Morrison wants men of ’51 to see ‘curse’ lifted

ALLIANZ FL DIVISION 1:

Speaking before last year’s All-Ireland final defeat to Dublin, the Armagh man spoke of Mayo’s real curse being their mindset. Having watched them lose their seventh successive September decider and a second in as many years, he was further convinced the county and, by extension, its players have subconsciously bought into the idea of being perennial bridesmaids.

A large part of it, he believes, comes from generations of talk that they are haunted by the hex speculated to have been placed on members of the ’51 team for over-celebrating in Foxford.

“Unfortunately for the players of the ’51 squad who are still alive and their families, this curse is still being mentioned as the reason Mayo haven’t won an All-Ireland since,” he said.

“If Mayo haven’t won an All-Ireland by the time the last of them passes away I hope nobody announces the man’s death. My argument is if Mayo then go on to win one it’ll be said the curse must have been right. I would love to see them win while those players are still alive.

“The curse is the mindset. It’s how rumour becomes truth and then suddenly it becomes exaggerated truth. When Mayo do go on to win it I hope journalists analyse what was done to win it, what buttons were pressed, instead of some myth being lifted.”

Morrison points to similar Gaelic football myths such as Down not losing finals and Kerry’s history of beating Mayo in them. “They are records that will be broken in time,” he said.

Towards the end of last year, Mayo manager James Horan spoke of how quiet the team’s supporters were during last year’s All-Ireland final. He said: “When I was thinking back through the game it was interesting about how deathly silent it was. That’s something that stuck out for me at the time. With eight minutes to go, we were two points down. It was like someone was dead around the stadium.”

Morrison views Horan’s remarks as pointing towards the supporters’ self-perpetuating negativity.

“It becomes worse. They start to justify and make excuses for it. Then they start to laugh about it. You can tell them to ‘wise up’ but they’ll then argue with themselves.

“Horan has tried to change the mindset but he became a victim of it last year. Going towards the final, people were saying Mayo’s name was on the trophy. When I hear that, I think it’s great and everybody had Mayo as their favourites until somebody mentioned the curse. Then things changed.

“When I heard about the curse in 2006, it was travellers who did it to the team. Last year, it was the priest. That’s what convinces me there is no curse. It’s just a way of endorsing something what they think is fact.

“Mayo literally have to re-programme how they think. Ignore what is written about them. Don’t take account of who they are playing. They’ve to put a hyphen in impossible and make it “im-possible.”

Morrison is not surprised Horan thinks the silence of Mayo’s supporters impacted on his players. The same thing had happened to Dublin seven years previous in the counties’ classic All-Ireland semi-final.

“Dublin were a better side than Mayo in 2006. They should have beaten us. They went seven points up and their management sat down, laughing and their fans were singing ’The Rare Auld Times’.

“We brought on two forwards for two half-backs. Dublin were being quoted in the press as being strong guys but as I always say you can’t hit a ghost and, if you can think back to the way we got our goal, we ran at them.

“When we went ahead the Dublin crowd stopped and the management sensed it. Dublin lost faith and made rushed decisions, bringing off Shane Ryan for one.

“That sort of noise keeps you upright and when it’s not here you become weak.

“In ancient times why did people batter drums going to war? To scare the hell out of their enemies. Kerry can cope with things like that because from the time they’re sitting in a pram they’re told it’s all about winning an All-Ireland. Nobody else can, though.”