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Cavan’s magnificent success has been in the works for a decade, writes Paul Fitzpatrick.
There is an iconic photograph from the raucous aftermath of the 1997 Ulster final that shows some of Cavan’s players, embracing each other in celebration, as they climb the steps to the grandstand at St Tiernach’s Park.
The backdrop is a series of clenched fists and applause, without identifying their owners.
In the foreground, the future president of the GAA, Aogán Ó Fearghaíl, is easily recognizable alongside the captain, Stephen King. Damien O’Reily is in the center, holding the ball. On the right, Fintan Cahill has both arms around Ciaran Brady, who has his back to the camera.
Cahill has two fingers tied and has a curious expression for a man who has just achieved a great sporting goal. Where others are clearly overjoyed, the Cuchulainns man’s eyes are narrowed and stern. Vindication, they say. In the end.
Cahill had been part of a brilliant crop of young players who struggled to even win a game when they first broke through. He knew pain, he used it like a badge.
“We’ve been hearing about the old Cavan teams all our lives,” Cahill told reporters after the game. Hopefully now we have started a new era. One was his own. “
It did not happen. The new era stalled. There was one last appearance for Ulster in 2001, a close enough match against Tyrone and a league final, but gradually, the heroes of ’97 faded.
King and O’Reilly were first, followed by others from that photo. The cuffs and palms behind them stayed in the pockets for longer.
By 2011, there were none left of the Class of 97. The following year, Cavan hit rock bottom, surviving in Division 3 thanks to a strange result elsewhere and picking up a couple of what had become routine championship tanks. .
The new era Cahill had spoken of had gone terribly wrong.
But something was happening. Mickey Graham led a minor team in 2008 that lost a heartbreaking Ulster semi-final to Tyrone.
Two years later, Terry Hyland was in charge when, as an Under-21, they beat Monaghan in the Ulster semi-final. We still remember the taunts in the press box about the resulting invasion of the field.
In the final, Michael Murphy was the forward for Donegal and dismantled Cavan. Still, it was a start.
A year later, Cavan won it on a wet night when tears fell in Enniskillen. A few months later, the minors followed up with their first Ulster hit since the era of long sideburns and flares free love. It was kind of amazing, man. The fans dared to dream, or even, knowing Cavan’s fans, hallucinate what it could be.
And when the U-21s won again, and again and again, they were hooked. He started a mantra on social media: “the future is blue”, and it seemed only a matter of time.
By then, Hyland had surpassed the majors and immediately set out to make a leaking team hard to beat. They went from Division 3 to Division 1, made it to the All Ireland quarterfinals, but when the pundits swayed enfant terrible Joe Brolly called them ‘the Black Death’, the name stuck.
By 2016, they were the highest-scoring team in the country, losing the highest-scoring game in Ulster history in a replay against Tyrone, but it didn’t matter. Cavan was considered to be the team of general defenses and black cards.
Hyland and some players went ahead. Progress stalled. Mattie McGleenan came and went. Graham was next, with Dermot McCabe, the young and imperious Man of the Match in that 1997 final, riding the shotgun.
The day before they played Monaghan in the Ulster Championship, Donegal All-Ireland winner Eamonn McGee, one of the good guys on the media circuit, put pen to paper in his column at the Irish Daily Star.
“Cavan,” he wrote, “I just couldn’t respect it. I heard so much noise from them …
“You didn’t have to scrape the surface too hard to find the smoothness underneath and they would bend quickly. I don’t see any change in that either. Cavan is very skilled, but most of his players just lack the inherent toughness that is required to be a top-notch team. “
The Graham boys beat Monaghan to the final, their first in nearly a generation. The county moved en masse to Clones; the sun was shining and Donegal were partying after 20 minutes.
And when Tyrone repeated the dose in the playoffs at the same venue, McGee seemed right.
They started 2020 in Division 2 and lost a few players – 10, in fact, of those who joined in the Ulster final. Starting over, as always. Always starting over, always feeling that next year will be the best year.
Some good wins brought them to the top of the table in round 5, but on the first day of March, it was exhausting. Clare ruined the party.
Covid intervened. Upon his return, the backs seemed to be marking his men on Zoom, remotely. When they reconnected in the fourth quarter against Kildare and Roscommon, they finished well but time was up.
Then came the championship. At halftime against Monaghan, Conor McManus, Cavan’s kryptonite for a decade, had helped his team score seven goals, but Cavan took Thomas Galligan off the bench and went for it and his cousin, goalkeeper Raymond, served. to the winner of a couple of cities. far.
Ray’s nickname around Lacken is “Hollywood”. That afternoon, it was appropriate, but Antrim’s game a week later was criticized by critics.
Then he came down and in the blink of an eye, Cavan was ten under. Cavan’s long-suffering fan at home invoked the Lord: “Jaysus’s curse on yiz!” – and in the third quarter, they got back up and took advantage of the momentum until the end.
The most turbulent season in county history had suddenly and unthinkable produced another final appearance in Ulster.
In preparation, all that was talked about was Donegal. On The Sunday Game, analyst Sean Cavanagh openly referenced his semi-final against Dublin.
On local radio, a Donegal man asked a Cavan reporter if there would be any disappointment if Cavan lost the game. Donegal was the shortest set of odds in history to win.
And yet something strange and unsettling was happening in Cavan. Talk to a player in private and he told you what was going to happen.
There was no “please God” or “hopeful”. We will win, they said. Your correspondent sent a text message to a player this morning, offering him good luck wishes.
“Thank you,” was the reply. And then an initial suffix. “Today,” he said, “is the day. I promise.”
As for the game itself? Surely you already know. Cavan offered the performance of his life. They came of age. As we write, they are in their local stadium, treading on sacred ground.
The same lawn that John Joe O’Reilly, who died 68 years ago today, walked. The same field Edward O’Hanlon, who first introduced the Anglo-Celt Cup 95 years ago today, covered the first games in.
Brady, Smith, Faulkner, Buchanan, Graham, Clarke – they now have the Ulster junior, under-21 and major medal set, the first Cavanmen in history to do so. The Galligans look like All-Stars on hold. Gearoid McKiernan, for so long a king without a crown, like Cahill, is not retired but vindicated.
The boys of last summer are the men of this winter.
Talking about McKiernan brings us back to that image from 1997.
Three years ago, on the 20th anniversary of that match, Brolly, who was playing for Derry in that match, posted the image on social media. Most unusual, Gearoid replied.
“To experience this just once,” he wrote, accompanied by a dejected emoji.
The imposing McKiernan, famous off the pitch, was clearly tired. Tired of the battle, of the hope and expectation and the resulting crushing disappointment. Tired of losing. Tired of doing everything right and getting the wrong result.
Tonight, that cycle has been broken and, here and now, the present is blue. Gearoid fulfilled his wish and in his 10th season, he played the football of his career.
Twenty-three long, hard years later and Cahill’s words whisper again in the breeze: a new era has begun. And this time, it’s real.
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