Last Saturday night, Eamonn Burns held a fundraiser in his native Ballinascreen to raise money for two local cancer charities. He sat down with Michael McMullan to outline his tough journey in recent years and how the GAA community offered its hand of support.

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WHEN you think of Eamonn Burns’ footballing career, immediately his almost effortless and masterful class comes to mind. He always seemed to have time on the ball and made it play the sweetest of tunes.

It’s impossible not to eulogise over ‘that point’ in the drawn Ulster semi-final with Down in 1991 when he sent Paddy O’Rourke packing before slicing between the posts with the outside of his right foot.

It was the same right peg that nosed St Patrick’s, Maghera into the lead for the first time in the final moments of the 4-10 to 4-9 defeat of St Colman’s, Newry in a mesmerising MacRory decider two years earlier.

‘Burnsy’ played on winning All-Ireland minor and senior winning Derry teams. At club level, he kicked Ballinascreen to the cusp of the championship glory that eluded them.

And he still found the time to pull the strings in the heart of midfield for local soccer club Draperstown Celtic when he could.

University brought three years of accountancy studies and Sigerson glory, but a few days subbing in St Mary’s, Clady took Burns towards a Sports Science route into a PGCE course in England.

He kept his soccer interest and three goals on his debut for Bedford Town Reserves saw him parachuted to the first eleven and a year playing non-league football.

It was always sport. Playing, watching and talking about it.

Seated last Thursday afternoon in the stand at Ballinascreen’s Dean McGlinchey Park, just days after his 50th birthday, Burns looks like he always does, fresh as paint.

But he has come through a lot in the last four years. And now, after his cancer journey, he wants to give something back.

Before Christmas, while in the company of Anthony Tohill, Brian McCormick and Fergal P McCusker, he floated the idea of walking or running as part of his birthday with a fundraiser. A hip replacement put a lid on 50 days of walking or running. Running 5K a day wasn’t an option.

“Why don’t you kick 50 frees,” McCormick offered, and they all offered to chip in.

Word filtered through of Down wanting to return Derry’s visit of two years ago when rivals of yesteryear mingled over a few pints in Newry Shamrocks’ social club.

Burns punched a message through to his college friend Eamon Connolly. Did they fancy a wee spin to Ballinascreen?

“Aye,” came the prompt and definite answer from Connolly, the Colman’s goalkeeper in the 1989 MacRory final.

EAMON HIGH…Eamonn Burns lifts the Hogan Cup as St Patrick’s Maghera captain in 1990

Former Down player and manager of that era Eamonn Burns, died suddenly two years ago and his son Thomas was there kicking on his father’s behalf. A fitting tribute in itself.

There’s the beauty of GAA rivalries. On the pitch, you’d hammer into one another to gain any extra inch. But once players mingle in the student havens of Belfast, they become friends for life.

All through Burns’ cancer journey, he had mountains of support. Blessings came from everywhere. The cards and holy water that arrived at the house, he has them all.

Last weekend the GAA community dipped their hands into their pockets to support charities, Macmillan and Charis, that need every penny they can lay their hand on.

Those Derry and Down battles of the early 1990s help define Ulster’s greatest era. Off the pitch, Eamonn Burns had his own adversity.

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It’s September 2017 and Eamonn Burns returns for the new year as a PE teacher in Derry’s St Columb’s College. But he’s more tired than normal.

“I wanted to sit down all the time and you can’t do that as a PE teacher. I had no energy and I thought ‘something’s not right here’,” Burns begins.

“I was coming home in the evening and flaking out on the sofa.”

There were more frequent trips to the toilet and as September reached its end, Burns eventually decided enough was enough.

The final straw came on county final Sunday when he helped organise the club’s u-10 teams for games at half-time of Ballinascreen’s clash with Sleacht Néill.

“I said to Mickey Boyle that I was knackered,” Burns recalls. “I remember thinking that, win, lose or draw, I wouldn’t have been fit to go to the club afterwards, and I just had no energy.”

Burns is indebted to local GP, Dr Michael Logan, who was provided support all the way.

After one of the tests showed blood in his bowel, a Colonoscopy was booked in for further investigation.

Eamonn stresses how much support he got from his former team mates from St Patrick’s, Maghera and the teams he played on.

On the first Monday after Halloween, he met one that would be with him every step of the way over the next few years.

Roddy Skelly played with Burns on Hogan Cup and Derry minor teams.

A Consultant Surgeon in Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital, Roddy performed the check and Burns recalls a moment in the recovery room.

“I could see he wasn’t coming near me,” Eamonn points out. “I was being wheeled out on a trolley and he had his head down and looked a bit worried.”

A check-up 10 years earlier revealed ‘a few’ benign polyps that were removed, but the news this time wasn’t as straight-forward.

“I remember Roddy coming over and asking me if I was looking home,” Eamonn said.

“I could see him shrugging his shoulders and taking a deep breath and I knew there was something coming here.

“I am not going to use any big words here, but the test wasn’t good.”

Eamonn’s wife, Lisa, and their five children were in Coleraine shopping. As the children sat outside the room, Roddy outlined the journey ahead for Eamonn and Lisa.

A very worrying 10-day period followed. An MRI scan was planned for Antrim on the Wednesday.

Roddy rang with the news they feared.

“Don’t have yourself dead and buried just yet, but it is confirmed as a cancerous tumour in the bowel,” were the words Eamonn will never forget.

Over four years later, on a calm afternoon in Dean McGlinchey Park, Burns speaks with total composure of those testing moments. He shows enormous bravery.

“You find your faith deeper than you ever had before it,” he adds.

Their children were only recently told of the full extent and the ‘C’ word was used for the first time. Before that, their Daddy was undergoing treatment for a tumour.

“Ones said they were completely open from the start, but that’s what I felt the way I was going about it,” Eamonn said.

Lisa was the tower of strength for them, taking care of all the family duties as Eamonn put all his focus on recovery.

A plan was put in place. A multi-disciplinary team would take care of a programme of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy before a surgery to remove the tumour.

“The tumour marker was 2.3 and if it was above five, it was really worrying,” Burns states.

“I had a stoma bag for a period of time that was later reversible.”

For six weeks, he made the journey to Belfast for his radiotherapy, calling in at Antrim’s Laurel House on the way back for chemo.

Monday to Friday, he completed the ritual. The weekends were a much needed recovery time, with an extra reprieve of getting Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve off.

“I was tired and sleeping twice a day and I found it hard to take the chemo tablets,” he adds.

There was the concern that hair loss would mean he couldn’t shield cancer treatment from the children. But thankfully it didn’t come to that.

He is also grateful to his boss in St Columb’s, Finbarr Madden. But with his absence from school, word begins to filter out.

“Everybody was brilliant…neighbours, former teammates and people you don’t even know,” he said.

“I was worried about the children and my wife Lisa, that some of the children would hear about it at school,” he admits. “You worry about the long term in terms of the family’s commitment and security.”

After the treatment finished, on his birthday, he hit the gym to build up his strength for the operation. The inner desire that brought him to sporting greatness kicked in again.

All through his career, he weighed in at 12 and half stone. Now, the scales were tipping at 13 stone.

Monday, March 5 was his next date with Roddy Skelly for his surgery.

“Roddy and Dr Logan were there from the start and you knew you had them on your side. You are at their mercy,” Burns states.

“That evening I was flying and sending selfies to friends, but I went badly downhill the following day.”

A complication with a blood leak led to four days in intensive care before he was ready for his road to recovery.

There was something comforting from being surrounded in hospital with those dealing with their various treatments.

“There was a man James McErlean from Portglenone, he kept me in craic,” Burns adds.

“The children came in to see me and even though you are feeling weak, it was great to see them.”

On the morning of discharge, there was a further setback with the news his cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, leading to another five months of chemotherapy.

“That was a bit of a blow,” Burns admits. “I had different things on that helped me through it.”

He speaks of looking skinny in his suit for the children’s communion and confirmation, as by that time, he had dropped to 11 stone.

Another thing that kept him going was the 25th Anniversary celebrations of Derry’s All-Ireland win.

There was a day out at Clones, a golf day to raise money for their weekend in Dublin and the customary half-time introduction to the crowd on All-Ireland day.

CHAMPION…Burns waves to the crowd at Derry’s 25th Anniversary trip to Croke Park

As a young boy, his father would’ve lifted him over the turnstile on every third Sunday in September.

“Dublin was brilliant,” beams Eamonn of a weekend that marked the end of his chemo.

“It was the best weekend of my life I would say. Everybody was in great form and the weather was great. We were staying in the Skylon, my mother and father were down and my two older kids stayed.”

It was back to hospital in January 2019 for reversal surgery and with his stoma bag removed. He was back on the road to normal life and a return to work.

Three days a week grew into four and that’s how it is now.

“I remember a very wise nurse, whose husband had similar to me, telling me it will take you three full years to recover from it and it wasn’t far off the mark,” Eamonn points out.

“This is the first year I have started to feel more stamina about me and I have started to put on weight again and I have broken that 13 stone threshold.”

His recent scan in November is clear, three and a half years since his operation. It’s said that five years is a vital marker, but Eamonn won’t ever declare himself ‘cancer free’.

“That’s the psychology I have and you are always looking over your shoulder. I am healthy at the minute and I am thankful for that,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be unflappable, but you nearly think you are invincible until it hits you. You always wonder who it is going to be next, you never think it is going to be you.

“When it is you, you have to deal with it. For the wife and kids, you feel more for them. You get a bit of strength that you have to pull it through for them.”

He thinks of an afternoon, during his chemo in Laurel House. He was among four in a room, from the county Derry area and all of a similar age.

All four have made it to the other side, but Burns also remembers those not as lucky. He urges anyone showing symptoms, just go and get checked out.

He is now keeping his end of the promise. His online crowd funding and charity free-taking contest will benefit those in Northern Ireland in need.

“Macmillan is huge,” Burns said. “I didn’t know what they were before I had cancer, but they were there at every stage.

“I said someday I will pay some of that back. After that treatment, some of the people mentioned Charis,” he said of the retreat haven on the shores of the nearby Lough Fea that has former Derry team doctor Ben Glancy as a trustee.

“What I got most out of it was sitting, with a cup of tea and a biscuit with a brilliant view of the lake and chatting to other people who went through something similar.”

Saturday night will help ensure it’s there to support others.

Donations can be made via the following link: www.justgiving.com/fundraisingeamonn-burns1