James Horan: I couldn’t spend all my time as manager quashing false Mayo rumours

Famously, in the aftermath of the 2021 All-Ireland final, there were reports of disharmony between Horan and selector Ciarán McDonald.

Wed, 01 Mar, 2023 - 13:45

Maurice Brosnan

Former Mayo manager James Horan has explained why he often elected to stay silent when false rumours were circulating during his second reign.

Famously, in the aftermath of the 2021 All-Ireland final, there were reports of disharmony between Horan and selector Ciarán McDonald. That September one local outlet reported on the ‘strong speculation’ McDonald had left the management team.

“After the Tyrone defeat in 2021 apparently myself and Mac went at it in the carpark at 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Horan, speaking on the Irish Examiner Allianz Football League Show.

“We were reading this the day after; he was in my house drinking coffee. Literally nudging me, did you see this? We had a row! Absolute madness.

“I wasn’t even in a carpark. I sat in a chair most of that night and didn’t move. I would say outside of the football conversations, the majority of stuff is made up or on a whisper.”

That October Horan confirmed the reports were ‘bonkers.’ Did he feel a need to quash the whispers for the group’s benefit?

“No I didn’t. If I started to go out to kill that story or kill this story, I would spend my life at it. For the last two years I pretty much said nothing to anyone or media. Now, they started stories based on that. There were so many things that were untruths or whatever.

“Unless you are in the camp, a player or in that inner circle, how would people know? Sometimes intercounty set-ups are mysterious. They are doing this or that training. And it starts from there. Going back to some of the things, the amount of times I was stopped in the street. ‘Why didn’t I play this fella? What is wrong with him?’ The guys would be injured or away.

“What you are doing to your man is awful. ‘You haven’t played him in three weeks or dropped him off the panel.’ Yet I let him go away for three weeks because he needed a break.”

Horan recalled another example in 2016 when he was working as a pundit. On a programme before that year’s All-Ireland final, former Mayo midfielder David Brady told Off The Ball that Jim McGuinness had taken several sessions with Mayo. Later in the show, Brady said he received a text disproving the talk and that then manager Stephen Rochford had actually never spoken to McGuinness.

“Another good one. You got me thinking. I remember being in a taxi with Peter Canavan, Jim McGuinness, Senan Connell when we were with Sky. We were playing a 5-a-side charity thing up in Na Fianna.

“I don’t know if you remember, 2016 or 2017 final, David Brady was on about Jim McGuinness training Mayo in Limerick. McGuinness was looking at me in the car, ‘what is he doing? What is going on.’ There are loads like that. Some of it is harmless. Some of it can get twisted and impact players and their families.”