Short but sweet: What three men learned during their brief but memorable inter-county careers

For many debutants, they will see this National League as the one in which they stake their claim and plant their flag ahead of a glorious decade or more of inter-county football. Sometimes, it doesn’t work like that because of age, injury, or simply falling out of favour. Declan Bogue spoke to three men who had brief but personally memorable short spells in the county jersey and what they learned from it all.

14 April 2002; Ian Twiss of Kerry gets past Mark O'Reilly of Meath during the Allianz National Football League Division 2 Semi-Final match between Meath and Kerry at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile

Name: Paul Feeney (Tyrone); Appearances: 1 (v Dublin, NFL October 2000); Seasons: 2.

I was asked to go on a couple of times, but because I was playing basketball at the time, I wasn’t interested.

That time, Big Art (Co-manager, Art McRory) rang me. I was 28 at the time and asked me if I would go to the training.

It took me back and I asked him on the phone, ‘Do you know what age I am?’

He said he did, and he would see me at O’Neill Park for training on the Tuesday night.

At that time, Tyrone were going through a lot of transition. Art and Eugene (McKenna) were changing things.

I remember coming down into the changing rooms, sitting down beside Pascal Canavan and asking myself, ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’ At that time there was Seamy McCallan, Peter and Pascal Canavan. Gerard Cavlan. It was a mix of players, Sean Teague was the captain, Eoin Gormley was a phenomenal footballer.

So I was sitting looking around at these men wondering why I was there?

The day we played Dublin, we left Paudge Quinn’s and Big Art had received a phonecall from another player saying he wasn’t going to make it.

He was down to play left-half forward and Big Art walked down the bus and he stopped at me and said, ‘The very man! You’ll do.’ It was a baptism. We had the challenge matches and in-house matches, but at Parnell Park that day it was a different story, you could tell.

I was to blame for the Dublin goal by moving the ball back from a point-scoring chance.

I missed a goal chance that day too and then I was taken off for the last 20 minutes and we won the game.

I caught a serious crack on the stones. I was in the toilet afterwards peeing blood. Eugene walked in and said, ‘You know what kid, you done alright for your first big one.’ I just turned round to him and said, ‘I didn’t think I would get this opportunity, thanks a million.’

It was all a big surprise to me because I was 28. Other players might have been asking why they weren’t on, but I was wondering why I was even on the panel.

Name: Stephen Jackson (Fermanagh); Appearances: 2 (v Antrim and Louth, NFL 2010) Seasons: 1

I’d had trials in the two years before under Malachy O’Rourke, but I had never made the cut. That’s always because you could see Chris Breen and Ronnie Gallagher ahead of you. It happened because Ronnie got the run with St Gall’s to the All-Ireland club.

Chris Breen then got injured. They were down to the bare bones and I got the call then with the premise that Chris Breen was probably going to be ok, he would make it and I would be number 2.

We trained for two weeks before we played Antrim in Casement. Ronnie was on the sideline, roaring and shouting and getting us all gee’d up.

I was helping Chris Breen in the warm-up, he was doing kick outs and stuff and I could tell something wasn’t right. Malachy just came over to me and said, ‘Alright Stephen, you’re playing.’ And that was it! So I didn’t have a pile of time to think about it.

It was a lot more straightforward in those days; boot the ball out as far as you can. It was just before the age of possession restarts so it was about getting it out of there, playing it safe.

I played the following week against Louth and we were just poor. I was nervous as I knew in advance I would be playing. I remember giving away a bad handpass — I tried to put it over JP Rooney’s head to Clucker (Ryan McCluskey) and made a balls of it and Rooney scored a goal.

The funniest thing about it all was when we went to Wexford the following week. Ronnie was back, Chris Breen was fit again. I was brought the whole way to Wexford and Malachy brought the three of us into a room and said he had the two boys back and didn’t need me.

I thought, ‘You could have told me this in Enniskillen!’ For an extra bit of flavour, I got made redundant that week. My daughter Ava was born the week after and I went on the dole, was dropped by the county. Rock ‘n’ roll!

But I would have loved to have done it. In my teens and 20s I just wanted to party and in my mid-20s I got mad back into football. If the chance had been there, I would have embraced it. Now that I am in the Fermanagh backroom team and see all the stuff that gets put on for the boys, you would have loved a four-five year crack at that to see what you could have made of yourself.

Name: Ian Twiss (Kerry); Appearances: 2 Championship (v Cork and Wicklow, 2002); Seasons: 1

I was in Dublin in early 2002, up working and had played a few trial games at that stage.

I was called into the panel and had missed all the physical winter work, which I needed. Kerry were in Division 2 that year and we won Division 2, which isn’t too common in Kerry.

In the Championship then, I found that you needed that wee bit of time to settle in. I played in the Cork replay, when the Ó Sé’s father had passed away the previous week.

I came on for a few minutes against Cork. I came on in another game against Wicklow (scoring 0-2).

I tore a hamstring really badly then, and that was the end of my days. And that was it! We got to an All-Ireland final and lost it to Armagh but I never really contributed to it.

The following year, I didn’t get asked back onto the panel. There was no such thing as the extended panel back then or anything like that.

I needed two or three years build-up to a county career and didn’t get that.

Ian Twiss in action against Limerick in a 2002 league game

I did get on the ill-fated team holiday to South Africa though. That was the one bright point of the year!

I had been involved at minor and U21 for a good few years and was on the UCC team that played at a good level (with Paul Galvin and Éamonn Fitzmaurice).

But I thoroughly enjoyed it and I would have loved to have been there for a few years at the time to try and make the team.

I found my club suffered an awful lot during that time. There was two from my club (Milltown Castlemaine) on the panel at that particular year and our club got relegated out of Division 1 at that time and we weren’t let play any games at that time.

You mightn’t have been getting on with the county games and you weren’t getting an awful lot with your club either, so your football stalled.