Rising out of the shadows

After enduring a tortured summer of suspension, Tyrone’s Gavin Devlin now stands on the brink of All-Ireland glory. Mark Gallagher reports.

GAVIN DEVLIN remembers the midge-biten evenings of his childhood, out in Frank McGuigan’s back garden which stretched onto the Ardboe GAA grounds. There he and the owner’s son Brian would pretend to be Peter Canavan for an hour or two.

They used McGuigan’s house because as Devlin recalls now, “it had the biggest garden in Ardboe. It was the only one we could go to and have a proper game.”

And of course, it was home to the local legend, Brian’s father, the man great before Peter. If this all sounds a little idyllic, well Ardboe invites it. It is one of many communities in Tyrone knitted together by football because there isn’t much else, the sort of community that has been sustained by dreams of days like tomorrow.

For a time in the early eighties, the place was so ravaged by emigration that the famous Ardboe cross standing above the town had fallen into disrepair, as many about to undertake a journey across the sea, would take a piece upon leaving.

These days, there is a spring in their collective step. Tyrone are within 75 or so minutes of finally touching their Holy Grail and two Ardboe men are central to it all.

McGuigan junior emulated his father in the drawn Ulster final, giving a play-making display unlikely to be surpassed this year. Devlin has been making headlines for another display, his NFL tangle with Colm Parkinson has stained this most memorable summer.

“Why was Gavin made to suffer when nobody else did,” Frank McGuigan snr wonders. “It was so silly. If they were going to use video evidence for Gavin and that Corcoran lad, why wasn’t it used all summer. Basically, what they are saying is that since then, there wasn’t another offence committed on a football field that the referee didn’t see.”

The anger is understandable. Devlin watched on the side-lines for three months as Tyrone powered through Ulster. Having just forced himself into the Tyrone team, the 23-year-old duly missed out on the county’s most exciting summer. That the GAC decided to highlight his unsavoury incident with Colm Parkinson and nothing else illustrates the inconsistency of the powers-that-be in the GAA.

And Devlin hasn’t forgotten it. At the Tyrone Press night, he appeared in the Laois centre-forward’s shirt from the league final. When asked was he making a statement, Devlin just smiled, “nah, not at all.” At the time, John McEntee’s fate still looked uncertain (for elbowing Donegal’s Barry Monaghan during their semi-final), but the Tyrone centre-back was unequivocal in his support of the man he will be marking tomorrow.

“There is no way you want to see any player miss an All-Ireland final. Okay, Armagh are a tough team and John is a very tough player. He is a big man who uses his body well, he is not a dirty player. If John was going to miss the All-Ireland final because of that, I think it would be scandalous, even if it meant us getting beat. If we can’t beat them with John Mac on the field, we don’t deserve to beat them.

“It would have been a disgrace if John had missed the final, after playing so well all year.

Devlin has had to endure a lonely summer in the shadows, although the support of team-mates, and a manager who never lost faith in him, made things easier.

“The morning of the Derry replay, the day I got suspended, I was driving down to the rest of the team and I got a phone call that I got three months. That put me down in the dumps obviously, but when I walked into the changing room, everybody got behind me. And the boys have been like that the whole way through.”

There were days when he thought the chance to get back wouldn’t come. After the banishment edict came down, Devlin was lost for a few weeks. “I didn’t want the year to end in the way that it looked like it might end after the Laois game. I wanted to get back into it. We did an awful lot of work in the winter. It would have been a heart-breaking way for the year to end.”

Fortunately, he was able to play in the club championship for Ardboe because of a technicality. But Croke Park didn’t endear themselves to the club in this regard either, being slow to inform Devlin of that fact. “Yeah, we had our first round championship match against Clyne and I thought I wasn’t allowed to play.

“Then, I got a call three nights later saying I could have played that night. It was a different category of offence apparently. Ardboe scraped by a point that night, but the club weren’t informed until after the game. I think they were making up the rules as they went along.”

Devlin is vital to the club side which Frank McGuigan now manages and has been essential on their journey to the county semi-finals.

“He is a very important player for us and his significance for the team has grown with every year,” Kevin Tague, club chairman says. “Himself and Brian have been integral since U16 level.”

Devlin was nomadic in his early senior days, playing everywhere from corner-back to centre-forward. But it’s centre-back that the true qualities of Devlin shine as a footballer. Blessed with an accurate reading of the game, his tenacity and distribution were essential for Tyrone throughout the league. Perhaps, that was why Mickey Harte had no difficulties recalling him for the Kerry game.

“Mickey named the team on the pitch that night after training and I thought, if I had been starting, he would give me a wee sneak idea at training. He just named the team and bang, hit me with it, that I was right back in the team.

“That is the type of man he is. He knows his own mind and does what he thinks is best for the team.

With Devlin deployed as a sweeper cum centre-back, Tyrone look an impregnable defensive unit. Three months out of inter-county did little to dull his skills as Dara Ó Cinnéide discovered in the semi-final. He has adapted better than any other player to Harte’s blanket system and after a summer of heartache, the way he handles John McEntee may decide the destiny of Sam Maguire.

People are talking about the poison in tomorrow’s pairings, but Devlin dismisses such claims. His mother is from Armagh, after all, and he has more cousins there than in Tyrone. It is just another example of how close the counties are to each other. And last September, he found himself in an Ardboe watering-hole, knocking back a few, cheering on the Orchard. A few hours later, the celebrations brought him into Armagh city. The whole of Tyrone, like the country, were wishing the Kernan roadshow well last year.

This year, the country is on Tyrone’s side, if only for Peter Canavan. And it would bring the veil down perfectly on the legend’s career. But, there is another feelgood story. The sight of Gavin Devlin clutching a Celtic Cross would go some way to easing the indignation in Ardboe at how their star was treated.