McGuinness: From there to here

Just two years ago last June, the only Donegal man ever to lift Sam Maguire gave a damning appraisal of just where the state of football was at in the county.

John Joe Doherty’s Donegal had just been lumped out of the championship, the first county in the country evicted that year, following a 2-14 to 0-11 hammering by Armagh in Crossmaglen. It concluded Donegal’s season, their annus horribilis.

“God Almighty would not have success with that current Donegal team and no matter what way you look at it we do not have the players,” 1992 All-Ireland-winning captain Anthony Molloy said in the Donegal Democrat just three days later.

“The other thing I have to say about the current squad is it does not seem to hurt them enough when they lose.

“Everything is fine and dandy with them when they win but when they lose it does not seem to bother them. We have 30 or so players, all at the same level, with the one exception, Michael Murphy.

“The players are just not there and given the lack of work being done at underage we cannot expect them to be there either and until we address the issue things are not going to change.”

Donegal lost by nine points but, in truth, the game was up long before that. A day before he turned 21, Jamie Clarke had slammed two goals past Paul Durcan inside of seven minutes.

With Donegal having been given the last rites, the contest was then drawn out like a wake. Jim McGuinness and his old stable-mate Brendan Devenney watched the match together and walked out towards the car in silence.

“Obviously I was very disappointed,” McGuinness recalls of that day. “Very disappointed the way the thing had panned out towards the end. Armagh really took control of the game and our lads weren’t able to respond. It was one of those days really.”

Doherty will always be more revered as a player than a manager in Donegal — a wholehearted defender whose only championship start in 1992 was the All-Ireland final, out of position at wing-back, after Martin Shovlin had failed a fitness test that morning.

After Armagh, Doherty resigned following two stormy seasons in charge.

McGuinness had applied for the position of Donegal senior manager twice before. In 2007, Brian McIver led the county to a first National Football League title when they defeated Mayo 0-13 to 0-10 at Croke Park.

After a fortuitous opening Ulster championship victory over Armagh at a balmy Ballybofey, when Devenney’s speculative last-minute effort sailed past Paul Hearty for an unlikely winning goal, Donegal were walloped by Tyrone in the provincial semi-final, and then easily beaten by Monaghan in an Omagh qualifier.

McIver resigned but as the applications were gathering to replace him, McGuinness’s included, had a change of heart and was kept on.

Twelve months later, McIver was in Ballybofey giving his annual report to the county committee when delegates from two clubs, St Eunan’s and Gaoth Dobhair, who weren’t mandated, decided to table a motion of no confidence.

It became known as ‘The Night of Long Knives,’ and McIver walked off into the darkness and never returned.

McGuinness once again put his intentions in writing. Having been given assurances he would be provided with the facility to make a PowerPoint presentation at the interview in Jackson’s Hotel in Ballybofey, the interview room had no plug socket.

When he queried the matter, he was told by the interviewing panel, headed by former county chairman Séan Kelly, the intention was always to have a Q&A session.

“It’s funny how everyone is here now,” McGuinness said with a cheeky grin in the same hotel as voice-recorders swarmed around him at last year’s All-Ireland semi-final press night. “It was in that room next door not so long ago when nobody would listen to me!”

McGuinness packed up his laptop and left that day four years ago. The contents of that PowerPoint presentation, containing his managerial blueprint, never saw daylight.

Doherty was then offered the role of manager one Wednesday night in October as he was pottering around his garden shed before the joint-ticket of Declan Bonner and Charlie Mulgrew were also told the post was theirs. Confusion reigned.

The water was still muddy when Highland Radio had a live morning transmission a couple of days later, when all the respective parties came on air to give their tuppence worth. McGuinness was one of those callers but his complaints were merely a footnote.

In an online poll at the time, where supporters were asked to name their next manager, McGuinness clocked a miserable 4.9 per cent. Doherty was eventually voted in by the clubs.

McGuinness was offered the U21 post, almost as a consolation prize. But Martin McHugh, who had been overlooked for the senior post in similar circumstances in 1994, urged him to give it a go.

McHugh never did manage Donegal. When he won the Anglo Celt in 1997, it was taken to Breffni and not Ballybofey. But over a pot of tea in Letterkenny, McHugh encouraged McGuinness to prove his worth and indeed his value to the county’s hierarchy.

“I was with the U21s and they were like a blank canvas — a red setter I would call them,” McGuinness recalls. “Everything was just buzzing, up and at it — ‘this is brilliant, what have we to do, give me that weights programme’ — torturing you on the phone. They were just filled with energy, as young people are. They were brilliant to work with.

“I read a book once about [Captain Robert Falcon] Scott going across to the South Pole and he said, ‘hire character and teach them the skills’, because obviously if you hire the wrong characters there and they mess up, everybody is dead.”

One week in April 2010 made the parallel universes of Donegal’s two teams crystal clear. Donegal seniors were hammered 2-16 to 0-6 by Armagh in Letterkenny and would remain in Division 2.

“Ach, sure it was all over at half time,” manager Doherty said as he shrugged his shoulders afterwards, referring to the 1-9 to 0-2 interval deficit.

The throw-in before the match was delayed with crowds streaming through the O’Donnell Park gates and the start of the second half, it was jovially remarked at the time, might have to be delayed too to accommodate those same supporters departing.

Six nights later at Parnell Park, McGuinness’s Ulster champion U21s defeated Tipperary by eight points to seal an All-Ireland final place.

“They all played for the jersey and that’s what we wanted of them,” McGuinness said that night. “Donegal haven’t had a lot ofsuccess recently and it’s important we learn from the experience. ”

Meticulous McGuinness is known to write two lists on his whiteboard — constants and variables. The constants are the things he and his team can control, things like game plan, fitness, preparation. The variables are the aspects out of control, such as weather, referee, atmosphere.

However, that second column would’ve had another inclusion had McGuinness foreseen half his panel going down with a virus the week before the Cavan final. Donegal lost, only after Michael Murphy had rammed a last-minute penalty off Dublin’s crossbar. But there were no regrets.

“I’ve never watched that game back or seldom thought about it,” McGuinness said recently of that final. “We were honest with ourselves and gave it our best shot. We came up just short but that happens.That was a great experience and a great learning curve. They were a great group.”

Around that time, McGuinness’s reputation was soaring and with his previous misfortunes in applying for the senior post common knowledge, the vultures began to circle. McGuinness’s rejections meant, even in a one-horse race after Doherty walked, he was still not entirely sure his face would fit.

“I was afraid I’d never get it,” he says. “I spoke to a couple of other counties and I had been speaking about training another county. I didn’t want to do that, not at that stage. All I ever wanted to do, all my life, was play for Donegal, and when that moment was over the next thing was to go and manage them. I have always been interested in coaching.”

In two seasons, McGuinness has transformed Donegal as well as peoples’ perceptions of them. Last year after a first Ulster championship he claimed the thing that made it all worthwhile was seeing smiles of faces.

“It’s a passion,” McGuinness adds of his desire to get the best out of his county. “I went for the job three times for good reason — I believed I could do something with the players. I will be very proud to be a Donegal man if we can win the All-Ireland. What is driving me is succeeding with my own county.”

That passion has driven Donegal to an All-Ireland final, their first in 20 years. Maybe God Almighty couldn’t have managed that — but Jim McGuinness certainly has.