Ulster’s most toxic rivalry

It was a rivalry that defined a generation of Ulster football in more ways than one.

While Donegal interceded to great effect in ’92, the early ’90s was a time in which both Down and Derry flourished. They had met in Ulster three years running, with Down winning a replay in 1991 before Derry won semi-finals in the two years after.

It culminated in one of the greatest games of all time in 1994, a game in which Derry had their Ulster and All-Ireland crowns snatched by Pete McGrath’s team, who were bound for a second Sam in four years.

Aesthetics were higher on the list of priorities those days. Had Derry put a sweeper in front of Mickey Linden that day, Sam might well have stayed in the Sperrins. But that was not the done thing and so Linden and Greg Blaney were able to link up all afternoon to devastating effect.

What transpired was a game in which Fergal P McCusker sliced a goal past the otherwise impassable Neil Collins, a goal which looked as though it would decide the game until its dying embers.

But with the sand almost all through the hourglass, Down sub Ciaran McCabe came off the shoulder and rifled into the roof of the net protected by McCusker’s elder brother Damien.

It is a day fondly remembered in the Mournes. Ciaran McCabe’s late goal; James McCartan’s memorable right wing point after bouncing both Karl Diamond and Kieran McKeever out of his path; Mickey Linden’s virtuoso performance in the corner; the delivery Greg Blaney afforded him from centre-half; the saves by Neil Collins.

Nineteen years on, as the counties face into their first Ulster championship meeting since that day, former Derry defender Fergal McCusker laughs as he recalls a tale from an afternoon of ostensible footballing beauty, but one which contained the same devilment as any other in an era when he described their games against Donegal as ‘toxic’.

“I’m not proud of it, but Greg Blaney was picking up a lot of breaks at centre-half forward. I ran in and kicked him as hard as I could on the back of the calf, I mean as hard as I could. I might as well have been kicking a tree.

“He just turned and me and withdrew his gumshield and went ‘aaghhhh’ like some sort of T-Rex that had been annoyed by an emu. I just thought ‘right’ and trundled back to my position,” he laughs.

That’s as much of a laugh as you’ll get out of any Derry man regarding that afternoon. Memories they wish would fade are still imprinted on the mind’s eye because people still talk of that day regularly.

“It was a real heavyweight clash and we just got caught by a sucker-punch that we couldn’t recover from. It’s little consolation that it was the game of the decade or whatever,” recalls Fergal.

“I’d look back now and regret that there was no back door, no way back in. No doubt we would have met Down again. After they beat us, they beat nothing.

“There was nothing put in front of them until the final and even then they were far better than Dublin. They won it pulling up.”

Derry lost both titles that afternoon but they would lose far more in the weeks and months after it. The defeat stung them, but the aftermath was still unexpected. Among the class of ’93, it still stings. The regret of never having backed up their one All-Ireland will never leave them, but nor will the anger of having lost their manager.

A year after Eamonn Coleman helped them to their first ever All-Ireland, taking Down out in the provincial semis before Donegal, Dublin and Cork were shouldered into the ditch, Derry’s players started to get wind of rumours that his tenure was up. Those rumours were founded soon after.

“It ripped us apart,” said McCusker of Coleman’s sacking at the end of 1994. He was replaced by his assistant Mickey Moran, but things were never the same for that team.

“Someone who delivered their first All-Ireland in 100 years, maybe the only one we’ll ever win, and loses to a team that goes on to win it, and they decide to sack him.

“There were serious questions that needed to be asked at that time. People acted in ways that, with hindsight, they shouldn’t have. I was disappointed by the behaviour of individuals on the county board at that time, and you felt let down by people who you thought were Eamonn’s friends inside the camp.

“The new management came in and said to the players that if they didn’t want him to be there, he wouldn’t. The players told him he wasn’t wanted but yet he continued to manage.

“Players ended up refusing to play knowing what had happened to Eamonn, that he had been stabbed in the back. It’s left a sour taste, still. They say time’s a great healer but...our spirit was never the same.

“It’s difficult enough to win an All-Ireland never mind back-to-back. We fell short in a brilliant game. We gave it a shot in ’95 but Tyrone beat us. It was never the same. We definitely could have won another couple of All-Irelands after that.”

Sacking Coleman ripped Derry’s greatest ever team apart. There are some things even time won’t heal.