Class of '13 showed what's in reach for Brigid's
St. Brigid's fan Donie Himrock celebrates after the semi-final win over Castlehaven.
The Friday night before the 2013 All-Ireland senior club football final, St Brigid’s manager Kevin McStay brought the entire group into a huddle on their club pitch and asked them to visualise. To close their eyes and imagine who each of them wanted to be embracing at the final whistle when St Brigid’s were crowned the champions.
“He was saying, ‘We will win this game and we will be friends for life. We’ll meet up in 10 years’ time to celebrate this win’,” recalls midfielder Ian Kilbride. “Everything he said was geared towards seeing the win and he was right.”
True to McStay's word, the group toasted the 10-year anniversary of their victory over Ballymun Kickhams in style last year. Two nights of reminiscing and reuniting in Galway were followed by a dinner dance in the club.
Not that celebrations of any sort seemed to be on the agenda seven minutes into the game when they trailed by eight points. After Ballymun’s second goal from Philly McMahon in the sixth minute, Brigid’s should have been reeling but Kilbride’s brother Senan cancelled it out six minutes later.
“I remember the second goal going in thinking, ‘This isn’t great but keep the head up, keep ploughing and at least project that this is no problem to you’," recounts Ian. "We had calm management and players as well who knew they could handle anything. Karol Mannion was like a quarter-back making decisions and we knew we had the firepower upfront and that if we got a goal or two we would come back into it.
“My mother (Debbie) couldn’t watch it. She was out the back of the stand getting updates from somebody popping their head out every five minutes.”
Five more Roscommon titles for St Brigids in the following eight years but it wasn’t until last month that they won their fifth Connacht title. In recent years, they’ve seen Pádraig Pearses challenge their superiority within the county boundaries yet there was always a sense they would come good again.
“There was going to be a bridging period,” says Kilbride. “There was definitely a sense of a crew coming, who had been together since they were kids. There’s a story told in the club. This group had won titles the way up in the mid-2010s and there was an AGM where it was decided who would take them over at U16.
“The man who had them at U10 and U12 was sitting in the bar waiting for the meeting to be over. When they came in afterwards and said ‘so-and-so got the job’, he replied, ‘All those lads need is a bus driver’. It was a great quip and it was known that they were a great bunch but I don’t think anybody imagined they would go this far this quickly.
“I’m sure the players believed but when we played we always found the county being the most difficult and outside it there was space because other teams weren’t aware of our danger players. It seems to have worked with this team as well because they have this sense of freedom.
“They’re a really nice bunch of people who are lovely to deal with and always willing to learn. Any time I’ve met them socially they’re full of questions and I wouldn’t see myself as someone who can add to them but they’re sponges and very determined.”
Several of them live away from the Kiltoom area but it hardly matters, Kilbride says. “The pull of the club, the structures and the finances and facilities are there and it all works towards bringing these players back.”
As a coach and a team-mate, he witnessed the rise of Brian Stack – “Just gifted. You kind of knew that when his opposite number got the ball it was going to end up with Brian taking the ball off him and going the other way.”
He didn't have the chance to play with Ben O’Carroll but jokes he has been able to pass onto him some sage advice. “I went down to the game against Pearses in the championship this year and he had a couple of shots that didn’t go his way but he was winning so much ball.
“I was having a pint with him afterwards and he was a small bit down but I said to him, ‘You were incredible in there. You’re winning ball like Senan used to. Your only problem is you’re shooting like I used to.’ He’s the type of guy that when things don’t go his way he just knuckles down and has a great capacity to correct himself.”
Speaking from Belgium where he has been for a week as part of a masters degree in his work with the Defence Forces, Commandant Kilbride smiles as he tells of bringing a German colleague to the Connacht final. He was so impressed that he is bringing his family to Sunday’s final.
Needless to say, Kilbride’s father Seán is up to high doh ahead of the game. “Dad is very proud – he was in tears after the semi-final. He still finds the whole thing very emotional. He was minor chairman and coach in the club over the last 10 years on and off and he’s a nice sense of ownership in that he’s dealt with a lot of these players so it’s special for him.”
Can they topple fancied Glen? The events of 2013 will forever tell Brigid’s teams that anything in possible. “One of the former players said to the team recently, ‘If we can do it, you can do it,” Kilbride recounts. “We were just a bunch of lads who went to school together and played a bit of football.’
“Maybe us doing it may it possible, that it wasn’t out of the ordinary or out of reach. I’d say they’re probably determined to shut all the talk about 2013 and make their own history – and rightly so.”
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