A Little goes a long, long way

IT has been raining in Fermanagh most of the week, but no spirits have been dampened around Lisnaskea. As they say in these parts, it’s been a wild good summer.

Better still when a local lad has energised the entire footballing community. They have a proud history in Lisnaskea. Emmets, the local club, have claimed 13 county titles in the past century. Time was they exerted a dominance over Fermanagh football similar to what Enniskillen Gaels enjoy now.

So, they are taking a little extra pride in Mark Little, that strip of a cub, who has terrorised any defence that has faced him.

“He was always thought of as a great prospect,” says Jim Collins, member of the 1959 junior All-Ireland winning team and fellow club-man. “But, he has exceeded all expectations this year. It’s his speed that kills teams. He is no size, but that doesn’t matter when he is running at you.”

They will talk to you all day about their football in Lisnaskea. They aren’t happy with the way Enniskillen, just a few miles up the road, have ruled the roost for so long but that is going to change. They look ahead to the county this year and are hopeful it will change.

And they have a special place in this current, unbelievable phase in the history of Fermanagh football. Well, that’s according to a local in The Stag’s Head who wouldn’t volunteer his name. “This is where it all started. Right up there in Emmet Park, that is where Charlie Mulgrew had his first game as Fermanagh manager, a McKenna Cup against Queens. It all started here in Lisnaskea.”

Lisnaskea is festooned in green and white, flags and bunting everywhere. Generally in this county that usually means ‘the other side’ are revelling in upmanship. Not this year, the nameless punter smiles, and then spins a great yarn about the towns of Irvinestown, home to keeper Niall Tinney, and Maguiresbridge to the north of the county.

“The Royal Black Perceptory were having their parade last weekend, so there was British bunting spread across both towns for the parade on Sunday. And on Monday morning, all that red and blue bunting had changed to green and white.”

In West Fermanagh, it is all green and white. The small, pretty village of Garrison used to be remarkable only for having its graveyard in the centre of town. Now, it is known more for being the home of Syd Mulrone, the county trainer.

Mulrone has given his life to his club, Devenish. Locking the club gates late at night, bounding through the pub crowds of a late Saturday night trying to sell the last Lotto ticket. As Donal Fee, part of the Fermanagh side that lost the 1982 Ulster final to Armagh, says: “Syd has been around Fermanagh football at all levels for years and has got little appreciation for his efforts. I am glad he is involved.”

Mulrone himself feels this summer is rooted in the small size of the county. “We take training more like a club training session. Everybody knows one another and you always have the craic. It is such a small club area all these boys work and live through one another every day.”

The county trainer also believes the qualifier system has benefited Fermanagh more than any other county. Incarcerated inside Ulster for so long, only travelling the Republic has set them free. “We have found, playing southern sides, that they allow you to play football, to express yourself and that is going to benefit us.”

Eamon Courtney, another who played on the 1959 junior side that defeated Kerry in the All-Ireland final, thinks there has been a change of mind-set in Fermanagh football, and that might have something to do with the qualifiers.

As a soldier in the Irish army - he served in Congo in 1960 and 61 - he played on Army teams for years. “There was always an inferiority complex when Fermanagh players came up alongside footballers from Galway or Kerry or Dublin, like we had no right to be on the same field, even when we were on the same army team. I always felt that. That has definitely disappeared in the last couple of years. And it is great to see.

“Y’know what Charlie Mulgrew did - and this is nothing against Dom Corrigan, he did a great job for Fermanagh football but he was too into his Enniskillen players. Mulgrew gave the lads from the country clubs a chance, fellas like young Little and Eamon Maguire.”