Since being forced into early retirement as a player due a leg break, Toome clubman Kevin Murtagh has forged a respected career for himself as a top referee. I remember when I quit playing football with Toome - it was a like a death in the family. It took me a long time to re-adjust to weekends coming around and not putting on a jersey and lining up with the rest of the lads." Get the picture? Kevin Murtagh has certainly a way with words. However he's better known for his acumen with a whistle than as one of Toome's finest wordsmiths. Kevin's rise and rise up the pecking order of referees in the county continues unabated with his stewardship of the 2005 intermediate championship decider yet another feather in his cap. It seems like it may only be a matter of time before the Armagh native is afforded the plumb role of arbitrating in the senior championship final. He has already been in charge of a penultimate round match, being the man in the middle for the meeting of Latton and Magheracloone in the 2004 SFC semi-final. But he's not counting any chickens. It's just as well that he continues to get such a kick out of his hobby. "You can't beat playing," he insists. "I think everyone would say that but refereeing helps you stay involved at the heart of football and, like every referee that I know, I wouldn't do it unless I got some enjoyment out of it." Certainly, like every GAA referee, our man Murtagh isn't in the business of donning the traditional black gear to make a monetary profit. A balance sheet showing a clear deficit at the end of any given year is more likely to be the case. It's occasions like the 2005 intermediate decider that help fuel Kevin's gra and innate enthusiasm for refereeing. Inniskeen triumphed over Doohamlet in Clontibret on Sunday, October 9th. It proved to be a red letter day for the Grattans and Mr. Murtagh too. "Luckily enough, the final went smoothly and I was happy enough with my performance," he explains. Was he expecting any aggro? "No, not with the two teams involved and on the day the players were on their best behaviour which made life a lot easier for me. "Anyway, the league is where you get nearly all the trouble. "Towards the end of 2005 I refereed a league game and neither team had any interest in playing football and still in cases like that where you send off a couple of fellas, the referee gets the blame. "In general there's far less aggro in the championship because normally the players are a bit more responsible 'cause the spotlight is on them a bit more than it would be in the league." Anyone clued into Murtagh's modus operandi will know though that the Crossmaglen native is not one to either shirk his responsibilities as a referee or to hide when it's time to take a stand. It would help Kevin and Co. who man the middle if players/mentors/supporters were up to speed with the rules of course. "It's crazy the way you have some fellas training players on Tuesday and Thursday nights for most of the year and they've no real understanding of a lot of the rules. "It's worse at juvenile level though because there you have the parents and for some of them rules of the game don't come into it. "They only see their youngster playing. A lot of that happens with parents who have no background in the game and who weren't involved until their child started to play. "Their vision can get blurred, to say the least." But Kevin's not one known to be partial to a great big moan. He invariably has a smile on his face during the lighter moments of games and his penchant for talking to players and advising them of their responsibilities is well known across the county. "I appreciate when players talk to their team-mates who aren't concentrating on playing ball. "Darren Swift of Monaghan Harps is probably the best captain I've seen at doing that. "I appreciate when there's no yapping from the players. Managers and captains should know that when players are busy yapping on the field, they're not concentrating on their game. "There has to be a certain mutual respect between players and the ref for the game to go smoothly." Interestingly, Kevin places great truck on getting to know players "form". He maintains that if a ref knows a player's pedigree when it comes to discipline he will be much better able to pre-empt any nonsense. "There are certain players on certain teams who you'd just know what they would be trying to get up to even before the match gets underway. "In cases like that I'd quickly advise them that they were skating on thin ice if they began the game in their usual form. "Sometimes I'd tell him before the game that I wasn't going to stand for any of the usual nonsense he'd be known for." Does he take cognisance of the nature of the game he's gonna ref or the size of the crowd that may be on hand when preparing for a match? "No, not at all. My preparation is the same for every match. I don't suffer from nerves. "I remember doing the line for one referee years ago and he must have smoked ten cigarettes before the match he was so uptight. That's not my form. "Luckily I'm not fazed by the crowd and I'm not even conscious of the supporters once the game is on." Memories of his day out at the intermediate decider in 2005 evoke quite contrasting emotions from that period. Just a couple of months before his big day in Clontibret, Kevin's family was plunged into mourning due to the tragic death of his son Aaron (18). "We were at the Armagh/Laois game on August 21st when news came through about Aaron. "I was supposed to referee Eire Og and Inniskeen in the championship but I had to ring Sean Murphy and tell him how I couldn't make it. "Whatever about the intermediate final the following October, that day in August is one that will live with me for as long as I live." Kevin's stoicism in the face of such a tragedy has garnered him a whole host of admirers on both sides of the border where he is equally as recognisable. His 'form' is as identifiable whether he referees in the Orchard County or in his adopted Monaghan. "I think most players and mentors know my form at this stage," he contends. "I don't change cards. It goes down as red if that's what the offence warrants. The day you change a straight red to two yellows is the day you should give up refereeing." So how does refereeing assessors compare either side of the border? "Monaghan football is about 20 years ahead," Kevin says unhesitatingly. " Armagh might be well ahead in terms of winning things on the field but the way Monaghan approaches the job of recruiting and ongoing assessment of referees is light years ahead of my native county." It's 13 years now since Kevin hung up his boots as a footballer with his native Crossmaglen Rangers and sadly his career with Toome only lasted four years before a fractured leg suffered against Curran in March 1997 finally guillotined his playing career; ironically a few days after Cross won their first All-Ireland club title. It had been a fairly mundane career by Kevin's own admission but a thoroughly enjoyable one and a couple of league division one medals won with Cross albeit as a squad member for the most part. So what were the circumstances which led him to become a man in black? "Patsy Lambe asked me one day in 1994 to give it a try and I did. "I think my first match was an under 12 game between Doohamlet and Blackhill. "Even then I didn't suffer from any nerves." Winding the tape fast forward, surely the thought of taking charge of his first county final must have had his adrenlin charging through his veins? "I didn't know that I was going to be appointed to do the intermediate final; the thought of being given it never crossed my mind in the run-up to the game. " I was in charge of a couple of intermediate matches earlier in the championship and did alright and had done a few senior championship matches but I didn't honestly expect to be given the intermediate final. "I was honoured though to be appointed and glad that it went fairly well," adds the non-smoking teetotaller. One of five Murtagh brothers, one of which, Donal, won a string of senior county championship medals plus All-Ireland club medals, Kevin maintains that he was destined to remain deeply involved with Gaelic games once his playing career came to a close. "Football's a pure religion in Cross and that's the way it was in our house too. "I was probably the worst footballer in our house but I worked hard at improving my game and I put the same work into refereeing." In assessing the 'must-have' qualities for a referee, Kevin points to the need for a ref to have a good positioning sense, a decent level of fitness and common sense. "You can't ignore things either. If you get abused by a player or mentor you have to take the necessary action; either a sending off or putting the offender out behind the wire. " I don't stand for abusive language. You set out to respect the players and everyone else at the game and you expect to be given respect too." Can we expect him to be refereeing the Monaghan SFC final in due course? "Who knows. "It's the pinnacle of a ref's career at club level and like everyone else, I'd love to be given the opportunity. It would be a great honour." Tweet

Most Read Stories