IN FOCUS: Former Donegal defender John Joe Doherty

By Niall Gartland

WELL, they do say you make your own luck. Former Donegal corner-back John Joe Doherty wouldn’t have started the 1992 All-Ireland final only for an injury to a teammate, the unfortunate Martin Shovlin.

A tearful Shovlin ruled himself out on the morning of the match, having sustained a neck injury training on the Thursday evening before the big game.

And into the breach stepped Doherty, wearing the number 24 jersey. It wasn’t as if he’d come out of nowhere though – he was part of the Donegal team that won All-Ireland U-21 honours in 1987 and captained his club Naomh Columba to their second and what remains their last senior championship triumph in 1990. To press home the point after answering Donegal’s SOS call on the morning of the All-Ireland showdown, he won an All-Star the following season.

Doherty is a native of Carrick in the parish of Glencolmcille, located on the shores of the Atlantic in the south-west of Donegal. At the time, the region was the epicentre of Donegal club football.

Nearby Kilcar won senior titles in 1985, 1989 and 1995 while a generational Killybegs team won five championships in the same era. It’s no surprise then that local players backboned the 1987 All-Ireland U-21 winning team, as Doherty recalls.

“I was corner back on that U-21 team, it was a very strong team. I think 11 of the starting team was from south-west Donegal, from Dungloe right down to Ballyshannon. East Donegal wasn’t really represented at all.

“We beat Kerry in the final and any day you beat Kerry in a final is a good day.”

Doherty’s club Naomh Columba felt the brunt of defeat on more than one occasion, losing five county finals, but there’s no hard feelings – and there’s always 1990, the year he skippered the team to the title.

“I was captain of that team and I’m very proud of that, it was a great day for our parish. It was 12 years on from winning our first, it was a very unique time. Again it comes back to how strong that corner of the county was. It was very strong and titles were shared around locally at the time, and I feel lucky to have got my hands on it once.

“We lost plenty as well but I don’t look back with regret. Obviously it would’ve been nice to win more but we were beaten by very good Killybegs teams in particular.

“Where I’m from is exceptionally rural, we never got a transfer into the parish and we just had to call on our own resources and sometimes it could be hard to come up with a panel. You had a core of 15 or 16 players but to win championships you need a solid panel of about 20 players and we were a bit short on that front, but such was life.”

Corner-back could be a lonely position without the safety net of the blanket, especially in such an epochal time for Ulster football. It was all part of the challenge.

“I found myself marking people like James McCartan, Mickey Linden and Enda Gormley. It wasn’t always a lovely place to be, but you just had to cope the best you can.

“It was really about trying to survive one way or the other, there was no time to be watching the crowd or anything like that.

“There were days where you barely touched the ball or had any time on the ball, you were just trying to get a fist or a block to every ball, that was the lot of the corner-back.

“There was no breaking up the field. It was a real challenge, you were just trying the best you could. Even in games you were winning, it would be frowned upon if you were seen to be breaking up the field too much. The number one priority for any defender was staying back and keeping the forwards quiet, that was your job.”

Donegal reached the Promised Land in 1992, bringing Sam back to the Hills for the first time in the county’s history. It wasn’t an overnight success but at the same time, Down’s All-Ireland triumph the previous autumn surely acted as a springboard for the rest of the province.

Doherty said: “Looking back, Donegal won the Ulster Championship in 1983 and they were a really top side, they should have gone on to win the All-Ireland. They lost to Galway in a really poor semi-final, a game they should have won. That 1983 team had a great mix, they’d a number of experienced players and seven or eight of the team that won the All-Ireland U-21 in 1982. It was unfortunate they didn’t get the rub of the green.

“After we won that second All-Ireland U-21 title in 1987, a bit of belief definitely came into the county that we could compete with the best. Down winning the All-Ireland in 1991 definitely gave all the teams in Ulster a big lift and it really lifted our confidence. People were saying this is something that can happen.”

Under the watchful eye of Brian McEniff, Donegal emerged victorious from the Ulster bearpit in 1992, overcoming Derry in the final by two points. They accounted for Mayo in a forgettable All-Ireland semi-final clash and Doherty ended up making his first starting appearance of the campaign on All-Ireland final day against Dublin at the expense of the injured Shovlin.

“Poor Martin was struggling in the lead up to the game. It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to play, but in fairness to Brian, he gave him right up to the last minute to rule himself in or out.

“It was only on the morning of the match that the decision was made that he couldn’t play, so that meant there was an opportunity for someone else to come in. I suppose I was unique insofar as I’ll be remembered as the fella that wore number 24 in the final, that’s the only reason I’d be mentioned on table quizzes down the years.”

He had a job to do but at the same time felt pangs of sympathy for the unfortunate Shovlin.

“Martin and I have been good friends ever since, but it was a hard blow for him to take. It was the biggest day in the history of Donegal football and he’d been in and around Donegal squads for much longer than myself or any of the other subs that could have replaced him. It was a devastating blow but we had no time to feel sorry for ourselves, everyone’s focus stayed the same. If we’d allowed it to upset the squad in any way we wouldn’t have won.”

As it happened, Donegal upset the odds against Dublin and their expectant supporters by 0-18 to 0-14. After the game, RTÉ co-commentator Colm O’Rourke said: “Donegal were much the better team… they were an even better team than the scoreline suggested” and Doherty believes that Dublin got it all wrong from a tactical perspective.

“Dublin insisted on kicking high ball into Vinny Murphy and although he had a good match, it just became a wee bit too predictable. Charlie Redmond missed a penalty early on and I think that was a massive factor as well. We’d had a slow start and it gave us a chance to get into the game.

“There were no outstanding Donegal performances, everyone seems to have done okay but there was no stand-out performer on the day. It was a good team effort but Dublin didn’t really play on the day. There was a lot of hype attached to that Dublin set-up as well, which probably worked to their disadvantage.”

The county went buck-mad in the aftermath of their historic All-Ireland triumph but Doherty was grateful that the club championship put a halt to his own celebrations.

“It was fairly uncontrolled to be honest. We came back into Donegal Town on the Monday night which was brilliant, then on the Tuesday night we brought the cup all the way back to Glencolmcille and Kilcar. We ended up in Ardara which is Anthony Molloy’s hometown. On Wednesday we ended up in Ballybofey/Letterkenny direction.

“On Thursday a lot of the players got off the bandwagon as there were club championship games on the Sunday. I went back to train with my club and I was just glad to get back on the horse again at that stage.”

Intercounty football wasn’t yet the pseudo-professional beast it’s now become, but Doherty says that it needs to be judged by the standards of the day.

Recalling his work-sport balance, he said: “A good friend of mine PJ McGinley bought a pub in Carrick at the time and I was in managing that. I was young and had an awful lot of time to train and prepare properly. People say you can’t really work in business and be a high-level Gaelic footballer but I don’t really agree with that, because if you organise your time properly, then you have a lot of time to get good preparation done.

“You also have to judge everything by the standards of the time. We felt we did things as well as we possibly could have done. The culture in the county was that you had to work, and if you missed work because of football it would have been very much frowned upon, even among football people.

“If you’re a county player these days, you’re nearly expected to have your time off to prepare and get your training camps in. It was different in my day, football was obviously very important to the players but to your employer, it mightn’t have been seen as a big deal.”

Donegal’s attempt at defending their All-Ireland crown came to an end against Derry in the 1993 Ulster final, a game infamous for the state of the pitch after endless showers in Clones.

Doherty had an excellent year on a personal level, however, and caught the eye for his performances in their National League final saga against Dublin, which Donegal lost after a replay. By year’s end, he’d pocketed an All-Star.

“1993 was a funny year for me. Having missed nearly the entirety of the year before, I felt I’d great energy and was very keen to play a lot. I played well in the Ulster final and in the National League final, we lost both times but they were Donegal’s most prominent games that year.

“I didn’t think we’d done enough that year to get an All-Star but we got one anyway and I was lucky enough to be the man to get it. I think Derry got seven or eight, I remember well the night in the Burlington Hotel, I was in with all the Derry men and it was enjoyable.”

Donegal’s golden generation drifted away in the mid-to-late nineties and Doherty himself hung up the boots following the 1998 season, a year where he had the honour of captaining the side.

“We lost the 1998 Ulster final and that turned out to be my last championship match and my last day in Clones. I was probably going to go again in 1999 but I’d a bad thigh injury at training one night and I lost my ability to train to any kind of standard at all.

“That’s how my career finished up but at the same time I was 30 or 31 at that stage. When you were playing in defence and lost your speed, that was basically it. You hear of defenders these days playing until they’re 35 or 36 but I think it’s the help around them that allows them to continue to that age.”

Doherty spent two years in charge of the Donegal senior footballers in 2009 and 2010, a stint most associate with their disappointing first-round qualifier defeat to Armagh in 2010.

Donegal football was at a low ebb before Jim McGuinness came on board and sparked it into life, but Doherty has no regrets about his time at the helm and hopes that he played his own part in their subsequent rejuvenation.

“This was pre-Donegal winning the All-Ireland 2012 and looking back on it, it was nice to work with those players.

“My one regret is, that if you look at Donegal in that era, including my own playing days, we just weren’t fit enough.

“That’s the big difference Jim made when he came in. Before he came along, Donegal were known as maybe not being as dedicated as the likes of Tyrone and Armagh, and we didn’t have that reputation for no reason.

“I think we unearthed some good young players, Mark McHugh, Leo McLoone and Paddy McGrath came into the panel at that time, so I take a bit of satisfaction with that. We all know how talented they were.

“The pity is that we didn’t train hard enough, if we’d trained really hard like the Tyrones of this world, we’d definitely have been able to compete.

“It didn’t work out on that front but at the same time, I enjoyed my time in the Donegal set-up. I wouldn’t be able to do it now, my children were very young at the time and it was just a wee window of opportunity that I’m glad I took.”

As for whether Donegal can get their hands on a third All-Ireland title in the next few years, Doherty believes they’re not far away.

“Nothing happened this year to suggest they’re not very close. I’m sure they felt they left it behind them against Galway, that game was there for them and could’ve gone either way.

“Donegal will definitely take heart from this year though every season brings it’s own challenges.

“I think Jim will need to strengthen his panel, we were probably a bit short of players to come on, especially when you see the impact Armagh’s subs bench was making in big matches.

“That’s something I’m sure Jim will be working on and there’s certainly the backbone of a very good team there.”