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

24 страница из 35

But Margaret was the complete opposite, both off the pitch and on. A year older than Gary, she was determined not to let the fact that she was a girl get in the way of her playing football. Margaret was a brilliant footballer, very tough and bad-tempered, a dirty player actually.

Around 1983, I went to watch Magherafelt in an U10 final against Swatragh in Bellaghy. Both my son and my daughter were playing.

Margaret had cut her hair dead short so she could play on the team as a boy and even Damian Cassidy, who knew her well, didn’t know she was at right half forward for the second half. They lost the game that day because they didn’t start her. But even at that stage, I knew Gary was a bit special. I could see him thinking way ahead of the other kids and felt then he was good enough.

Vivian too had his share of footballing talent, winning an underage championship with Magherafelt and playing with the Derry minors before retiring at the grand old age of nineteen. It wasn’t that the expectations were too much, or that his footballing career was bad, more a case of his social life being too good.