Park, that ‘disastrous’ season reaches it apex against the orange stone-wall of Armagh. The wee-est of wee counties has been having its season of seasons.
It was meant to be a dark winter in Fermanagh. League defeat after league defeat. The unreal success of last summer wiped out by the feeling the team were out of their league in Division one. Nobody saw what was coming next, apart from those within the county.
“It is really no surprise to me,” Brewster says. “When you saw what was written about us by people from outside the county, well it looked like we were heading back to the doldrums. But, inside Fermanagh we could see the talent coming through.”
Talent coming from St Michael's in Enniskillen. The confidence from winning McRory Cups. The hard graft of Peter McGinnity and Dom Corrigan. As Brewster ploughed relentlessly in the Fermanagh cause for years, he saw the teenagers coming up. Brash, almost arrogant, with bags of footballing talent.
“I remember thinking last year, I wish I was 25 again. All these players coming up, had been taught the right skills from an early age. And it has rubbed off on a lot of the younger players, like Mark Little and Eamon Maguire. It has shown in a lot of counties over the past couple of years, not just Fermanagh, but Laois, Tyrone and Westmeath. You simply cannot beat good coaching at an early age.”
Brewster calls it no fluke that the surge in Fermanagh football (it would be stretching things to call a resurgence) has to do with the success at schools level.
“You can’t do anything without good players, but if you teach good players the right things at an early age, they will remain good for a very long time,” the former midfield power-house surmises.
Fr Brian D’Arcy is Fermanagh’s most famous fan. He’s missing their biggest day because of a prior wedding date in Mayo but it might be the shortest service ever.
“It certainly will if we win,” he jokes. “I will pop into Knock along the way and see what I can do.”
You see Fr D’Arcy through all the good and bad days for the county. Before Cork were dismissed, the last time he saw a Fermanagh side win in Croke Park was in 1959. And they weren’t even senior. Fermanagh didn’t have a senior team back then, it was all junior. They beat Kerry in the All-Ireland junior final and became senior the following year.
“In many ways, this is even better than last year. There is more of a spirit in the team. I think it is more of a team. Of all our games this year, I don’t think one player has been outstanding for the entire 70 minutes,” says Fr D’Arcy
“But every player has been outstanding for a period in the game. That is what Charlie Mulgrew has preached. That there is no one individual star, the team is the star. Even Brew [Tom Brewster] and Stevie [Maguire], the two biggest names, are team players.”
Fr D’Arcy also pinpoints the importance of the McRory Cup. “You have lads growing up being coached good habits, and not just good habits, but being taught the athletic lifestyle, what to eat and when to eat. You have to look at people like Dom for that, they saw how football was moving and they brought Fermanagh along with it.”
Last summer was the break-through but it will remembered for the trouncing Tyrone dished out in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
This year, when Fermanagh met big teams, they were undaunted.
“I think we took that from last year. Beating Meath and Mayo last summer were huge psychological barriers for a county this size to get over,” says Fr D’Arcy.
“Two years ago, Fermanagh would have lost those battles to Donegal or Meath this year, they would have lost them mentally.
“We have taken three big scalps this year, Meath, Cork and Donegal. And we have nothing to lose against Armagh.”
Brewster jibes that somebody up there wants Fermanagh to do it the hard way. “In the past two years in the championship, the only non-division one side we drew was Tipperary and they didn’t want to play us.”
On his way to that wedding in Mayo, Fr D’Arcy’s mind will race through all the hard-luck stories over the years. Stories now turned to sentiment. In 1997, they drew a game they should have won, against Martin McHugh’s Cavan. They lost the replay and Cavan went on to win the Ulster title. The following year, they were beaten out the gate by Tyrone.
Two years later, they were back, losing by a single score to Armagh in a bruising Ulster semi-final.
They won’t think of that now. They are in Croke Park again. Written off. The smallest GAA county of all, just six senior clubs and a few junior. With an entire nation cheering them on.
: P Hearty; E McNulty, F Bellew, A Mallon; K Hughes, K McGeeney, A O'Rourke; P Loughran, P McGrane; P McKeever, T McEntee, O McConville; S McDonnell, R Clarke, D Marsden.
: N. Tinney, N. Bogue, B. Owens, R. McCluskey, R. Johnston, S. McDermott, P. Sherry, M. McGrath, L. McBarron, E. Maguire, S. Maguire, M. Little, C. O'Reilly, J. Sherry, C. Bradley.
