‘Mickey Moran is a gentleman who tries to play football the right way’

One former Donegal county man said it this week about Mickey Moran and his spell in the county that brought them to an All-Ireland quarter-final in 2002.

Fri, 23 Feb, 2018 - 00:00

Declan Bogue

“Mickey was a gentleman, maybe too nice in ways.”

In all likelihood, he was possibly referencing that famous quarter-final. On a scorching hot August Bank Holiday Monday, they played Dublin off the park but could only draw. The replay was set for a fortnight’s time.

They were eating their dinner in the Camden Court Hotel and were permitted two pints each.

Some players were already on their third pint when dinner came out and it was chased down so they could reach the bar again.

The shout went up to get on the bus. Mickey Moran came into the foyer and looked at the heap of Donegal kit bags.

Kevin Cassidy would recall the tale years later: “He knew what was happening so he said to us, ‘Listen boys, there’s a game next Saturday week. Youse have a choice of getting on the bus right now.’ Three people went back on the bus and everybody else stayed.”

Donegal flopped in the replay, losing by 10 points.

If Mickey Moran had have been a more angry, sergeant-major type, would that bus have been full?

“It was different then, a few pints were grand,” reasons Brendan Devenney, the crack forward on that team, now.

“Mickey was that nice man and a few of the lads decided then they were going to head in to Temple Bar for a while, a few other lads joined them. There were no rules around it and it didn’t seem like a big deal. Looking back, of course it was a big deal. But football was about to change and get very serious then.”

He adds: “But Mickey Moran is a good man and the world is full of snarling bolloxes. Mickey Moran is a gentleman who tries to play football the right way. If that didn’t get him all the way then so be it, but I think some people should stick to their principles and I wouldn’t want to change him one bit.”

In his work as a salesman, Devenney often bumps into Moran on the street in Maghera, the town he has lived in all his life and makes the short commute to Slaughtneil to plot and scheme a most unlikely All-Ireland title for an incredible GAA community, with the latest step on the way tomorrow’s All-Ireland semi-final against Nemo Rangers.

“As a man, he’s one of the nicest men I have met inside or outside of the game,” states Devenney.

Assessments of Moran differ.

But ask any player that has come into his orbit and they talk of a man that helped them deepen their love of the game.

Conan Doherty, the sports writer for Joe.ie, was a fresher in University of Ulster Jordanstown more than a decade ago when Moran came in to take a number of the teams.

“The first thing he said to the whole team was that ‘this wasn’t an athletics club’,” recalls Doherty. ‘If you wanted to do fitness you should go and run around the mountains, there was plenty of nice scenery around here, but we are going to do football work here and the only fitness work will be fitness with a football.’”

That sort of approach is reflected in his Slaughtneil team. With so many dual players, aerobic fitness is not a concern, yet his hurling counterpart Michael McShane has always spoken glowingly about Moran’s cooperation with the hurling wing of the club.

All their training time is spent with a ball. Slaughtneil’s composure is incredible. In the Ulster Championship, they had three wides against Kilcoo. Against Omagh, they had no wides in the second half and only two in the entire semi-final against Kilcar.

“As a coach, he was way ahead of his time,” states Devenney. “He trained through the ball, we had never seen that before.

“Everything was about the ball, ball, ball, ball. In training there were loads of balls, every player wants to see that.

“He wanted to make sure you were unbelievably comfortable with the ball, all his drills were unreal. It was all fast-paced, quick, quick, quick. We had never seen that before and the boys absolutely loved him and John Morrison.”

He continues: “The two of them were brilliant. The thing about the Donegal lads was they wanted to learn. We had that good-sided nature to us that every coach that came in always spoke highly of us. Sure, there might have been a bit of beer about, but in training, whatever they said, we did.”

Doherty never became a big name in Varsity football. But that never lead to any Bill Shankly-type blanking of a fringe player.

“If you meet him years later, and I wouldn’t have been a ‘name’ but meeting him years later, he still remembers you, still has a story to tell about a training session, the teams that you were in,” states Doherty.

“I don’t know what it is, but he was invested in you, to ask about your clubs or your families.”

Perhaps because he was the manager who directly succeeded 1993 All-Ireland winning boss Eamonn Coleman, there has been a reluctance within his own county to hail his coaching achievements.

“I wouldn’t have understood the criticism he would have got in Derry. When I was younger, growing up, my uncle would have taken me to all the games, to league games all over the country, but we loved Derry and the way they were playing football,” recalls Doherty.

Through spells in Derry, Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, and Mayo, Moran has made his mark.

If recognition is coming now, it’s long overdue.