Joe Brolly: GER AND BÁN JOE

PAT Gilroy tells a story about Ger Brennan when he was starting his senior career with St Vincent’s.

They were playing Na Fianna. Ger, who was 18 or so, was centre back, marking Kieran McGeeney, who by then was an icon of the game, former player of the year and captain of the International Rules team.

Pat was midfield. “Kieran had a reputation of being a hard man. A proper hard man. Before the throw-in, I turned to see him lying flat on his back with Ger standing over him, snarling, ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’

“Once, after a club championship semi-final, the team was drinking in Kavanagh’s and I was sitting with Ger, who had been bating all round him during the game. I said to him, “Ger, you are the most religious, spiritual person I know. How do you reconcile your on field violence with your devout Catholic faith?’ He said, without batting an eye lid, “I go to confession every Saturday.”

By 2008, Ger and Pat were All-Ireland Club winning team-mates, and when Pat became Dublin manager the following year, he brought his charismatic centre back along.

After the humiliation of that first 2009 season (the year of the startled earwigs as Pat memorably called it), Gilroy decided to focus on promoting strong characters.

So, he started with the notorious six-week twice a day training program, pruning the excuse makers and discovering the Spartans.

“We trained them every morning at 5am on the Alfie Byrne all-weather pitch. It was a gutting session. My aim was to break them. To strip them bare and see what they were really made of.

“Fellas were vomiting. Fellas were crying off with a sore back or a tight hamstring. Ger was part of a core group along with Denis Bastick, Michael Darragh and Rory O’Carroll that could not be sickened.

“When I say I dogged them Joe, I dogged them. It got to the stage where I was trying to break those four. I got locked into a battle with them. It was a Mexican stand-off.

“It was torture and very probably illegal. It definitely couldn’t be found in any sports science manual. After every savage run, Ger would look at me as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got? Let’s go again.” He was central to forging that new mindset for Dublin that came from those sessions.

“We became mentally tougher than Kerry, who until then had never really been broken by anyone, save a few years here and there. The funny thing is that Ger told me years later he hated that running, but he embraced it because he sensed a new Dublin would emerge.”

Now, this extraordinary young man is Dublin senior manager and how could it be any other way? He will, as he has done with his life, give it his all.

Recently, the glamorous brunette and I had a great night with Ger and his wife Aisling. Nothing was said, but it was clear after a few jars that Ger was moving back, back to where the heart is.

Reeling in Kerry will be an enormous challenge, just as it was in 2011. Beating them will require men who scorn exhaustion. Men who are prepared to go to places most of us will never go. Men like Ger Brennan? Another Kerry-Dublin golden era beckons.

In 1993, during Ulster’s golden era, we beat All-Ireland champions Donegal on a flooded Clones pitch to win Ulster, slaloming through the water like jet skis.

Afterwards, when Bán Joe O’Neill ran onto the field to embrace me, it took me a moment to recognise my neighbour. He had lost his footing on the grassy hill, slid to the bottom and was covered in muck.

He said, “Dearest Joseph, might I apologise for my state of uncleanliness,” before hugging me. Photographer Mary K Burke captured the moment. Last week, Joe finally died, aged 79, having spent the first 18 years sober. He was a man in a bottle, a flamboyant genius who loved to drink, reminding me of the actor Anthony Hopkins’ line, “I’m happy I’m an alcoholic, it’s a great gift.”

When we won the All-Ireland that same year, we arrived in Dungiven on the Tuesday. The clubhouse was thronged. At around midnight, Joe, the owner of Joe’s Bar on the Main Street, led us down the street to his, as he put it, “modest west bank establishment.” When he reached the front door, he flung it open dramatically and said “ Gentlemen. Welcome to reality.” We were still there at noon on the Wednesday.

One night about a decade ago, before the dawn of Slaughtneil’s hurling Reich, the Kevin Lynch’s had won the Derry Senior Hurling Championship and repaired to Joe’s.

They ran out of coal in the pub, so in the small hours of Monday morning the boys opened their kit bags and threw their gear on the fire.

Joe was not a man constrained by parliamentary statutes. However, his refined sensibilities were not shared by the authorities. And so, as was inevitable, it all came to an end one fateful morning in Limavady Magistrate’s Court, recorded for posterity in the Limavady Sentinel court reports.

Prosecutor: Officer, can you tell His Worship where you went on the morning of the 7th?

Police man: I went with a colleague to Joe’s Bar on the Main Street in Dungiven.

Prosecutor: Why did you go there?

Police man: There had been a hurling match the previous day and we had reason to believe there may be unlawful drinking going on.

Prosecutor: At what time did you enter the premises?

Police man: Can I consult my notes Your Worship?

Judge: Did you make them at the time?

Police man: I did Your Worship.

Judge: Yes, you may.

Police man: We entered the establishment by the rear door, which was open, at half past seven in the morning.

Prosecutor: Can you describe what happened?

Police man: There were approximately 40 people in the lounge Your Worship. As we entered, I saw a gentleman sitting alone at a table close to the door, who appeared to be drinking a pint of Guinness.

Prosecutor: Did you say anything to the gentleman in question?

Police man: I did. I asked him “ What are you drinking sir?”

Prosecutor: And did he reply?

Police: He did Your Worship (consults notebook). He said “Thanks a million boys, but I’m happy enough on my own. You work away yourselves.”

At his funeral in Dungiven chapel last Wednesday, Mary K’s framed photo of the two of us was on the coffin. After the formalities, the priest said that it was Joe’s last wish that everyone who knew and loved him would raise a glass in his honour at 3 o’clock that day, which brought a ripple of laughter. As he was carried out for the last time, Elvis sang “Danny Boy” and the congregation sang along. Joe would have loved that.