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

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The family connection was important in Derry where we had four sets of brothers strengthening the team; Fergal P. and Damien McCusker, Henry and Seamus Downey, Johnny and Collie McGurk and Hugh Martin and Anthony Tohill. Then there was Gary and myself but for him it wasn’t so much of a help.

Gary is any manager’s treat: dedicated, hard-working and committed but when I came on the scene he was being judged as my son and not the great footballer he is.

Then there was me. People wouldn’t believe it but I would be soft and at the start of my senior stint with Derry, it was easier for me to pick on him because he was my son. I was sorer on him than anybody else. I could say things to him that maybe I should have been saying to another man in the dressing room and he bore the brunt of my tongue.

Mind you there was the odd time he more than deserved it. I had made a rule that the boys could play soccer but they weren’t to be playing the Saturday before a Sunday game. Gary went and played for Newry Town ahead of a League game against Kildare in Ballinascreen. I knew about it, knew about it before he ever did it, but I never mentioned it. I gave him an awful eating before the game on Sunday. I don’t think another man would have sat and took it and I wouldn’t let him tog out.