In Focus – Ronan Gallagher recalls the agony and ecstacy of his Fermanagh career

Ronan Gallagher’s playing career has been an eventful one; from memorable championship runs with Fermanagh, winning an All-Ireland Club Championship title with St Gall’s in 2010, falling out with Charlie Mulgrew and co. and the searing disappointment of losing the Ulster Championship final with the Erne county in 2008 (something he admits he still thinks about every day of his life).

We caught up with the former Erne county goalkeeper this week, and there’s a lot of ground to cover, so best get cracking then…

What’s your earliest memories of playing? I suppose you grew up knocking around with Rory and Raymond?

I just remember being out in the garden playing football with the family and going down to my local club (Erne Gaels, Belleek) and playing away. I suppose my earliest memory is going to an u-12 final that my cousin Raymond was playing in. He was the star player. For myself personally u-12 training was probably the start of things.

Were you always destined to be a goalkeeper from a young age?

I was the youngest and tallest so I ended up in goals. I enjoyed playing out the field but I could never run fast enough! When I went to St Gall’s, Paddy Murray was in nets so I played a wee bit outfield for them. I realised it wasn’t going to work out when I started an Ulster Club match against Carrickmore in midfield. I was assigned to mark Conor Gormley and I was taken off after about 11 minutes. Funny enough, I actually started the replay at full-forward and we won that match, but the following year I played in goals all the time. I wasn’t a very good goalkeeper either by the way – but my catching and kicking allowed me to get away with it.

Am I right in saying you were brought into the Fermanagh senior panel when you were still only 17?

That’s right – Pat King, who unfortunately died a few years ago, he was an absolute gentleman, and him, Gerry McElroy and JJ Treacy brought me in. I remember training with them on the night of my 18th birthday. I was understudy to Cormac McAdam for two years, and then I went to Australia for a year when I was 20 and came back in under John Maughan in 2001. Fermanagh had a really solid team at that time – Paul and Tom Brewster, Mattie McGuinness, Raymond Johnston, Collie Curran, Shane King. The year I was in Australia we beat Donegal which was huge for us. My debut when I came back was against Donegal as well – I think it was Marty McGrath and Ryan McCluskey’s first game as well. We played them three times that year – we drew in Ballybofey, beat them in the replay with a brilliant Mark O’Donnell goal in the last minute, and then we got them in the Qualifiers and that beat us, it was the first year of the backdoor.

Shane McDermott told me in an interview last year that the players were basically flogged by John Maughan when he was manager.

There was a pretty infamous training session after we lost to Monaghan, but I have to admit, I absolutely loved playing under John. He had a great reputation at that time – he’d taken Clare to the Munster title in 1992, he’d brought Mayo to a couple of All-Ireland finals, and I thought the regime was really excellent and I was disappointed they didn’t stay on for a second year.

I had fallen out with John at one stage over a broken finger – I was playing with Jordanstown at the time and I remember having four or five weeks where it was just constant between training and matches. I told John I was lethargic and tired, but he told me I was going to have to train anyway and in the drill I hurt my finger. He called everyone in and said ‘what’s wrong with you?’ and I was cheeky enough and told him ‘how should I know, I’m not a doctor’. I went down to the Erne, and luckily enough I had broken it, so he accepted that. But I’d great time for John, and Dominic Corrigan was involved as well so it was a solid set-up.

It was a strange era for Ulster football – coming after the success of the early ‘90s and before Armagh and Tyrone started winning All-Irelands.

Tyrone won the Ulster Championship in 2001 and Monaghan were okay at that time as well, they beat us in the championship and played really well. Donegal were okay too but I remember there was a big push in Fermanagh. I’m not sure if Club Eirne had been formed at that time but it was around the start of it anyway. We’d also won a McKenna Cup in 1997 and while it mightn’t sound like much, it started a wee bit of momentum. The likes of myself, Kieran Donnelly and Raymond Johnston had won the Sigerson with Jordanstown, and Tom Brew’ and Liam McBarron had won it with Queen’s so the potential was there.

In saying that you had a really bad day out against Kerry in a Qualifier clash in 2002.

Dominic was in charge at that time. He’d a bit of success with St Michael’s and he brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to things. It was a really enjoyable year, I got injured before the quarter-final of the Ulster Championship, I hurt my ankle, and then I played in the semi-final against Armagh and they completely hockeyed us. We regrouped in the backdoor, beat Westmeath and ended up having to play Kerry, and they completely obliterated us. It was the ‘Gooch’s’ (Colm Cooper) first year – I remember Liam Hassett scored an early goal and I thought I should’ve been out a bit sooner. Then the ‘Gooch’ got it, and I raced out, and he lobbed me. It didn’t happen too often in fairness, Canavan half-lobbed me one year as well, but it usually only happened in training with the likes of CJ McGourty.

Goalkeeping’s changed so much these days, what was the coaching like back then? Was it fairly basic?

The likes of Brendan Tourish and Cormac McAdam, before he had a bad accident, helped out at that time. The great thing about Dominic being manager is that he always got the best backroom team he could get, and he brought in Paul O’Dowd in 2003. He was Cavan’s goalkeeper in 1997 and I learnt so much from him. I coach the Fermanagh goalkeepers these days and I still do things that I learnt from Paul. He was an outstanding goalkeeper for a start and an outstanding coach as well.

At the time, kick-outs weren’t such a big thing, but in saying that John Maughan was very much about keeping possession. I’ve two abiding memories – I was training in Ballybofey and we were trying to work it short to the wings and big Paul Brew’ was going mad that it wasn’t going down the middle. When Galway won the All-Ireland in 1998, their goalkeeper Martin McNamara chipped a lot of balls down the wings and I think John probably learnt from that. I remember the time we beat Donegal in a replay in my debut season, we were a point or two up and Barry Owens was marking Jim McGuinness. Barry had only started and Jim was near the end of his career. I was thinking ‘right, just kick this ball out’ and the next thing John was behind the goals screaming ‘it has to be short, it has to be short!” Barry ran out to the wing and secured possession so I was lucky enough. I was lucky to be coached by Paul O’Dowd, his positional sense and attention to detail was like nothing I’ve ever seen, and like nothing I’ve seen since. On top of that, my kicking off the ground wasn’t tarra and maybe it was easy to go for the wings than to go for distance.

Fermanagh went on a good run in 2003 but obviously things went belly up against Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

We were hammered by Tyrone both in the league and championship. I remember Dom sourced Martin McElkennon and they had a really good relationship. We had Brendan Hackett in as well doing a bit of psychology work and he was excellent. I think he was managing Ballymun last year and they won the Dublin Championship, so it was a really good set-up.

We didn’t do well in the first couple of league games but then we went onto either win or draw the next five games. We beat Mayo in Charlestown to make the league semi-finals which was massive for us at the time. Then we got hockeyed by Tyrone. We bounced back and went on a great run in the championship – everyone remembers ’04 but we had a great year. We beat Donegal in the championship, then we lost to Down even though we were in control of the game. Gregory McCartan scored a penalty that just slipped under me. We regrouped and beat Cavan, Meath and Mayo. That was a phenomenal day against Mayo in the teeming rain on a Saturday evening. At that thing it was a big deal to get to the All-Ireland quarter-finals and there was a sense that the backdoor could really help smaller teams.

We played out of own skins that day against Mayo, Ciaran O’Reilly kicked some unbelievable frees. People talk about defensive football now but I remember one distinct passage of play where we defended and defended and turned the ball over. That year is sometimes forgotten about but it was a great run.

Yes, we were obliterated by Tyrone but they were unbelievable at that time, the movement and creativity of the likes of Canavan, McGuigan and Mulligan and the energy brought by Sean Cavanagh in the middle, they were all at the top of their game. I played with a good few of them at Jordanstown, I saw a picture recently of that team that won the Sigerson in 2001 and I don’t think Enda McGinley even started on it.

What’s it like being a goalie in matches like that? I imagine it’s a fairly lonely experience.

The funny thing about it is that there’s usually a lot of shots so you might make a few saves or have a few good kick-outs and people think you played well. We still came away thinking you know what, we’ve made progress. People might laugh at that given we were obliterated by Tyrone, but getting promoted was great, and the county board, to be fair, were just unreal at the time. We even went to Lanzarote for a training camp, training twice a day, so full credit to Dom for pushing that. I suppose it was in vogue after Armagh went to La Manga the year before. We didn’t think if we do this, we’ll win x, y or z, but we thought it was an opportunity to take things to another level and I remember going into Ulster feeling so confident that year, the preparation had been that good.

You must’ve been pretty disappointed that Dominic quit at the end of the 2003.

Ach I was, I was disappointed that him and Martin didn’t continue. At that stage we were already doing strength and conditioning prep, the Belfast boys were doing it in a gym in Finaghy with Paul Murphy, and then we got word one day before Christmas that things hadn’t worked. That was a big shame as we felt things were going well. I’ve no idea what went on behind the scenes but obviously Dominic for whatever reason didn’t feel he could continue. I think he said at the time that he’d love to manage Fermanagh again, and you never know, maybe he’ll be back at some point in the future.

Charlie Mulgrew came in, led the team to the All-Ireland semi-final, but you fell out with the management and didn’t really play a big part.

To be honest, I burnt my bridges with the new management team right nearly from the off. I didn’t like the set-up, I thought it was really poor, and there were a few others who felt the same and they had the guts to leave the panel and we didn’t. We didn’t have a pile of ’keepers hanging about, Dermot Feely had got injured and I played the league matches. I remember going down to Kerry and half the management team didn’t even go to the match – genuinely, two of the four didn’t even go. I thought it was pathetic and we were hockeyed.

Training was dire in my view and I got a proposed suspension for giving a mouthful to the chairman at the time. I didn’t get suspended in the end up. I have no regrets about it but I suppose a lot of the players probably saw me as being too negative and that’s fine. We’d a team meeting before the Kerry game where I was very straight up about how it was going, but you have to say we actually played quite well in the league and stayed up.

At the same time it was an unbelievable year for Fermanagh.

That’s the way it went, the set-up didn’t work for me at all but it suited a lot of players and you have to say they were incredible during the summer.

I dislocated my shoulder a fortnight before the championship, and Dermot Feely was injured, and I remember Charlie saying to me ‘what do you think?’ I suggested Niall Tinney, he was our u-21 keeper and was really good. The funny thing was, they brought in Sean Boyle, he was a really solid club ’keeper with Roslea, and he ended up injured as well, so they Niall was brought in a week or so before the championship and he had such a brilliant year. He won Young Footballer of the Year but I really feel he should’ve got an All-Star. I suppose Marty and Barry were nailed on, and we had lots of other great players that year so maybe three All-Stars would’ve been a push.

Look, I have no regrets, but from a personal point of view not only did I burn my bridges with the management but my relationship with the players wasn’t as good as it should have been.

Then when the success comes, it looks like you’re in the wrong, but it’s not always as simple as that. I’d a notion about how things should be done and that’s life. While 2004 was great for the supporters and the vast majority of players who played some brilliant stuff and were the story of the summer, on a personal level I’m completely detached from it – it means nothing to me. Even at the time, I was in the squad but deep down I knew I didn’t belong there or really want to be there. Some can say that’s selfish and so be it, but that’s the way it was for me and the only regret I have is that I didn’t walk away from the panel, but we were so stretched for ’keepers I felt I had to hang in.

It was still unbelievable for the county and will rightly be remembered, and the players on the field were phenomenal – James Sherry, Peter Sherry, Stephen Maguire, Liam McBarron, Mark Little, Eamon Maguire, Niall Bogue…the whole lot of them. Eighteen or 19 players were used regularly and you couldn’t say one of them underperformed. Colm Bradley’s point to win the game against Meath was unbelievable, Barry Owens and Eamon and Mark were unreal against Cork, and the Armagh game obviously. A good friend of mine from Belleek, Darren McGrath, came on as a sub and I remember for a crucial ball he threw Paul McGrane, went out of the way and won it.

Your days were numbered and you weren’t on the panel for the remaining three years of Mulgrew’s tenure, though you did play in an All-Ireland final for St Gall’s in 2006.

I went off the radar in 2004 but I was still was sub-keeper. Deep down I knew that Mulgrew was aware what I thought of him and the management team, but such is life. I’ve absolutely no regrets about anything I said and my biggest regret is not having the guts to pull out of the panel when others did have the guts. As it transpired he stayed on for another three years and it’s debatable how beneficial those years were Fermanagh. In fairness a lot of those boys have great time for Charlie. Some of them have time for Charlie and some have no time for me and that’s life.

I was dropped for the rest of Mulgrew’s tenure and that hurts, but at the same time I was enjoying playing for St Gall’s – I was in college in Belfast and was friendly with Kieran McGourty, and a fella from Belleek had moved to St Gall’s and that’s how I ended up there. We reached the All-Ireland Club final in 2006. Paddy Murray was our starting goalkeeping and I was an outfield sub, but I thought I’d been going well in training and could’ve been starting as the year went on. As things happened, Paddy got injured in the famous roof tiling incident – where a roof tile fell on his foot a few days before the final, so I started in nets. It was so disappointing for Paddy, he was a stalwart for the Gall’s who was there through thick and thin. I remember having a good chat with him a few days before the final, we had a good relationship.

We lost the final by a point, it was the coldest day ever to play football at Croke Park, it was absolutely baltic. Aodhan Gallagher had a goal disallowed for a square ball but that Salthill team was good in fairness.

Collectively we made a massive error of judgement on the day of the All-Ireland final in that we only togged out 24 players. I don’t know ultimately who made the decision but on the morning of the match eight or 10 men who had soldiered with us in the trenches through thick and thin, like Barry Niblock, Conor McClean, Gerry McCarren and Matt O’Hagan were told they weren’t allowed to tog out and go to Croke Park with the team. That was completely abhorrent. We should have broken the rules and paid whatever fine came our way. Salthill togged out 34. On the day your only focus is playing and the rest is just noise but it’s a deep regret of mine that I didn’t speak up and try to make that right for those men. Some of those lads had earned the right to tog out and represent their club on the biggest of days much more than me.

You came back into the Fermanagh team under Malachy O’Rourke in 2008, what’d you make of him?

I absolutely loved the environment and training when Malachy was there. I wouldn’t say I had to mend relationships with players, but I was very bitter that very few of them had contacted me when I was away. It just shows when you’re not there you’re very quickly forgotten about.

The entire set-up was brilliant, we played some great football and got promoted. Ciaran Shannon was in, as performance coach and brought a real good mental approach and Peter Leonard was great as well. We’d three goalkeepers and we played two games each in the league and it was Fergal Murphy’s turn to play in the league final.

Obviously things went well in the championship. We beat Monaghan, they’d been really good in 2007 and maybe people thought we caught them unawares but we out-fought them on the day. There’s a really good pic out there of a midfield battle where Mark Murphy, Ciaran McElroy and Marty McGrath were going for the ball. Then there was the memorable semi-final against Derry, I’ve said this before, we just sensed we were going to get over the line that day. Barry had obviously been through a horrible time and he came on and got the winning goal and it was sheer euphoria really.

You don’t need to remind me that you probably would’ve beaten Armagh in the drawn Ulster final if the shooting had been better.

To get so close to winning an Ulster title, it’s something that breaks my heart every day of my life, I can’t say it any clearer than that. It breaks my heart every day and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. I live in Armagh and my children support Armagh so that doesn’t help the bloody thing. I suppose it was the last kick from that Armagh team, they were competitive enough for a couple of years after that but Ronan Clarke had a torrid time with injuries and they seemed to be going through a transition. 2009 was more disappointing for Fermanagh in a way, we didn’t live up to the expectations that Malachy set. We let the entire management and county down, we might’ve had a hangover from the previous years but we should’ve used that in a positive way, but we didn’t do and it led to consecutive relegations and we ended up in Division Four.

Were people in Belleek happy enough with you lining out for St Gall’s?

Ach I don’t know really, you’d have to ask them, but even when I left for St Gall’s I continued to help out in Belleek at underage level for a few years, any weekend I was down there. I always had ambitions of going back and playing with Belleek, but life moves on with work and children and all the rest, so it just wouldn’t have been feasible.

I was delighted when they had some great underage success in recent years and they got to a county final a couple of years back but were beaten by Derrygonnelly. I remember after beating Derry in the 2008 semi-final, going home as quickly as I could as it was my uncle Raymond’s anniversary mass. Everyone was generally very supportive of me in Belleek when I was playing for Fermanagh.

I should also mention that we won the Division One league in 1996 with a very good team, beating a strong Lisnaskea team in the final. That’s still one of my best memories of football because it was the first time in a long time Erne Gaels had any success at senior level. Over the next three to five years that team sort of fell apart which looking back is so disappointing because there was definitely a championship in us.

From what you said about the Ulster final, I’m guessing winning an All-Ireland with St Gall’s didn’t really make up for it?

It’s hard to compare. I mean I lost an All-Ireland final with St Gall’s and it really hurt me. But before you get over the line in a match like that, you nearly think it’ll change your life and that life will be complete but it’s nothing like that at all – you just didn’t see it that way for some reason. Obviously winning with St Gall’s was massive and it’s good to reflect on, there’s a Whatsapp group and around St Patrick’s Day you sometimes see it mentioned in the papers. I’ve a huge emotional connect to the club – it was great personally to get over the line but it to be honest I get as much joy for the stalwarts on that team, the likes of Sean Kelly, Ciaran and Colm Brady, Terry O’Neill, Kieran McGourty, Andy McClean and Sean Burns. Some of those fellas have 13 championship medals and they really deserved it.

There were other men as well who were helped create the culture for that team becoming successful like Mark McCrory, Ciaran McCrossan, Seanie Burns, Gary McGirr and Simon Kennedy. Some of them were in the squad in 2010 but those who weren’t were so important to the success.

It’s not exactly an easy medal to win – Sleacht Néill have been there or thereabouts but haven’t got over the line.

That St Gall’s team got to four Ulster finals, winning two and losing two, and two All-Ireland finals. In fairness any time we played Crossmaglen they beat us hands down – our 2007 match was in inverted commas, the ‘closest’ we ever got to them. They were phenomenal, especially the team that won All-Irelands in 2011 and 2012, they were so good and I loved watching them.

They were especially good at creating space and all the basics, and being treacherous too – there’s a lot of romance about Crossmaglen but anyone who thinks they wouldn’t kill you for a ball is absolutely wrong. Oisin McConville was top class, especially when you reflect on what he was probably going through at the time, the turmoil in his personal level, that he played at that high level was unbelievable.

I remember in 2008, people said he wasn’t playing well for Armagh – we didn’t believe it and I think he scored 1-5 in the final. Obviously you had big names like Oisin and the Kernans but you had other lads who didn’t get the headlines – the likes of Mickey McNamee, he was regularly taken off or didn’t start, but when he was on that field he won the ball out in front and gave everything. Martin Aherne was the same, Kyle Carragher, there wouldn’t have had the same success without lads like that.

When did you end up getting involved with (Armagh club) Madden?

It was a mix of things – I had two kids at the time and was moving on with my career. Chris Kerr was coming through the ranks in St Gall’s and I felt a responsibility to him as well as we were two solid enough county ’keepers and I didn’t wanna get in his way. I mightn’t have started anyway but I felt I should step aside and give him a clear run at it. I was still involved with Fermanagh and I was living in Fermanagh so the travelling wouldn’t have worked for anyone. I’ve moved to Madden and I couldn’t have picked a better club, I’m absolutely loving being involved with them.

I played for them for a couple of years, tipping about outfield and in goals and then I managed them for two years. I had two really good club men with me in Brendan Vallely and Kevin McElvanna. We made decent progress, we had a group of players who were keen to set about creating a culture in Madden, and some of those players are still playing away now. I stepped away from a couple of years, they were struggling for a goalkeeper so I came out of retirement! I ended up going back to St Gall’s for a bit as well as Chris Kerr did his cruciate so I came back and we got to a championship semi-final. I really loved that year.

I came back to Madden and helped the manager Mickey Grimley for the last year. They’re in a good place, their current u-19s won the U-16 A Championship three years ago and there’s certainly a lot of good quality about the place, but the main thing is that there’s a good culture. We beat Ballymacnab in the championship last year which was a big win for us and then lost to Pearse Ogs on penalties, so the lads can’t wait to get back it.

What’d you make of Peter Canavan when he was in charge? He didn’t stay long but the players all seem to rave about him.

Peter and his entire management team were brilliant. In the first year we got out of Division Four, we were beaten by Down in the championship and then we let a lead slip against Cavan in the Qualifiers, they got two or three goals. The second year I did my shoulder in and didn’t play, but we were five minutes away from back-to-back promotions. We were playing Meath and were a point or two down, then they saved a penalty, we had a man sent off and they got a goal all in the space of five minutes. It was really disappointing when Peter stepped aside as it was a top class set-up. Kieran Donnelly, Niall Smyth, Ger Treacy, Enda Kilpatrick and Lorcan Martin were in the backroom. It was top class and it’ll be interesting to see if Peter goes back into management -he’s an excellent manager.

You decided to call it a day when Pete McGrath came on board at the end of 2013, why was that?

I went to trials and leaving the house for the first training session, I said to my wife ‘I really don’t have the heart for this’ and she said ‘go and see how you get on’.

I went to the first training session which was a bit of a killing session with Raymond Johnston, and afterwards I told Pete my heart wasn’t in it. Every white line in the road heading to the match seemed like a mile. As any retired intercounty player will tell you, when your time’s up, it’s up and you can’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

I loved playing for Fermanagh, there were some really good memories and the night in Omagh when we beat Derry is the one that stands out for me, just the excitement and elation. How it felt when Barry Owens got the goal is something that will live with me forever. He was an unbelievable footballer, never said boo to anyone and had come through so much so it was just so memorable.

You’re still involved with Fermanagh as a goalkeeping coach…

This must be my fourth year now, I absolutely love it and it’s a really good challenge to prepare the boys as best you can. There’s a lot to goalkeeping now and a lot of pressure, but my mind still goes back to the basics I learned under Paul O’Dowd. I wasn’t very good at shot-stopping but I could catch and kick it reasonably well and I still think those traits are important. A big part of goalkeeping is being mentally prepared. I enjoy it but I always had an inkling for playing outfield as well, but I don’t mind being known foremost as a goalkeeper.