Mayo's John Casey on the Oasis friendship and looking back in anger at '96

Were it not for being part of that Mayo team, John Casey might not have forged a long-standing friendship with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and his family.

ROYAL PAIN: Mayo's John Casey with his head in hands after All Ireland final defeat by Meath in 1996. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

If not every week, it’s every second week that John Casey thinks about the anguish of 1996. He has never watched back the All-Ireland final games against Meath. Probably never will.

His daughters have and asked him what the hell he was doing during the brawl in the replay. But for him the wound of defeat remains opened 30 years on.

It’s not a year he entirely dismisses as a bad one, mind. Were it not for being part of that Mayo team, he might not have forged a long-standing friendship with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and his family.

Gallagher had arrived in JJ Finan’s Bar in Casey’s Charlestown, the homeplace of his mother Peggy, in January 1996. Three months after the release of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, the Manchester-Irish band were at the peak of their powers.

“He asked the barman who the most famous person was in Charlestown,” smiles Casey. “The barman said, ‘Oh Jesus, that has to be John Casey.’ And Liam said, ‘Ring him. I want to meet him.’ 

“I remember it was around the time of a league game against Monaghan and I arrived up after Mayo training with a Genfitt top on me. We kind of hit it off and have met a good few times since.” 

A guest of the Gallaghers on the second of their two nights in Croke Park last August, Casey was sitting beside Peggy when Liam dedicated Stand By Me to her.

He reports Liam and Noel do have an interest in Mayo football – Liam posed with Casey for a photograph promoting the Charlestown GAA lotto 11 years ago. Their older brother Paul lives and breathes it. “He’s a stone mad fanatic,” says Casey. “Messages me every week about the team. He’s like, ‘Fuck’s sake, Johnny have you got your boots?’” 

When those 1996 games are raised, Casey reddens at the idea of such a compliment. He had scored 1-6 over the Connacht final and All-Ireland semi-final but then picked up a virus before the drawn game with Meath and lost a stone. “And I wouldn’t have had it to lose. I missed training and I was on all these supplements to try and get a bit of power back, and I wasn't able to eat for weeks but of course that was never going to stop me.” 

The only time Casey has watched back the replay was to identify who “hit me the slap” during the fracas early in the first half. “I eventually found out. I thought it was the goalie (Conor Martin), but it was Enda McManus who nearly fucking knocked my head clean off.” 

His regrets need no revisiting on TG4 or YouTube when they already loop in his head. “A couple of staunch Mayo fellas will tell you I passed the ball to Tom Reilly at the end that I shouldn't have. That I should have kicked it over the bar. I think I might have smelt a goal.

“I shudder at things like that and I don’t know if it was me who gave away the ball for Tommy Dowd’s goal. It might have been, but you know these things pop up in your brain space.

“I honestly think had we taken down that one a few more would have followed. The monkey would have been off the back. I certainly do dwell on it as it hurts.

“Whenever you see me in Croke Park or knocking around the place doing a bit, I just wish I had that fucking Celtic Cross in my arse pocket just to say I had one. You think Jesus Christ above how close we came and you look at the likes of O'Sheas and Higgins and Boyles and all those great players that played in five and six fucking All-Irelands and still came away with nothing. It's a bitter pill to swallow.” 

Maybe it’s the similar colour of the opposition, most likely the defeats, but on occasions 1996 and ’97 bleed into one for Casey. In the latter final, he was marked by Seamus Moynihan, with whom he won a Sigerson Cup in Tralee early that year.

“I remember taking the ball towards the Hill 16 goal and grabbing Moynihan and going to ground and getting a very cheap free off him and thinking, ‘This is it.’ I patted Seamus on the back and said, ‘I'm going to do that all day to you.’ 

“I handed the ball to Ciarán Mac(Donald) and the ball is kicked wide and I go, ‘Fuck.’ I think Moynihan could have ran by me after and hit me a thump and said something like, ‘He might do that all day.’” 

The same unsettling feeling he had as a player in 1997 he has experienced as a supporter a number of times since, especially the drawn 2016 final with Dublin – “We hold the most prolific forward line in the country to five points from play (two from play) and kick the ball twice into our own net.” 

And in the 2021 decider against Tyrone, a game in which Mayo entered almost anointed – “I just knew after 10 minutes we were in big trouble.” 

An extension has been built on Mayo’s house of pain since Keith Duggan wrote the book of the same name 19 years ago. As Meath land in Castlebar on Saturday, Casey doubts if the appearance of their old rivals will inspire the current group.

“I was reading some Mayo post this week that said something like ‘if that fucking Meath jersey doesn't fucking inspire Mayo after what happened in ’96’. Jesus Christ, this current team has no fucking affiliation with that craic at all. They probably don't care less about it, like. They probably just watched the scrap or whatever.

“It still lingers, though. There was that assault outside a chipper in Westport (in 2016) when two lads had an argument about the fucking game. That’s how deep it goes with Mayo people.”