Shooting from the hip
December 30, 2010For many denizens of Ireland and elsewhere around the world, the year 1969 is associated with the Apollo moon landing and the Woodstock music festival.
In popular culture the feel-good factor surrounding those events gave a warm glow to the period but the onset of the Troubles in the North was an altogether different ball game for those closest to home.
Back then gaels in Cavan had one eye on the ball and one eye on what was happening their country cousins just a few miles up the road.
For those from Cavan who were immersed in particular in the intimate, insular and intriguing world of Gaelic games, 1969 would morph into a year of unfulfilled promise and establish a tidal mark in the fortunes of the county senior team.
1969 bore testimony to the talents of a Cavan senior football squad who were good enough to reclaim the Anglo Celt Cup.
Sadly, it was a year which immediately preceded the onset of one of the most extended barren periods in the history of Cavan football.
Since '69, successive Breffni blues have spluttered and stuttered to hit the heights and only one other Ulster SFC title (1997) has come our way.
Nobody back in '69 could have forseen such a litany of failure after failure. Not even one who was a central player at that time, Hughie McInerney.
"We thought that, like all the other generations before us, Cavan would continue to figure in the shake-up in Ulster at least every other year.
"Back in those days, Cavan reached the Ulster final almost every year without having to break sweat.
"Like many another, I don't know what has gone wrong over the last forty years or so that we've only won one Ulster in that time.
"I suppose you've got to look at maybe the way teams from the Six Counties have come on and gotten their act together over those decades.
"They improved their training and organisation and they put in the best of facilities and looked after their underage teams in a big way."
Hughie has amassed a lifetime experience as a player, coach, administrator and team-manager at club and county level.
He consistently re-iterates that his findings on Cavan's ongoing woes are no less insightful or sage-like. He is as frustrated as anyone else.
Significantly, he firmly believes that changing managers makes little or no difference in the business of trying to chisel out improved results.
He is convinced that the attitude of the players is, first and foremost, the key thing in assembling a winning formula.
"You look at all that's been done over the years and you wonder why haven't things clicked into place and why has the success not come our way.
"There used to be a time when the biggest headache you'd have as a team-manager at county level was the practical things.
"You'd be wondering how are you going to get yer man from Bawnboy to Breffni for training and that sort of thing.
"I don't think Cavan hadn't the same sort of coaching structures in place for a long time though to match some of the other counties from up North.
"Having said that, when you hear of some of the huge amounts of money that has been put into underage coaching and development squads you just wonder why we still haven't any more than just the 1997 Ulster title under our belts."
Normally levity incarnate, the Redhills native is rather downbeat in discussing the travails of Cavan football as demonstrated over decades now.
He suspects the increasing importance attached by local football fans to success at club level has put the interests of county teams in the shade.
Of course, there are mitigating circumstances behind Cavan's fall from grace but other counties have had to come to terms with innate hurdles too.
"We're not the only county that sees a fall-off in playing numbers among young fellas who have just left secondary school but we don't seem to be able to cater for the same amount of wastage.
"There's some good talent to be seen at 14 and 16 years of age but where do they go to after that? How come the minors can't crack it?
"You'd have to wonder whether the young fellas have the ambition to want to give it their all to win something with the county."
Really, really disappointed by Cavan's 0-13 to 1-13 Ulster SFC first round defeat to Fermanagh last summer, Hughie describes Cavan's display at Kingspan/Breffni Park as "the worst Cavan performance I'd seen since the opening round league match against Longford in 2009 when they were short seven players."
Reflecting on the disquiet shared by many football punters in Cavan regarding the perceived decline in the standard of games countywide, Hughie - a former senior county selector and manager of the county minors - shoots from the hip, as is his wont:
"The senior championship has gotten to be a joke," he declares. "Seventy-five percent of the games aren't up to the standard you'd expect from senior teams.
"Some of the football you see played at senior level is deplorable and I can't see why they won't try out a regional competition for a three year period and run it in September and October and get the teams in place and see what talent emerges.
"A format like that might help improve things at grass roots level 'cause at the minute, it's just one big race to the bottom."
Hughie is a mine of ideas and thoughts about club football in Cavan and he has the medals to show that he knows what he's talking about.
In 1973 he helped his own club Redhills win the IFC and the same year he starred on the Annagh amalgam (Redhills/Belturbet) that won the SFC.
Hughie is extremely mindful of the fact that few youngsters these days go to their local park to practice their skills off their own bat.
If the training isn't organised by the club coach, it (training) just doesn't happen for the kids, he moots.
And the old chestnut that the players needed to wear with distinction the Breffni blue are there but they aren't being picked up doesn't wash with him.
"People say such and such a fella should be brought in but on occasions you'd ask a fella to come into training but he'd tell you he hasn't the time or that he can't give it the commitment so where do you go from there?"
That said, Hughie was encouraged by the ambition, will-to-win and desire shown by the Cavan under 21s this year in reaching the provincial final.
"There seems to be good potential among that group of players and there's a good bit of hope there for the future.
"The big thing is can we get a senior team from that squad and a few other more experienced lads that will get us over the line?"
Harking about to Cavan's woes at minor level (the county hasn't won the provincial title since '74), Hughie wonders at where all the talent goes.
He recalls when the young blues pushed would-be All-Ireland champions Down all the way to three games in the championship only to fall short.
He wonders out loud though as to where the stars of that minor team are now. Why haven't they come through en bloc since and made their mark.
"This year we seemed to have a talented bunch of minors and they could have snatched a draw against Armagh.
"But then again Tyrone hammered them (Armagh) after that in the final so it's difficult enough to gauge how good our minors were this year."
Just how good Hughie McInerney was is a very subjective thing of course but unlike a lot of his contemporaries and a lot of players who have worn the Cavan jersey since, he can at least boast a provincial championship medal.
He might well have added a Celtic Cross to his 1969 gong but Offaly made sure that Cavan didn't even qualify for the All-Ireland final of that year.
"We possibly could have won the All-Ireland that year but we definitely should have reached the final instead of letting Offaly go through.
"We blew it in the drawn game against them (Offaly) after we got off to a bad start and didn't play any football for the first 20 minutes.
"Charlie (Gallagher) was taken off and later on we got a free near the end but we missed it and then didn't play nearly as well in the replay."
Hughie made his debut for Cavan seniors in the national league of 1969 after a handful of seasoned players were jettisoned by the county following the losing provincial final of 1968.
If losing to Offaly in the replay of the 1969 All-Ireland semi-final was the lowlight of his career, not surprisingly the Ulster title success a few weeks earlier is his stand-out memory with Cavan.
He bowed out with Cavan seniors after the Ulster SFC semi-final defeat to Down in 1974 which followed an impressive win over Donegal in Ballybofey.
By '74 a raft of the players who had earlier won Hogan Cup medals with St. Pat's were being drafted in and Hughie quietly exited the senior intercounty stage.
"It was a bit like the changing of the guard with the likes of Sean and Ollie Leddy coming in and Owen Martin and Ciaran O'Keefe, under the management of Fr. Benny Maguire," he recalls.
Any regrets about quitting the Cavan scene?
"No, I was 32 at that stage. Something was telling me I had to quit. I had astma and you'd be taking it more and more before games and in the winter and the frost, it was a killer.
"Anyway when you start having to leave your false teeth in a glass before a match, it's time to quit," he concludes with his trademark wit. Tweet
