Raymond Monroe captained Carrickmore as they ended a 16-year wait for glory in 1995. Michael McMullan writes…

IF you cut Raymond Monroe, he’d bleed Carrickmore. It’s 21 years since they had hands on the O’Neill Cup. It’s too long.

Halfway through the league, the current crop sit at the top but when a club leads the roll of honour in 15 titles, championship football will always be the barometer.

Monroe knows it too well. He broke onto the senior team as a teenager at the tail-end of the 1981 season. They’d lost the championship final and the core of the three-in-a-row 1977, ’78 and ’79 teams were hanging up their boots.

A brand-new team had to find their feet amidst a series of first round championship exits.

When they lost their first seven league games in 1984, a few of the experienced heads returned to help turn the tide and ensure the proud record of being a top flight club remained.

Men like Canice Woods. He was Monroe’s idol, an old school full-back.

“He was a great kicker of the dead ball, his penalties went to the roof of the net,” Monroe recalls.

It was the days when the full-back was thumping the kick-outs and not the goalkeeper. It was all about maximum distance.

“He was coming home from England and saying to me, ‘Young Monroe, keep me right here’ and I’m thinking, ‘Jesus, I had only turned 19’.

They were lean years as a new-look team was forced to trudge away despite being far from contenders for the biggest prize.

“I had an opportunity to go to America three summers but I wouldn’t leave here,” Monroe added. “My life was Carrickmore. I couldn’t see them going out of Division One and you thought you needed to be here to maintain that.”

Everything began to change at the turn of the 1990s. Derry man Peter Doherty worked as manager in the Northstone quarry across from the pitch in Carrickmore.

Doherty came in as club’s senior manager in 1992 and transformed the coaching as a group of talented minor players came in off the back of losing three consecutive county finals.

They were talented but as they didn’t have the medals to go with it, they had an itch that needed scratched.

“From those teams, we got players like Brian Gormley, Gavan McElroy, Big Seamy (McCallan), Ciaran Loughran, Damien Loughran and Ronan McGarrity,” Monroe recalls.

“Even younger boys behind that were coming in. We suddenly became very competitive in the league.”

Starting in ’92, Carrickmore won four consecutive league titles. The reserve team was challenging and it all fed into creating a strong squad that would backbone six O’Neill Cup winning teams.

In the early 90s, Carrickmore were getting to championship semi-finals, often beaten by the eventual winners. It was the days of Errigal Ciaran and Moortown.

“We were trying to make ourselves a dominant team as well,” Monroe points out.

“At that time, we had a real good nucleus of players; we had young players and things fell in well with Peter’s coaching.”

Every year without a championship was a year further away from 1979 but, to some, beating Carrickmore was their championship.

Winning leagues helped Carrickmore conjure the invaluable habit of winning games and the consistency that came with it.

It was still tough going. Mentally, every week, they needed to be on it. They’d have a championship mentality in every game but Errigal and Moortown held the aces when it came to the championship.

Carrickmore reached the ’94 final but Errigal’s early goals pushed them towards the winning line.

In the build-up to the final, there was a sense they’d overplayed the fact it was a final. Spending too much time in each other’s company built the game up too much.

“You need to make sure it’s still another game, it’s still another 60 minutes, two halves and a switch around at half-time,” said Monroe,a former Tyrone player who managed the county minors and U21s.

Carrickmore just needed to win a title in any way, shape or form to get the years of craving out of the system.

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When Peter Doherty stepped down ahead of 1995, Carrickmore went in search of a new manager.

“Benny Haughey was the 10th or 11th man approached,” Monroe recalls.

He had played alongside Benny who then spent time managing Galbally.

Another former Carrickmore player Ed Fox also came on board as they set out on the latest crusade to bring the O’Neill Cup back to Carrickmore for a 10th time.

Monroe, who has a memory for every detail, can still remember one of Haughey’s early conversations with the players.

“There’s probably a picture of the three-in-a-row team in most of your own houses,” Haughey said.

“If you don’t want to take it down, turn it back to front, but it’s time it was replaced.”

It struck a chord with Monroe and still does.

It was time to write a new chapter in the club’s history. It was time for new heroes. There were lessons to be learned first.

Carrickmore had three men sent off in a preseason competition against Galbally early in ’95.

Monroe was captain and put it to Haughey that discipline had to improve, not just in terms of players sent off. It needed to start by holding everyone to account at training.

From then on, cones were introduced to everything at training. Players were not allowed to cut corners anymore. It was a start.

“I set up the training drills, explained what we’d be doing and Benny would drive it,” said Monroe, who was coaching the club minor and U21 teams that season.

Carrickmore beat Galbally in the championship opener thanks to goals from Conor McElduff and Peter Loughran.

The championship was then put on hold with Tyrone’s run to the All-Ireland final. Carrickmore then squeezed past Cookstown to qualify for the semi-finals.

It was the summer Tyrone beat Derry in the Ulster semi-final on the day 13 men beat 14 under the scorching Clones sun.

In the background, Benny Haughey had managed to get Derry manager Mickey Moran on board with Carrickmore.

“The rest is history,” Monroe said. “Mickey brought a professionalism to our training and was just a breath of fresh air.

“It’s unbelievable to think that Benny Haughey, Ed Fox and him could become the best of mates.

“They’re like chalk and cheese but just found a way with each other.”

Haughey and Fox could read footballers and the game, knowing what they wanted.

Moran’s remit was to get the squad fit and sharp enough to fit into the game they were trying to play.

“He done it the very simple way,” Monroe said. “It was a lot of tough sessions, but everything was through the ball.

“I would have actually based my coaching philosophy off of Mickey Moran.”

Carrickmore then adopted the possession game they needed ahead of their three-game semi-final against reigning back-to-back champions Errigal Ciaran.

Monroe and Damian Loughran were sent off in normal time of the first replay. Extra time couldn’t separate them before Carrickmore had three points to spare in the third instalment in the first week of December.

Monroe’s suspension was up, leaving him eligible for the final. After beating Errigal, they still had to finish the job against Moortown in the final, played on the mouth of Christmas, on a bitterly cold day in Coalisland.

Peter Loughran kicked a handful of points with Eamon Martin hitting the game’s only goal in a comfortable victory.

After 16 years, Carrickmore were champions of Tyrone and Monroe held the cup aloft among their hordes of fans.

“It was the greatest moment of my life, I had been striving for 13 years to win a championship with Carrickmore and it actually happened,” Monroe said.

“Even for the relief of the parish and the whole community, to get over it.”

It was celebration time. Carrickmore had the best Christmas present they could wish for – the O’Neill Cup.

“Benny wouldn’t be a man about the town but we took a night in every pub in the town to celebrate,” Monroe recalls.

“For a community like Carrickmore, just everything is the GAA and after a barren spell, we were champions again.

“To see old men crying, it’s something special. It’s then that you realise what it really does mean to your community.”

The regret was not getting to represent Tyrone in the Ulster Club championship. With the county’s run to Croke Park and Tyrone’s delayed club schedule, Errigal Ciaran were nominated for the Ulster.

By the time Carrickmore retained the Tyrone title in 1996, Ulster was something new and they were edged out by Castleblayney in a low-scoring battle.

“We had Mickey (Moran) on board and I feel that if we had gone into the Ulster Club and were beaten in ’95, it would’ve given us the opportunity to know more about it for ’96,” Monroe said. “It would have allowed us to look at it differently when we got through because you need that experience.”

Carrickmore were without six county players for most of ’96 but still found themselves well clear at the top of the league.

There was a scare in the championship when Damian Loughran swallowed his tongue in a feisty opener against Ardboe. It was the game abandoned but Carrickmore eased home in the refixture.

After a comfortable quarter final win over Omagh, the Carmen scraped through against Moortown in the semi-final before seeing off Errigal Ciaran in the final.

“We had a panel of players capable of winning Ulster, I have no doubt about that,” Monroe sums up.

“We had all the key players in different parts of the field and all in their prime.”

Monroe’s garden backs onto the training pitch in Carrickmore and he can see all the club’s activities.

He is hopeful the current squad have the ingredients to follow the teams of the past

There is also an awareness of the championship minefield they’ll step into later in the year as they embark on another breakthrough.