Writing new chapters in history

Gaoth Dobhair were champions of Donegal 20 years ago with Neil McGee picking up his second county medal. He delved into his memories and spoke with Michael McMullan

For 42 years, all the football talk in Gaoth Dobhair reverted to the glory days of old.

Tradition hung on every word. There was a four-in-a-row in the forties followed by three successive titles in the fifties. After that, the 1961 success stood on its own before a famine that lasted until the noughties.

When the Leslie McGettigan affair took the 1997 championship off St Eunan’s, and gave it to Aodh Ruadh Ballyshanon, they drew level with Gaoth Dobhair on 12 titles on the roll of honour.

When Neil McGee came out of his final year at U16, back in 2001, the clubs were still level.

The 2002 championship was another boardroom affair. This time it was two fold.

Firstly, Ardara objected to former Sligo player Eddie Brennan playing with St Eunan’s.

Ardara’s appeal against Brennan’s involvement in their defeat were unsuccessful but it did put the county final back to the following April.

In that time, Killybegs had beaten Gaoth Dobhair in the quarter-finals. Gaoth Dobhair appealed that Killybegs’ Peter McGinley had played in New York the previous week.

After Killybegs were thrown out, Gaoth Dobhair played in the semi-finals.

McGee was their teenage full-back, in his final year of minor, as they saw off St Eunan’s to bring the Dr Maguire Cup back to the parish.

“There was a drought alright,” McGee said. “We were brought up hearing about the old Gaoth Dobhair teams and their stories of the past. We’d been living off that for a long time.”

He joined older brother Eamon as well as Kevin Cassidy who had already been in with the seniors. Current senior manager Rónán Mac Niallais was part of that group.

They brought in players off the 1999 minor winning team and that fed into the makeup of what was to follow.

Gaoth Dobhair were a fixture in Division One but their championship road was littered with quarter and semi-final exits.

They did have success in the Gaeltacht championships, both in Donegal and on a national level. The talent was always there but, for one reason or another, the Dr Maguire Cup eluded them.

“We won the Gaeltacht in ’02, down in Leitir Móir and that was a big thing at the time,” McGee recalls of a memorable weekend in deepest Connemara.

“Some of my best memories of football are centred around the Gaeltacht weekend – you’re going away as a team and they are great times.

“It was probably bigger at that time. It went away but it has grown again. I always felt there was great potential in that competition.”

As a fourth year in school, it was the perfect weekend for McGee to get to know his new senior teammates.

Gaoth Dobhair is a vast area. Across the rugged landscape. It could be a 15- or 20-minute car journey from where the McGees hailed in Croithlí, up to Kevin Cassidy’s end of the parish on the shoulders of Machaire Rabhartaigh beach.

By the time the 2002 season had morphed towards the midpoint of the following year, the footballers of the parish – under the joint management of Alan Boy and Piarais Coyle – brought home county title number 13.

It was the first time Neil had experienced the coaching of Tom ‘Beag’ Gillespie who would later mould a group of youngsters into their Ulster U21 and Donegal Senior winning crop 16 years later.

“Eamon McGarvey took us at underage, up through to minor,” Neil recalls of his early footballing days.

“He would have been a big influence at the time and we’d be getting to semi-finals and finals on the way up.”

While they were knocking around the business end of the underage championships, it wasn’t until New Year’s Eve 2005 that they picked up their first medal in the form of the U21 Championship. That fed into senior success the following year.

“There were five or six of that team in with the seniors,” McGee points out.

“We were getting stronger. We didn’t win the minor but by the time we got to 21s, we were well developed.”

Between 2002 and ‘06, Gaoth Dobhair were thereabouts in the senior race without bringing home the bacon.

“We massively underachieved in that time,” he said. “We probably should have another couple of championships for sure.”

They lost their title when goals from Sean Boyle and Paddy McNulty propelled MacCumhaills to victory in the 2003 quarter-final.

McNulty hit the game’s only goal when MacCumhaills knocked them out in the semi-finals the following year. St Eunan’s beat them in the ’05 semi-final, another narrow defeat.

It was the era of the home and away games in the first round of the championship.

“We hardly lost a home game in those years,” McGee said. “Looking back now, it was a good enough system. You built a whole year around those two games and there was a big edge to them.

“There were big crowds at them and if it was one win each, you’d go into a third game at a neutral venue

“The first round was always huge because you always felt that if you got over the first round, you got a bit of momentum and it opened up for you.”

Declan Bonner came in as Gaoth Dobhair manager in 2005 and by the time the following season bedded down, the U21 title had taken the squad to another level.

“It was building with that group since U14s and we never got over the line so that was the last game for that team,” McGee said.

“Finally getting over the line pushed us all on into ‘06 for the seniors.”

Man of the match Rónán Mac Niallais notched half of their six-point tally in a 0-6 to 0-3 win over St Michael’s.

“It’s great that the cup is back in Gaoth Dobhair after a lapse of 15 years,” U21 manager Owenie McBride told the Donegal News after the game.

“It was great to end the year on a high note. Senior manager Declan Bonner has a strong pool of players to draw from for the year ahead.”

There were just a few hours of 2005 left but McBride’s words would prove prophetic.

By the following Christmas, the Dr Maguire Cup was back wintering in Gaoth Dobhair.

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Eamon and Neil McGee missed much of the 2006 season while on Donegal duty with Kevin Cassidy on a sabbatical in Boston.

The championship draw pitted Gaoth Dobhair away to Dungloe in the opening game.

A goal from substitute James Carroll and four James Gallagher points saw Gaoth Dobhair off to a winning start.

Gallagher’s 1-2 tally wasn’t enough to stop Gaoth Dobhair slumping to a rare home defeat when Dungloe came to Machaire Gathlán for the return game.

It set up a crucial third game on neutral soil in Falcarragh with a quarter-final spot up for grabs.

Six points from Stephen Cassidy helped them to a five-point win – their most convincing victory of the campaign.

His brother Kevin had returned from America and started the game after coming off the bench in the previous round.

“That was a big boost because he was probably one of the top players in the country around that time,” McGee recalls.

“I remember that would have been the first time we were beaten at home. Those were big games that time. Where we would have been very strong in defence, Dungloe would have been very strong in the forward line.

“They had Adrian Sweeney, Adrian O’Hanlon, James and Tony Boyle playing so there were some good tussles with them around that time.”

A teenage Neil McGee picked up Boyle in 2002 but it was Adrian Sweeney under his watch four years later.

“It was a big ask but you just go in and you don’t really think about it, you just go in and do the job,” he said of picking up All-Ireland winner Boyle despite being in his first year of senior football.

“He was a good target man and had done damage before, so we tried something different on him,” McGee said of 2002. “We probably went with pace against him more than putting a strong man in against him.”

James Gallagher kicked 0-7 in a tricky ‘06 quarter-final win over Malin in O’Donnell Park, 1-11 to 1-9.

“That was a tricky enough game and Malin were decent at the time,” McGee said.

“It wasn’t easy and we played Ardara in the semi-final and it was a tight enough game too,” he said of another two-point win.

Gaoth Dobhair had been favourites during their championship run but the final against St Eunan’s was billed as 50-50.

In the build-up, all the talk was of the two best teams making it to the final and there was the anticipation of a cracker for the county’s showpiece day.

It turned out the opposite, a low-scoring arm wrestle decided by Stephen Cassidy’s cracking goal. It helped Gaoth Dobhair pull themselves from the jaws of a 0-5 to 0-2 deficit with 10 minutes to go.

“It was one of the worst finals ever,” McGee admits. “I actually watched it back one day on YouTube and it was a hard watch.”

“In fairness, they were probably on top right through but we defended well. We had a good defence at the time and we probably just stayed in the game through that.”

Neil picked up Brendan Devenney with older brother Eamon on Rory Kavanagh.

“Devenney would have been the top player at that time in Donegal,” Neil said.

“I probably did well on him in the two county finals, 2002 and ‘06. Eamon would have done well on Rory Kavanagh.

“Conal Dunne actually went off injured at the end of the first half (in 2006). Kevin Rafferty was a midfielder, they’d have been their four top players, the ones we would have targeted for the game.”

Devenney had hit 0-14 in the 1999 final to see off Aodh Ruadh. That was the threat he posed but Gaoth Dobhair’s plan all came down to individual battles.

“Around that time, it was literally, get your man and keep him out of the game,” Neil said on their plan.

“There would’ve been those three or four match-ups. There wouldn’t have been many tactics of taking men back and covering space around that time.

“You had to take care of your man and that had a big bearing on the game around those times, particularly in the tight games.”

Gaoth Dobhair were misfiring up front in the 2006 final with St Eunan’s looking like closing the game out.

Before Stephen Cassidy’s bullet to the net, it was a case of hanging tough in defence.

“We were probably doing well in those match-ups and the other players were probably getting a bit of space, but they weren’t able to punish us,” Neil said.

“They missed a lot up to that but we just stayed in the game and were totally misfiring up front too.”

Everything changed with the game’s only goal. Martin McHugh, on co commentary with Charlie Collins on Highland Radio, highlighted St Eunan’s 24 wides to Gaoth Dobhair’s 10 as a kick-out landed in front of the stand in MacCumhaill Park.

When Rory Kavanagh had the ball knocked  out in a tackle, the play was directed to Eamon McGee.

After stepping out of traffic, McGee delivered a long ball, left footed, towards Stephen Cassidy, who won possession in front of two St Eunan’s defenders.

The was no need to survey the scene. It was time for another left foot. He turned before lashing the ball to the top corner of the net.

“It was like a release,” Neil said of the goal. “We started to play then and we pushed on. We started hitting our frees then, but the goal turned the game.

“That was his thing, big goals in big games and he (Cassidy) got a goal in the ‘02 final against Eunan’s too.

“He’d probably quiet up to that (in ’06), but it was a rocket into the top corner from about 25 yards out.

“James Gallagher was quiet too. He would have been our full-forward and a county man around that time.

“Eunan’s had held those two boys well beforehand but after Stephen got the goal, the two boys started to go well.

“Before that, we were just holding on, defending all the time but we weren’t getting the scores at the other end.”

James Gallagher then tagged on scores to ensure the silverware was heading back to Gaoth Dobhair.

The ’02 title was a big weight off the Gaoth Dobhair shoulders but it only ramped up the expectation levels.

“At the start of every year, we probably would have been favourites,” Neil said.

“Between ourselves and Eunan’s, there was a bit of an expectancy there to get to the final.”

Going into the 2006 season, Declan Bonner again worked the Gaoth Dobhair squad hard. A high base level of fitness was a must.

“Bonner would’ve been old school,” Neil recalls.

“There would be hard running and games. We used to do a lot of press-ups and sit-ups at training. That’s obviously a thing of the past now but it was very simple. Even now, it would still be effective.”

While it worked the body, it also built a resolve that stood tall when St Eunan’s were in the ascendancy, long enough for Cassidy’s killer goal to send the parish into dreamland.

On their way back from MacCumhaill Park, the Gaoth Dobhair homecoming tradition kicked into gear once again. Before walking the Dr Maguire Cup into the club grounds at Machaire Gathlán, came the customary tour of the parish.

“The cavalcade through Gaoth Dobhair, it could take a couple of hours,” Neil recalls of that Sunday evening.

“We’d start off in Dún Lúiche and go down to Croithlí, then all the way over to Bun na Leaca and then probably end up back in the clubhouse.

“There’s always a big night there in the clubhouse. Then, it would always be Teach Mhicí (Kevin Cassidy’s pub) on the Monday and the Tuesday.

“There’d be bonfires and that would be all the way through the parish. It gave people a chance to see the cup, who couldn’t get to the game. That would be a tradition.”

Looking back on how the 2006 season turned, McGee’s mind goes back to the defeat at home to Dungloe as the crossroads moment.

“I think we probably had two weeks and Kevin came home from Boston around that time,” he said.

“That’s probably the big turning point in the season as such. He came back in for the play-off against Dungloe. We won that, and then we pushed on from there.

“He (Cassidy) pushed the standards at training and it was obviously just the player he was too.

“He made a massive impact; he would have been one of the top players in Ulster and the country at the time.”

Cassidy was the kick-out target and the team’s heartbeat but there was a strong core that entailed a mix of generations.

“I was at full-back and Eamon (McGee) was at six,” Neil outlines. “Kevin was at seven. Stephen (Cassidy) was corner-forward, James Gallagher was at 14 and Sean Sweeney was sub goalkeeper for Donegal at the time.

“Rónán Mac Neillis was midfield at the time and he was a county U21 player. You had the established senior players too so we had a good strong core of the team.”

Their overall strength was reflected in the fact that Mac Niallais and former Donegal senior player Martin Coll both missed parts of the championship campaign through injury.

If Kevin Cassidy’s return was significant, then his brother Stephen’s goal in the final was up there too.

“The goal was the big moment in that season and he still talks about it,” Neil adds. “The goal did win us the championship so it’s a nice one for him to have.”

Joe Duffy’s goal after 23 seconds, after a Stephen Cassidy pass, put Gaoth Dobhair into the driving seat when Crossmaglen came to Ballybofey for the Ulster preliminary round but it wasn’t enough.

Top scorer James Gallagher was on honeymoon and they lost Cornelius Gallagher to a recurring hamstring injury before half-time.

If that wasn’t a tough enough ask, it was a Crossmaglen team who went on to with the fourth of their six All-Ireland titles. Oisín McConville, Michael McNamee and Martin Aherne hit all but one of their dozen points in a low-scoring game.

“They were in their pomp,” McGee said of Cross. “There was three or four points in it at times but you never felt you were going to win.

“Any time you got a score, they were able to just reply and hold you at arm’s length.”

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The next time, Gaoth Dobhair and Crossmaglen met, it was in Omagh when they hit four goals in the 2018 Ulster semi-final on the way to the title.

Kevin Cassidy had returned from retirement to pick up another county medal.

Manager Mervyn O’Donnell found a new role for him as a ball-winner at full-forward. A refreshed Cassidy hit 1-2 with Dáire Ó Baoill bagging the other three goals.

Earlier in the year, Tom ‘Beag’ Gillespie had steered the club’s U21 side to Ulster glory against Lavey in Creggan’s tournament, that is sadly no longer part of the calendar.

They played a brand of controlled football, hunting turnovers before using pace on the breakaway. It was devastating.

As they hit Crossmaglen for four goals, you saw that style ebbing into the senior ranks – the perfect culmination of the gasáns and the old guard.

“It was the first year that we probably managed to get everybody focused,” McGee said of a 10-game championship adventure that ended with defeat at the hands of Corofin who were in the middle of their three-in-a-row of All-Irelands.

“That was the big thing I took from it, we got everyone focused and we had an Ulster winning U21 team coming in.”

After beating St Eunan’s by a point in the first group game, in O’Donnell Park, Gaoth Dobhair eased to the Donegal title.

A five-point win over Dungloe was the narrowest margin.

After hitting three goals against Cargin and four to see off Crossmaglen, the Ulster final was a different story with extra-time needed in a one-point win over Scotstown.

“It’s a great competition,” McGee said of the Ulster Club Championship.

They’ve watched on as Crossmaglen and Sleacht Néill had enjoyed golden eras.

That was a time when wining Ulster was barely on a Donegal club’s radar since Naomh Conaill lost to Crossmaglen in 2010.

Most of the time it was seen as a shot to nothing but Gaoth Dobhair knew this was different. A look around the dressing room told them they had the tools.

“We trained a couple of days after the county final because we knew we had the team and we were playing well. That was a great experience.”

They found out what a lot of other teams did, Corofin were a bridge too far and the dream of an All-Ireland ended the following winter in Carrick-on-Shannon.

Another Kevin Cassidy 1-2 tally wasn’t enough. His fellow TG4 pundit Gary Sice was unerring with a 1-7 tally with Martin Farragher adding a second Corofin goal.

Gaoth Dobhair are now back in the chasing pack, snapping at the heels of Naomh Conaill who have dominated the Donegal Championship.

When they run out next weekend against MacCumhaill’s, they’ll be aiming to book a semi-final spot. Beyond that, they’ll dream of going one better than last year’s defeat in the final.

Eamon McGee made a comeback and will be part of the team, chasing a fourth medal.

The manager is now Rónán Mac Niallais who kicked three points on the last day of 2005 as the U21 title became the last piece of the puzzle going into their 2006 championship winning season.

Welcome to the cycle of a club. The baton has been passed down. Neil McGee will be on this side of the wire, but he’ll be kicking every ball in his head.

The people of Gaoth Dobhair will be longing for another cavalcade that will turn at Brinaleck crossroads, with the Dr Maguire Cup glistening in the light of the bonfires.

For now, the youth of Gaoth Dobhair don’t need to rewind to 1961 for heroes. The men of 2002, 06 and ’18 have written their own stories.