Joe Brolly – 1997 was special but Corofin loss hurt and did for a long time

RONAN Scott from Gaelic Life called me earlier this week to talk about
Dungiven’s 1997 success. It sparked glorious memories.

In ‘97, before the first round of the senior championship against
Glenullin, we were sitting in the changing room.

The year before we had been beaten in the final by Bellaghy, and I had
performed poorly.

Now Glenullin had a very good team. They had plenty of good players,
but we would be expected to beat them. But we drew with them in a
ferociously fought game.

So then we had a replay. Before the replay, Geoffrey McNicholl arrived
into the changing room. He was from Glenullin, all his relations were
Glenullin, but he was a pure Dungiven man.

Eugene Kelly was the player-manager, and was very young manager at
that. So Geoffrey arrives in. Now Geoffrey is a big man. He was a big
intimidating man.

So after Eugene had given his team talk, Geoffrey said: ‘I want to say
something.

‘There’s one f***ing man sitting over there grinning,’ he says.
‘And he let us down a bagful last year, and youse all know who I am
talking about.’

Now I could feel myself getting red.

‘Ah, big man playing for the f***ing county with his All-stars,’ he
says.

So he gets up into my face, and he’s a big intimidating man. He says:
‘Well you can f*** your All-stars, and get out and do something for
your club.’

You could have heard a pin drop at that point. I thought at one stage
he was going to whack me.

So then we went out and beat Glenullin.

That was also the year that we finished off a great Lavey team.
We should have beat them the first day, as we were dominant, but Lavey
dogged it out as they were very good at. Don’t forget that they had
won an All-Ireland Club title and two Ulster Senior titles. They were
a very difficult team to beat.

We played them in a replay (in the semi-final) and I ran riot that
day. There was a huge crowd, and there was a feeling that that was the
county final and it was do-or-die.

The team played very well, and it was a case that it was time to put
this Lavey thing to bed. That’s what happened.

With maybe five minutes to go, it was becoming party time. There were
cheers at everything we did.

Now John Brennan was part of the management team of Lavey. I was put
through, and I did something fancy and put the ball over the bar. The
Dungiven crowd were cheering, and I blew them a few kisses. And just
as I was in the middle of the blowing kisses I got hit in the ear. It
was the first time in my life that I ever saw stars.

I went down on one knee, and there was John Brennan with Seamus Downey
pulling him back. There was a huge roar, and great amusement at this.

We really walloped them that day, and we played champagne football.
That brought us into the county final. We were playing Castledawson
who were young and talented. But it was never a game. I think I maybe
scored 1-6, and set up Geoffrey for a goal at the end.

Myself and Kieran McKeever, we were the veterans of the team. I had
won my first title in 1987, and another in 1991. Then there was a gap
to 1997.

After that county final, myself and Kieran McKeever we went to the
Rising Sun in Greysteele. Everyone else was on a flotilla back to the
club but we went to the Rising Sun.

It was the first time that we had been there since the terrible
murders in 1993. Those murders happened in October 1993 not long after
the All-Ireland final, when those eight people, of all religion, ages
and sexes, were slaughtered. We decided that we would go there and pay
our respects.

It was such a beautiful hour, just the two of us. We sat in more or
less silence having a pint or two. That was special because the two of
us had soldiered together from when we were u-12. It was very special
for the both of us. We had a strong, deep bond.

The next thing that I remember was that Eugene Kelly asked me to get
Seamus Downey in to tell us what we needed to do to win Ulster. Lavey
were our arch-enemies but I would have been friendly with Seamus, and
Kieran would have been friendly with Seamus, because through the
county Eamonn had cured a whole lot of those divisions. He had taken
the real poison out of it. So Seamus came to us, and he is a great
reader of the game, he said ‘look, boys you have got the hard work
done, winning Derry is the hard part, winning Ulster is easy.’

We played Newtownbutler in the quarter-finals, and I was flying.
Then we played a very good St Paul’s, Belfast team in the semi-final.
They had a number of different markers on me including Anto Finnegan,
who remains a close friend. I ran riot that day.

The same day we beat St Paul’s we saw a bit of Errigal Ciaran. They
had Eoin Gormley at full-forward and he absolutely took Francie Bellew
to the cleaners. Obviously they had Peter Canavan as well. They came
to play us in the Ulster final, and all I can remember is that we
weren’t the slightest bit concerned about them because they were
small. We had McGilligan at midfield, and we had Kieran McKeever to
mark Peter Canavan.

Emmett McKeever went on Eoin Gormley and mentally overwhelmed him.
Kieran went on Peter Canavan. I think Peter said once that his
misfortune was to be born at the same time as Kieran McKeever. That
was our best team performance, but I got injured. I tore ligaments in
my ankle but I never fully recovered.

We played the All-Ireland semi-final, and I was back, but Saoirse
McGonagle got sent off early on. Then Corofin did something that I
don’t think anyone had ever seen before. They double-marked me. Nobody
had ever seen that. We certainly hadn’t seen that. I was held to four
points, but that wasn’t enough.

That was the beginning of Corofin. They absolutely walked the final
and I can remember watching it on the TV. I had to turn it off because
I could only think about the damage that we could have done at Croke
Park. Not winning that game stayed with me for a long time.
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