Obituary: ‘Pat Shovelin was forever positive no matter what the situation’
HEN Jim McGuinness began planning his backroom team, having been appointed as the manager of Donegal seniors ahead of the coldest of cold winters in 2010, there was one characteristic he insisted upon.
“I wanted a backroom team of people not so much with decades of football experience but with an innately positive attitude,” he later would write in ‘Until Victory Always: A Memoir’.
Donegal football, at the time, was on its knees, without so much as a win in Ulster in three seasons and a host of talented, although battle-scarred players. There was, however, a streak of positivity infused in the camp, primarily from the McGuinness’s U21’s who’d won Ulster and reached the 2010 All-Ireland final.
McGuinness brought his cousin Pat Shovelin to the seniors to continue his role as goalkeeping coach and within two years Donegal were All-Ireland champions.
“I wasn’t sure if Paul Durcan would even know who I was – it was a big step up for me,” Shovelin would later say of his introduction to the panel’s netminders. “The first night I met with Paul and Michael Boyle, we clicked and we became best friends.”
Down the years, Shovelin, who managed in the medical records department at Letterkenny University Hospital, made lots of friends, whether in football or in life.
McGuinness and Shovelin stood alongside one another in front of the Hogan Stand as Michael Murphy, after Anthony Molloy 20 years beforehand, became only the second Donegal man to hold aloft Sam Maguire in September 2012.
A year later, in the wake of a none-too-convincing defence, that culminated in a 16-point All-Ireland quarter-final hammering by Mayo, McGuinness rooted out that same backroom team with Rory Gallagher, Maxi Curran and Francie Friel moved on.
“I asked Pat to come back for another year,” McGuinness added. “He said yes straight away. And I felt no matter what happened over the season, I had a loyal crew behind me.”
Donegal went on to inflict what is now Dublin’s only championship defeat in five seasons in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final before losing to Kerry in the All-Ireland final, 2-9 to 0-12. Colm McFadden, with a fisted effort and Donegal three points down, struck the base of the Kerry goalpost in the last second of three minutes injury time.
Donegal were denied a replay, licked their wounds and within a fortnight McGuinness had stepped aside, concluding ‘the journey’ as he often referred to it as himself. It was a journey that saw Donegal take home Sam Maguire and three Ulster championships in just four years - the most glorious spell in their otherwise patchy footballing history.
Shovelin had been pivotal to that journey and had he not passed away at the age of 41 last Saturday, undoubtedly would’ve been part of their next chapter under Declan Bonner, who succeeded Rory Gallagher as Donegal manager ahead of 2018.
Although Bonner managed Donegal from 1997 to 2000, the 1992 All-Ireland winning flame-haired corner-forward has seen his managerial career turn full circle since. Just like Donegal’s seniors, Bonner’s minor panel were Ulster champions in 2014, defeated Dublin against the odds in the All-Ireland semi-final only to go down to Kerry in the final that sunny September afternoon at Croke Park.
Bonner continued onto the Donegal U21’s with a trusted lieutenant in Shovelin looking after the goalkeepers once more. When Donegal won the Ulster U21 championship at a canter in April of this year, overcoming Derry 3-17 to 0-13 at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh, joint-captains Eoghan Ban Gallagher and Tony McClenaghan insisted on Shovelin joining them to lift the Irish News Cup.
“There was no prouder man in the Athletic Grounds that evening than Pat Shovelin,” Bonner said this week when looking back.
By then, Shovelin, was, in his own words, using football “as a release” having been diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma, a rare form of liver cancer.
Even in his illness since, Shovelin, maintained his optimism and wit, stating that his 2010 and 2017 Ulster U21 titles and haul under McGuinness made him “Donegal’s most successful ever football coach” and jovially queried at anyone who’d listen as to why that hadn’t even been enough to even make the shortlist after Rory Gallagher departed.
But for a couple of broken fingers, Shovelin often recounted how he’d enjoyed standing up to Michael Murphy at full steam in training, stating he’d be fortunate enough to get close to the ball on its way back out from the net instead of its way into it.
It was that charm that made Shovelin so popular. Donegal wing-forward Eoin McHugh, speaking on Sunday, recalled Shovelin as “the kind of fella who always had a smile on his face. He was always happy.”
Moments beforehand, McHugh’s Kilcar teammate and club captain Patrick McBrearty - about to lift the Division 1 trophy adding to the Donegal SFC crown won a week beforehand - had a quiver in his voice as he paid his respects.
“It’s absolutely devastating,” added Donegal U21 joint-captain Eoghan Ban Gallagher. “We’re all heartbroken. Pat was such a great person. We’d such a great evening after that U21 final win. It meant so much to us all.”
Michael Murphy, the Donegal skipper, said: “Pat was always loyal and forever positive no matter what the situation. A perfect friend and teammate.” Shovelin’s passing leaves behind his wife Chrissie and two sons, five-year-old Ethan and Tom, who is 22 months.
ormer Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given, a longtime friend of Shovelin’s, was a pallbearer at Tuesday’s funeral mass as Sam Maguire lay adjacent to the coffin, which was draped in the jerseys of his two sporting loves - Ardara GAA club and Liverpool FC.
Outside St Columba’s Church in Doneyloop, Donegal players, management and officials past and present formed a guard of honour.
Shovelin’s remains made their way to St Conal’s cemetery in his native Portnoo - passing the family home in Ballykilduff, where a Donegal flag fluttered in the autumnal breeze - where he was laid to rest alongside his late father Packie.
In 2012, the night after Donegal won Sam Maguire for the second time, Jim McGuinness was joined on stage by Daniel O’Donnell at the Diamond in Donegal town to give a rousing rendition of ‘Destination Donegal’.
On Tuesday last, the mood couldn’t have been starker as the same song was played for Pat Shovelin, the first man from that winning group to pass on; a man whose smile will continue to radiate for years to come.
“Today was up there with one of the hardest of my life,” said Given, writing on Instagram.
“Pat Shovelin. Only 41. A true gentleman. A best friend. A loving husband. A proud father to his two boys, Ethan and Tom. A fellow Donegal man and a fellow goalkeeper. I never expected to have to carry you in a coffin, carry you out of the pub yes, but this, no.
“Our hearts are broken. Whole county in mourning. We will all be strong for you Pat, the happiest man who I ever met, you would want us to be strong for you, and we will. God Rest you. Love you Pat #safehands.”
Although Given was Ireland’s No1 on 134 occasions over 20 years, Shovelin was and will always be his number one. Like so many others, Given had nothing but positive words for his friend; the same positive words Shovelin always had for everyone.
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