John Rafferty won championships with St Gall’s as a player before managing them to an Ulster title. Not winning the All-Ireland hurts but, 20 years on, he looks back on the era with fond memories. He spoke with Michael McMullan…

JOHN Rafferty’s first game for St Gall’s came at the end of 1989. He was a Sigerson Cup winner with St Mary’s earlier that year.

His wife Catherine, then his girlfriend, lived in West Belfast and was working in Andersonstown Leisure Centre. Sean McGourty was coordinating a summer scheme at the time.

It didn’t take long for the wheels to be placed in motion. Rafferty, who taught in La Salle, soon had a blue jersey on and was lining out against Lámh Dhearg for his debut.

Charlie Sweeney steered St Gall’s to Antrim glory the following year. They were hit by a late semi-final goal in Kingscourt to scupper their hopes of a second Ulster title.

He’d be back to win a second county medal in 1993. Winning it at Casement is special.

Even now, passing the ground, on his way to meet the in-laws, the sight of the derelict ground eats at him. Disgrace is the word. How could it be left vacant?

A Poyntzpass man, he has an affinity with West Belfast. His eyes tell you the pride he has in his adopted club.

He uses the term “significant other” for those outside his family circle who’ve shaped him.

Men like Sean McGourty, his head of department in La Salle. His great friend Danny Quinn.

He is indebted to how St Gall’s put their arms around him and welcomed him as one of their own. Men like Liam Stewart and Vincent Ward.

“Good fellas like them, they never got credit,” said Rafferty with a total genuine tone in his voice.

“You can tiptoe around it all we like, but times were tough in the ‘80s in west Belfast.

“It wasn’t always easy for young fellas, getting knocked about, hassled and one thing or another.

“You could have been led one way or another. People like Vincent and Liam kept football and hurling going for hundreds and hundreds of young fellas to give them a positive way to express their Irish identity, but they never got any credit for it.”

After winning the Monaghan Championship with Castleblayney in 2003, the younger players weren’t prepared to embrace what Rafferty felt would lift them to the next level. He pulled the pin.

Rafferty was all in or nothing. Having just won one solitary game during his entire underage career, he grew to detest defeat. He’d let Castleblayney find their own way.

At the time, Mickey Culbert made the decision to step away from the St Gall’s hotseat. Rafferty happened to get chatting to former St Gall’s teammate Mark McCrory.

One word led to another. St Gall’s needed a manager. Sure, they’d give it a year that grew into three special years.

After retaining the McNamee Cup, Carrickmore put a stop to their Ulster hopes at a time when they were creeping closer.

Ballinderry needed a replay to beat them on the way to their 2002 All-Ireland title. Enniskillen beat St Gall’s the following year on the way to the Ulster final. Loup beat them in the 2003 Ulster final.

“There was no shame in getting beat by Carrickmore who were littered with Tyrone county players,” Rafferty said of their 2004 exit.

Going into the 2005 campaign, Rafferty took the group back earlier in pre-season.

“To their credit, the players responded magnificently and it wasn’t easy,” he said.

“They put a lot of time and a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it, and they turned it around.”

Rafferty could see the winning formula Culbert had in place. It was built on a youth policy. Frank Maguire’s bus would ferry anyone to training who needed a lift.

St Gall’s were investing in the future and Culbert moulded them into senior champions.

Rafferty didn’t reinvent the wheel. The Ulster Club just needed hard work, belief and fine-tuning.

“Mickey had the blocks and the scratch coat done, all we put was the finish on it,” he stressed.

Rafferty tuned their engine in Falls Park and La Salle school. They were training before anyone was training. Basic and tough.

It was a St Gall’s team full of leaders, with one common theme. The jersey came first. It was all about the team – we before me.

Terry O’Neill broke a bone in his leg during a game without realising it and ploughed on.

Collectively, they never panicked because they had the confidence they’d find a way. Regular appearances at the Kilmacud Sevens honed their possession game.

“Sean Kelly was without a doubt, and I mean without a doubt, one of the best footballers I have ever witnessed playing football in my life,” Rafferty said. Kelly’s feed didn’t touch the ground. He glided across the grass.”

If Sean Burns had been born in Derry, Tyrone, Down or Armagh, he’d have got his hands on Sam. Rafferty rhymes off the list of players.

“They knew they had individual abilities and each man played to his ability,” he said. “They didn’t try to do things that he wasn’t cut out to do.”

Terry O’Neill’s bullet of a shot could find the top corner from 30 yards. Burns floated frees for fun. Mark McCrory’s ability to grab a ball.

Ciaran McCrossan, who scored their Ulster-winning goal, worked like a dog. Gary McGirr would pop up where the ball would break.

“Every fella put the blue jersey first,” Rafferty stressed. “Every fella knew he was good at something and he kept doing that something over and over again.”

There was stardust too. Kelly and Burns. CJ McGourty was the young starlet who could score for fun.

“Kieran McGourty was the best user of a ball,” he added.

There was a love of St Gall’s instilled by the generations above. Ward. Stewart. Maguire. Culbert. Sean Kelly senior. Sean McGourty. The St Gall’s family.

St Gall’s are this year’s Antrim Championship Group of death. It was expected to go down to the last game. With eight goals in four games, they’ve qualified after failing last year.

“The fellas who played 20 years ago are managing the team now,” Rafferty said.

“It’s perfect. If a young fella at 21 or 22 years of age, or 31 or 32 years of age, is asked to do something by Sean Kelly in a blue jersey, you’ll do it. And that’s it, because he did it.”

*****

Rafferty is the king of the one-liners. He believes we’ve two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listening is king.

He remembers Gerard Houlihan raving about the coaching of Brother Ennis. It was brilliant because it was simple.

“He said he spent 15 or 20 minutes at the start of every session doing the absolute basics, the absolute basics,” Rafferty recalls.

Making the ball do what you need it to do and to be able to control it under pressure. St Gall’s ticked that box. Whether you were a baller or a worker, the basics needed to be a perfect ten.

That’s why it didn’t matter which players they took to the Kilmacud Sevens, they’d always be in the conversation.

With almost 40 men at training, they’d hold competitions who see who’d make the team. The quality was there.

That’s why winning the sevens in 2005 got Rafferty thinking. As the players were getting scrubbed up ahead of a bite of grub and a few pints, he held his arm across the dressing room door.

“I just realised that this was significant,” he said before challenging them how the next 10 could beat them if he arranged another internal sevens on the following Monday night. He recalls Kieran McGourty not being happy with the statement.

“I told them if they were good enough to win an ‘A’ All-Ireland at sevens, why are you not good enough to win an ‘A’ All-Ireland at 15-a-side instead of seven-a-side?”

It was a statement. The first seven were top players. So were the rest. It was a mental challenge. Rafferty was at his mind games.

St Gall’s were on their way to victory over Portglenone in the 2005 final when someone sent Sean Kelly a poor pass. In a tight game, he was never going to pull out but ended up with a broken collar bone.

As the trophy presentation was underway, Rafferty was already spitting fire internally. Carrickmore were coming down the tracks in Ulster and they’d just lost their star player. It was time for another dressing room message.

“I can’t go verbatim what I said, but I said to the lads to enjoy their bottle of beer,” Rafferty recalls.

Training resumed on Tuesday night and anyone missing due to partying on the Monday was to stay away. The county title was parked and it was time to move on.

Having Carrickmore at Casement Park was an advantage, given the quality of the pitch and how St Gall’s could express themselves on it.

Rafferty had his own homework to do, trawling through footage. The DVD player had become a close friend. After a six-point win over Carrickmore, relief was the emotion of choice.

“I think the key to the whole thing is there was almost a sense of entitlement in ’04,” Rafferty feels.

After being knocked out by the Ulster champions twice in the previous three years, it was a feeling they’d eventually get there. The 2004 defeat to Carrickmore was their reset.

“I knew that the players felt that they hadn’t expressed themselves the way that they were well fit to do,” he said.

There was also the focus of having to do step into battle without Sean Kelly.

“Sean McGourty is the greatest man in the world for sayings,” Rafferty remembers. “You play with who you have, you don’t play with who’s missing.”

Next up was Mayobridge in the semi-final in Páirc Esler. With it being a clay-based pitch, St Gall’s travelled to another clay pitch on the outskirts of Newry in the lead up to the game.

Nothing was being left to chance. He linked in with Oliver Mooney to get access to St Paul’s, Bessbrook for the warm-up.

Having watched the ‘Bridge on a few occasions, he knew what they had but also knew a fully functioning St Gall’s would beat them. And they did, to set up an Ulster final with Bellaghy.

The clubs had met earlier in the season with the Tones winning comfortably. Rafferty never made Bellaghy any the wiser they weren’t at full strength. That two ears, one mouth statement again.

By the time of the Ulster final, St Gall’s were ready. Bellaghy were favourites having won in Crossmaglen. The fact Loup had beaten St Gall’s in a final years earlier another indicator. Add in the licking Bellaghy dished out in the challenge game.

While managing Bellaghy later in his career, Rafferty heard a statement from the 2005 Ulster final build-up and how if the Tones “played at all” they’d win.

“I thought it was a significant comment,” Rafferty said, “given that that was probably coming on the back of the fact that they’d beaten us in the challenge match in Drumanee (Bellaghy) during the summer.”

Ciaran McCrossan’s goal made the difference in a 1-8 to 0-8 victory with Sean Kelly coming on as a sub late in the game.

Rafferty recalls the homecoming, getting off the bus on the Falls Road and bringing the cup down Milltown Row and into a packed club house. Never mind swinging a cat, you couldn’t “swing a kitten” inside, he commented to a reporter.

Neither a drinker or a teetotaller, he was “stone cold sober” as he took in the sights and sounds of history.

Club stalwarts looking on. John Kennedy won an Ulster medal in 1982 and watched his son Simon doing the same.

“Suddenly all that emotion comes out,” Rafferty said. “If you’re not standing with a lump in your throat, you shouldn’t be a part of the GAA, go away and get yourself a snooker cue. That night in St Gall’s was one of the best.”

Watching players who have been together since the age of 10 or 12 carry the Seamus McFerran Cup into their clubhouse gave Rafferty a kick. In a world dominated by bad news, this is the magic.

“To be inside the ground is a privilege in itself but to be inside the wire, on the white line when something like that happens is magnificent,” he added,

“That’s the only way I’d describe it. Nothing beats playing but that’s as close as it gets.

“I was invited in and played for St Gall’s for 10 years and I would still like to think that I’m a St Gall’s man. I’m a ‘Pass man but I’m a St Gall’s man at heart too.”

*****

John Rafferty misses very little. It’s December 2005 and he’s in Limerick to run his eye over the Munster final. Nemo Rangers coast to victory by double scores over St Senan’s of Clare.

Having made the trip with his brother, they are the last to leave, looking over the giddiness of the celebrations.

He overhears a conversation. Two ears and one mouth again. Nemo voices ask who they play next. St Gall’s? Where are they from? Antrim. Ah, we’ll beat them.

“I turned around and I said, that’s why we’ll beat them because they won’t give the respect to St Gall’s that they deserve,” Rafferty said.

He used it as fuel. It was the same when they travelled to Portlaoise for an inhouse game to familiarise themselves with the journey.

When one of the probables had his nose busted by someone on the possibles before going to take the free, Rafferty, in a rare move, blew his whistle in the training game.

He gave a free against the injured player for getting caught in possession. He’d not do the same the next time they were in Portlaoise.

James Masters scored 1-5 against St Gall’s, just like in the Munster final. Only St Gall’s were a different animal than St Senan’s. They held the Nemo cavalry to a single point.

CJ McGourty kicked an insurance point. Sean Burns was on fire and Aidan Gallagher dropped back to fill the middle for any sniff of danger.

There was no fairytale Croke Park ending. Not this time. On a blustery day, Michael Donnellan was the star man in a 0-7 to 0-6 Salthill-Knocknacarra win.

Like the MacRory and MacLarnon finals he lost, Rafferty has never watched it back. He never will. It won’t get any better.

They missed chances and still feel aggrieved at having a goal disallowed for square ball.

Rafferty stepped down after Cargin took away their Antrim and Ulster titles the following year. Looking back, he feels it was a rash dressing room decision.

Earlier in the season, he battled with pneumonia and the team itself were tired despite winning the league at a canter. If they’d got over Cargin, it could’ve been a different ending.

“There was nobody happier in Croke Park in 2010 when St Gall’s won,” Rafferty said.

“It was fitting that Lenny (Harbinson) was along the line for them because Lenny had been some servant to St Gall’s in his time too.”

Rafferty can’t believe it’s 20 years since he led St Gall’s to an Ulster title. He jokes about keeping his hair but hopes the next 20 years don’t flash by so quick.

“I know that there was a great sense the first time, at the start of 2004, when I went to meet the players, there was a sense of this feels right,” he said.

Like his two Antrim Championship medals as a player, Rafferty knows exactly where the memento the club presented him for being an All-Star nominee is.

He can still hear Borther Leopold’s kind words as he presented it to him. Another sense of warmth.

“There was that great sense of being where you belong,” Rafferty added.