Kevin Cassidy: My Donegal managers – 3) Brian McIver

THINGS couldn’t have started off much worse for Brian and myself.

Brian had just been announced as the new Donegal manager and a week or so later Tyrone won their second All-Ireland title.

On the Monday of the homecoming, the two McGees and myself decided to take a run up to Omagh for a few pints. The party was in full swing as our lift for home was about to depart so Eamon and I decided that we would stay on.

The next morning as we gathered ourselves together for day two, we came up with a plan. The plan was to visit the hometown of every player on the Tyrone team and have a beer there.

We started out in Dromore with our good friend Aidy O’Kane and after that we headed for Cookstown. Several pints and several towns later, one of us suggested we should head for Ballinderry and meet up with our new manager.

Thankfully we never met Brian that day but I’d safely say that word got back to him that we were in and out of bars looking for him so. I’d guess our cards were marked early doors.

Brian brought a new level of professionalism with him; he also brought Ryan Porter with him as trainer and that was a real game-changer. Strength and conditioning became a huge part of our set-up with lads pumping iron three or four times a week.

Brian always talked about getting us to the top table and he knew what other teams were doing in relation to training methods, etc so he implemented a whole new way of doing things.

We as a team were now hungry for success so we soaked up as much of this as we could. Donegal teams of the past neglected S&C and just didn’t do tactics but Brian soon changed that.

After that episode I was pulled aside and told that if I wanted to be part of his plans I had to agree that I wouldn’t drink for the rest of the season. I agreed and we battered away with our training and development.

We traveled to play London in a league game and all the team were heading out for a few beers after the match so naturally I thought I’d be going too, but one of the selectors pulled me aside. He said, “listen Kevin, Brian doesn’t want you drinking as you have an agreement.” As the lads hit the town I headed for my bedroom with a large Doner kebab under my arm.

To say I was a little pissed off at him would be an understatement. From that point there was always going to be an issue.

During those few early rounds of the league and even over in London, Brian kept me on the bench. I think he was trying to make a statement that he would happily plough on without me.

After the London trip I pulled one of our selectors aside and said, “you can tell him I don’t know what he thinks he is playing at, but I won’t be sitting on this bench for much longer.”

I was flying in training and in serious shape so in my eyes he was only trying to make a point by not playing me. Long story short, he played me the next day and we went on a run. That was 2006 and I can safely say that I was in the form of my life that year.

I was destroying all around me for club and I had bought into Brian’s training regime big time. I was training six times a week and I felt untouchable on the pitch.

We played Westmeath in the semi-final of the league and I kicked four points from play from wing-back. The next day I lined out for my club at midfield and kicked five from play. I really was on fire.

Now since I have started I have always had this tradition – and even to this day I stick by it. Early season I train and may have a few beers here and there and also the odd takeaway or junk food, but Easter Monday was my cut off point and I would knuckle down after that.

That club game was on Easter Monday so after the game Eamon and I went out with our clubmates for a few beers. When I turned up to training on the Tuesday I could sense something wasn’t right.

Brian called Eamon and I aside and said that he had heard we had a few beers and that we had broken the promise and that he had no choice but to let us go. We traveled home and that was that.

The lads played the league final the following Sunday and lost. At that time I was siting my final year exams at college and naturally once the word went out the phone calls started to come from America.

After a few weeks Brian contacted me asking if I wanted to come back in but I declined as, to be honest, I was a little pissed off at how I had been treated all year.

I think that management team heard of all the stories and wanted to lay down a marker and they saw me as the perfect scapegoat. I headed for America and that was the end of 2006 for me.

Looking back now, that should have been handled a lot better and it definitely hurt the team as I was in the form of my life and could have helped the team perhaps get over the line in that Ulster final or even the All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork where we lost out by a point.

When I returned after the summer we went on to win the championship with the club and I played like my life depended on it as I had a point to prove.

After the championship my phone rang and it was Brian asking me to join back up with the squad for the 2007 season. We had a great discussion on the phone and we both said what we needed to say and we parked it and moved on. After that I actually went on to have a very good relationship with Brian, he now understood me and he understood how my mind worked.

When he first came in he had this perception of me but after working with me he soon realised that I trained and prepared extremely well.

We won the National League in 2007 and Brian had taken us to the top table. We put so much into that league campaign that come summer we were flat and just couldn’t get up to the levels required.

Brian always used to say that before you win any Ulster titles you have to be winning leagues and to be constantly, “dining at the top table.”

Donegal had now gone there and belief was starting to grow within the panel. As a squad we were becoming fitter and stronger and Ryan Porter was working his magic on the training pitch.

In 2008 Brian asked me to captain the team, which was a great honour for me and I will always be thankful to him for that.

That swing of events going from dropping a player for supposedly being ill-disciplined to asking that same player to captain your team taught me a valuable lesson in life. Before I make any decisions on anyone I give that person time to show me what they are all about, I never listen to hearsay nor indeed have I any interest in rumours.

At the end of 2008 Brian was to be ratified again as manager and the whole squad was delighted with that, but at a county board meeting he was ambushed and he walked away from Donegal football. I was disgusted at how he was treated and I made my feelings known to those responsible for it. I felt we were going places under Brian and it was a real shame he didn’t get to see out his term.

I learned an awful lot about myself during Brian’s time both on and off the pitch. Brian’s coaching and football knowledge was excellent and I became a better player because of that. Donegal now trained at the levels that the likes of Tyrone and Armagh trained at, and Donegal football will be forever indebted to Brian for bringing that professionalism to this county.

I must also give a special mention to big Adrian McGuickin who was part of Brian’s backroom team. Adrian helped me so much in my personal life away from football.

At that point in my life I could easily taken the wrong turn but Adrian’s one-to-one chats with me ensured that this never happened and I will be forever great full to the big Ballinderry man for that.

Brian McIver and his management team definitely sowed the seeds for success within each and every Donegal player on that panel and we would feel the rewards in years to come.

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