Seamus McEnaney: Online abuse is like water off a duck's back to me

BATTLE-HARDENED: Former Monaghan manager Séamus McEnaney. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Former Monaghan manager Seamus 'Banty' McEnaney has hit out at those "irrelevant" people who direct online abuse at inter-county managers.

McEnaney recently called time on his second spell in charge of Monaghan. He initially held the post from 2004 to 2010 and outlined how much has changed with regard to managing a county side when he spoke on RTÉ Radio's The Championship.

"Managing an inter-county team now is a business and a very substantial business in all aspects of it," he said.

"Back in 2004, we that we were ahead of the posse in some ways, but there is a different commitment levels for players now.

"The game is gone professional in everything, bar name. Inter-county scene demands total professionalism. I believed I worked with the best backroom team I ever worked with over the last two years. We were far more organised, far more structured, had more people around you.

"A manager today has over 50 people under him, 35 players, 20 backroom staff, that's a small business, or in some people's eyes a big business. The load is shared a lot more, especially with the expertise I had. Unfortunately it didn't get us to where we wanted to go to.

"You're in a bubble where football comes first. It comes ahead of your family and weddings, but still to manage your county team is the most exciting thing you could do in your life."

McEnaney admitted that he hasn't been on the receiving end of much vile abuse, adding that such comments didn't affect him too much.

"The scrutiny when I started the job in 2004 was very harmless. Indeed it was very harmless for the following few years. When the expectations rise, you go up to Division 1, well then there was more scrutiny. And that now has changed dramatically with social media; the public having their opinion.

"The social media part doesn't affect me very much. I have a Nokia 63 10. If there's anyone out there trying to abuse me they're only fooling themselves. I would have got very little abuse. People in Monaghan realise that Monaghan are maximising their potential with Malachy (O'Rourke) and myself. If I did get abuse I didn't see or didn't hear it. Did it affect my family? No, it didn't.

"I've stood at nightclub doors for 20 years - it would run off me like water off a duck. Anyone that thought they were annoying me by abusing me can think again."

Former Meath manager Andy McEntee revealed he had received plenty of personal abuse in his time as manager. McEnaney called it scandalous.

"I have seen the abuse that other managers have got, that Andy (McEntee) has got. It's absolutely scandalous.

"People sitting at home with nothing to do, writing stuff on their phones, faceless stuff. Pass no remarks to those people; they are irrelevant, they are irrelevant to those of us running football teams.

"For me, their voice doesn't matter. I'm battle-hardened, people who are writing this stuff are nobody's. The group that's in the dressing room; your management team and the Monaghan county board, they are the people that matter."