Читать книгу The Boys of '93. Derry’s All-Ireland Kings онлайн

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Now it was five years down the line and I’d the offer of the Derry senior job. It was time to think again.

It took me a week to decide. I discussed it with no one, not even Gary who was on the panel at the time. It was my decision. I felt they had the players and I was ready for the challenge. The independence I had learnt in England had made me bigger and bolder, stronger as a person and in my own opinions. I knew I could do the job.

‘Improve the state of Derry football’ was the only aim given to me and that’s what I intended to do.

At that stage, Gary was already on the team having been brought in by Fr Hegarty after captaining Derry’s All-Ireland-winning minors of 1989. Fr Hegarty had phoned me in England to tell me he was putting him on the panel and me, proud father and all as I am, advised him not to. Gary was light, he was only eighteen years of age and he wasn’t a big strong fella but he was good enough so he came in.

Despite joining the senior panel for his county as I had done twenty-five years before, Gary had showed not the slightest bit of interest in football until he was around ten years old. In fact, it was my daughter Margaret who could be found on her own, kicking a ball for hours, almost from when she was fit to walk. Gary, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. At a school match in Magherafelt one day, the ball went sailing over the hedge. As twenty-nine kids went scampering across the fields to find it, the bold Gary took the opportunity to sit down on the pitch for a rest.