Farewell to fabulous Portglenone
Cavanman's Diary
It was a GAA convention, in the mid-1980s, in St Pat’s. They came from all over the county for the annual summit in the assembly hall. Long-winded addresses were given, the speakers just about visible through plumes of cigarette smoke.
Tae was drunk and a few of the college’s boarders scurried around furtively, looking to scavenge the last of the sandwiches.
At one stage, a delegate got to his feet, indignant that his fellow travellers on the floor hadn’t rowed in with some motion or other he wanted passed. After some top-table tennis, over and back, he finally lost his cool.
“Ah, yiz are a disgrace!” thundered the clubman. “It’s no wonder we are where we are.”
On stage, the chairman, the late Phil Brady, was unruffled.
“And tell me this,” he replied warmly, defusing the bomb, “where are we?”
It was a question I found myself asking on Sunday morning as radio commentator extraordinaire Mickey Brennan and I headed north for Cavan’s first match of the year.
The previous one was 183 days earlier, in Croke Park, supporters arriving to the big house in party mode, short sleeves on, full of good cheer. It soon became apparent that everything about this outing was the opposite of that one.
For a start, despite the faintly exotic-sounding name, there was nothing salubrious about the venue. When I heard ‘Portglenone’, the image that sprang to mind was of one of those holiday destinations in the south of Spain, all palm trees and cocktails with little umbrellas.
Here? Here it was cold and grey. The old saying was proven right; it was grim up north - unless numb fingers and trying to write on a damp notebook are your thing. There were umbrellas, alright, but they were full-size. We skirted quite close to the shores of Lough Neagh so maybe there was sand there but we didn’t see it.
No, make no mistake, this was the Dr McKenna Cup, so called because you’d need your head examined if you decided to make the five-hour round trip to watch it.
But, alas, Brennan and I had no choice. When we last headed off to cover Cavan, it was an hour up the M3. Stick on the air con, set the cruise control and away you go. Back then, we were guided to our lofty perch high in the Hogan Stand, the free gourmet soup cooling at altitude, the wifi so fast that we only had to think of a website and there it would appear, on the laptop screen.
The sun was on our backs and as we flicked through the glossy programme, we cast little knowing looks at each other. The glamour! What a time to be working in the GAA media, we thought. What a time to be alive!
Mickey and Damien Donohoe whooped and hollered on the radio. After the game, I belched out an indulgent colour piece full of airy fairy metaphors. Croke Park in the month of July - sure this was what it was all about.
But that was then and this was now. This time, it was back roads all the way, the settlements growing that little bit duller by the mile as we ventured north, the ‘dreary steeples’, the rain battering the windscreen, the radio coverage intermittent.
The trek began in Shercock (don’t ask). Lough Egish and Castleblayney were next, then Keady and on to Armagh. We headed north-west to the Moy and then Tamnamore, a strange sort of place on the banks of the Bann with the trappings of a bigger town, several industrial units, but no shop. Or none that was open, anyway – this wasn't far from the buckle of the bible belt so maybe, on the seventh day, they were putting the feet up.
Soon, we were in Stewartstown and onwards to a place called Coagh, where the Union Jacks fluttered proudly and the lampposts were painted red, white and blue. We needed a pit stop but decided to keep her lit.
Into Derry then, traversing that county’s football heartland. We passed through The Loup (unlike the one in Dublin airport, there was no duty free), Castledawson, Bellaghy and on into Antrim and, finally, the wide main street of Portglenone.
The clock showed 1.05pm. We had left base camp at 10.40. We circled the town but could not find the grounds.
“I’ll ask someone,” I suggested (always the last resort).
“There’s no panic sure, throw-in’s not till two o’clock,” replied Brennan, dismissing my concerns.
“It’s at half one!” I informed him.
“Ask that lad!” he replied, a sudden hint of panic in his voice.
The impression we got from the local we accosted was that he was not a diehard Antrim football supporter.
“Take you that road yonder,” he advised us curtly, with a wave of the hand. And soon we were pulling up in good time.
The venue sat in a hollow. On one hill was a graveyard; across a flat field we could see the gable walls of a housing estate. The pitch was immaculate, there were impressive-looking floodlights but no stand. The Ulster Council had kindly provided a lorry trailer for the media, which was appreciated, although when the rain started to skite in sideways, it felt like a dubious privilege.
Given the hardy weather and the hard-to-find venue, plus the fact that the game was being video-streamed, the travelling Cavan crowd was tiny, no more than a few dozen. True stalwarts, it must be said, with more than a hint of masochism about them, and their spirits were raised early on when Martin Reilly hit the net.
Next week, incidentally, will mark the 16th anniversary of the great Killygarry man’s debut in this same competition, when he lined out at wing-forward against Tyrone. With apologies to Terry Hyland (“there’s a thin line between a pat on the back and a kick in the arse”), there mustn’t be much between a loyal servant and a glutton for punishment either.
As for the match itself, Cavan played against the wind and were five points up at half-time. They didn’t overly exert themselves in the second half and won handily enough. Old faces, new faces. Cold faces, blue faces.
When the final whistle sounded, interviews in the can, we retreated to the car again, turned the heat to maximum, and bade our farewell to fabulous Portglenone.
By 7pm, we were on home turf – and Shercock, I must say, never looked so good.