Kevin Madden looks back on his footballing highs and lows

24 years ago, in March 1996, a teenage Kevin Madden travelled into school scared of what would happen.

The St Mary’s Magherafelt pupil had taken part in the dramatic MacRory Cup final against St Patrick’s Maghera, in which he had been sent off.

The South Derry derby was a seismic game in the history of Derry football. Maghera the kingpins with a history of victories, Magherafelt were the underdogs. But the game took a turn when Madden reacted badly during a challenge, lashed out, and was sent off.

The controversy continued when a punch up broke out in the final moments, and that brawl earned a place on the news bulletins.

So Madden’s journey to school was tinged with dread, as he expected a dressing down from Henry Downey, the coach and Derry legend.

But Madden got more than a telling off. He got a lesson in man management that would stay with him for the rest of his career.

Madden said, of that day after the MacRory Cup: “At that stage, I thought he was going to go through me. I was ready, for me his word was gold. I idolised him.

“This was the best five minute conversation I would ever have in my life.

“He said, ‘What you did yesterday, I am not saying you cost us the game, but what you did decided that we were no longer going to win that game. You made your mind up to end that as a contest’.

“He was right. He knew that my mentality was never in question. He knew that I would take on the challenge and he would get a game out of me, but there were question marks over my temperament.

“When he said that I felt a sense of relief. I knew it, but I needed to hear it.”

It was the Damascene moment in Madden’s career.

“Then he said another thing. ‘Brother Ennis is just off the phone. And you have been stripped of your colleges All-Star’. To me that was a release as well. In those days if you got sent off you couldn’t get an All-Star but it was unusual for anyone to get sent off in a final.”

What Madden needed at that point was the truth. He needed someone to tell him what was wrong with him as a player, and then he could take that information and change his approach.

You see, Madden is a player who understands his limitations, but he learned from an early age that hard work and dedication could bring great rewards.

“I always had a competitive nature. If I am passionate about something I want to do it to the best of my ability.

“You can have all the skill in the world, but when the heat is on, your temperament is what you live and die by.”

He says that his life experiences taught him his competitive nature. And the earliest of those came at club and school level.

“From no age I loved playing football. I was out morning, noon and night playing, trying to kick off both sides. With any young player you love the game, you are going to work hard at it.

“It was a big passion from the word go.”

His brother wasn’t into football. So Madden competed with friends at the club, and at school.

“I remember our club u-12 team was talented but small.

“If you are small you won’t expect to win many matches. We lost most matches in the south west league by 20 points plus.

“I can remember playing a game against Cargin and I was playing midfield. Our goalkeeper was very good but he couldn’t kick out the ball. In those days you had to kick the ball out from the ground. I had to go back into goals and kick the ball out, then rush back out to midfield where I should have been receiving the ball.”

At u-12s the Sean Stinson’s team, which was an amalgamation of Portglenone and Ahoghill, didn’t win any games. Four years the club won their first minor championship. They would win three more championships after that.

“If ever there was a story of perseverance this was it. It shows that whatever happens at 11 or 12 will not define you.”

The year they won their first minor championship the men’s team were division three. By 2000 Portglenone would be a division one team. Ahoghill did not progress as well, but Madden and Portglenone reaped the rewards that were set in motion at Sean Stinson’s.

“We had some really good coaches. We were beat in the minor final in 1993, then won it in 1995. That confidence and momentum grew.”

The reason for the success of that Sean Stinson minor team came partly because they had stuck together as a group since u-12. Madden also felt that schools football played its part.

“What helped my development was going to a Derry school and playing MacLarnon Cup football and then MacRory Cup.”

The lesson he learnt was that he had to fight for his place.

“For an Antrim footballer coming to Derry you were the poor relation. You had to earn your respect, and I thrived on that. It was like they were saying ‘You are from Antrim, you can’t be that good’.”

That experience would set Madden up for the future, and when he became a county player he savoured the day against Derry, as it was a chance to prove that Antrim could compete against their neighbours.

But after progressing at club level, and thanks to his determination he came to the notice of the schools coaches.

“Come fifth year I got called onto the MacLarnon Cup panel.”

They won that competition that year and then went on to win the All-Ireland B competition.

The change in the school’s fortunes coincided with a change in management.

When Madden was about fourth year, Henry Downey, the legendary Derry player came into the school, and started coaching the teams along with Harry Shivers.

“They formed a formidable coaching/management patnership.

“Harry was old school. He was a legend, a big Lavey and Derry man. He had been at the Convent forever, and had seen the good times and the bad times. Everyone liked him and respected him.

“Henry came in and got that instant respect. He had won an All-Ireland club with Lavey in 1993. He had captained Derry to an All-Ireland.

“But it was more than that. He was the most incredible motivator that I had ever seen. He had modern day coaching methods as well. He was a big catalyst.”

After they won the All-Ireland B, they entered the MacRory Cup.

“We had a really good team, with the likes of Joe Cassidy, Johnny McBride, and Cathal Diamond. Boys who would go on to have good careers. We also had Gerard Cassidy and Brian Lavery, a sprinkling of good talent.

“That year we got beat by St Colman’s in the quarter-final.”

The following season, 1995/96, the key men departed. They did welcome Paul McFlynn into the school but expectations were low.

Magherafelt were a newer team in the competition, and in MacRory Cup, tradition is so important.

“That team had played B football the whole way through. We didn’t think that that team was capable of competing at MacRory Cup. We had lost McBride, we had lost Joe Cassidy, we had lost all those star players from previous years. We didn’t think that that team would do well or get out of the group.

“Maybe we didn’t think that, but the talk was that St Mary’s were going to be the whipping boys.”

But just as the Portglenone team would make remarkable strides, so too would Magherafelt.

Madden and his Magherafelt team mates got an inkling of their potential earlier in the year.

“I remember before the groups started we went up to play St Patrick’s Armagh in a challenge game. It was a really good high-scoring game, we won it by a couple of points I think. St Patrick’s Armagh had the tradition. We felt that if we could beat them then we were better than we thought.

“We had underestimated the squad that we had, and how important it was having Henry in the changing rooms.

“When he spoke you listened. He made the hair stand on the back of your neck. You had a coach there who had led Derry to win an All-Ireland. That was worth a few points. He had a way with words that could cut you in two or put you on a pedestal with a sentence.”

Madden needed coaching back then.

He was a spindly player, light, and not the fastest. He did have strengths, and that was his ability to kick off both feet. His weakness was something that needed managing.

“I was not the most talented footballer. The temperament needed work. I was incredibly determined and I always felt that I had a tough mentality.”

Madden feels that his determination was honed thanks to the MacRory Cup final in 1996.

“That MacRory Cup final helped to develop my competitive mentality.”

Magherafelt beat some big hitters in the 1995/96 competition. They beat St Colman’s in the quarter-final, and St Pat’s Armagh in the semi-finals, proving that that friendly was not a one-off.

The hype about playing their south Derry rivals began straight away.

“We surprised everyone to get to the final. That final was unique because it was the first ever south Derry MacRory Cup final.

“I remember the boys who played for the Loup, Ballinderry, Magherafelt, the clubs that sat on the boundary of Maghera and Magherafelt. I can remember going to Clubland, and the Convent boys were standing in one corner. And the Maghera boys were in another. It was like pistols at dawn, and the dirty looks were flying.

“The lead up to the final was surreal and intense. Everyone was talking about it. How Maghera had the tradition, but the Convent came from nowhere. The Henry Downey factor. It was huge hype and a huge prize at stake. A lot of people got caught up in that hype, including myself.

“It was impossible to avoid the hype.”

The pressure that Madden felt was ramped up by the fact that he had been told he was going to receive a college All-Star, and he had been scoring heavily, 5-58 in the lead up to the final.

There were those who gave them a chance, and for Madden who knew what it was like to win from unexpected origins, he believed that it was possible.

The game did not go as expected.

“It wasn’t the greatest game of football but there was an incredible atmosphere at it.

“Those days the finals were in Coalisland. You had 7-8000 people, you had the flags, both schools had their sets of songs. It was that time in your life you will never get back. That translates into the passion.

“What people don’t remember is that we lost two players in the early minutes, Niall Cassidy and Jason McCusker to injury. That tipped the scales. Right up to the point where I got sent off we were in the game.”

Madden remembers Paul McFlynn scoring the goal, and that brought the game back to a point.

Then came the sending off. Madden kicked out at an opponent, was sent off and then left the field, but after some provocation returned to the field and punched out.

“It was a moment of madness that shouldn’t have happened.

“Even now it is hard to explain. You just lose it for three seconds.”

And here is the point where the lesson was learned.

Madden was a teenager at the time, and some might forgive him for allowing emotions to take over.

He doesn’t see it that way.

“They might say, don’t worry about it, it’ll never happen again. That wasn’t what I needed to hear. Okay I was a teenager, and it happens, a young fella lashes out with a foot or a fist. But this was the biggest game of my career, the biggest game in the history of the school.

“I am not saying that it cost us the game. But then I decided to do that, it was game over. I wasn’t trying to be selfish, but I committed a selfish act.”

He is aware that perhaps he didn’t learn that lesson immediately, but the incident marked a turning point for Madden.

St Mary’s lost that final, and the next day, Madden heard what Downey had to say.

He then set about the process of changing his ways and his temperament.

“The first thing I acknowledged not long after it was how stupid it was, that I had let myself down, and the school down.

“For me going forward, I learnt an awful lot that day.”

His mother was unhappy at how the situation was handled.

“She wasn’t happy with the way that UTV had edited the game. The news that night showed me being sent off. Then it showed the fight after the match. It looked like the fight had been sparked off after I had been sent off. But the fight was nothing to do with me.”

That night, he went to the Greenvale with his team mates, and the expectation was that Maghera players would be there.

He thought it was going to kick off.

“There wasn’t a punch thrown. We were best friends and pals again.”

The next day at school was surreal as well.

“I was shitting myself. I didn’t know if I was going to suspended, or expelled. I didn’t know what the principal or Henry was going to say. All those things were going through the mind.

“I remember going in to the newsagent and picking up the Belfast Telegraph, and there it was (the headline) ‘Fists Flying’ and my fist right in Stephen McGeehan’s face.”

What made this extra controversial was that Stephen McGeehan was one of two St Mary’s pupils who had moved from the Convent to Maghera in sixth form.

“That was an opportunist thing for the Telegraph to do, to highlight Gaelic Games in the worst possible light.

“For me and for the school and for the rest of the boys who were pictured that was a dark moment.

“I came into the school and the principal, Una O’Kane – who was a stern woman – she came over and was chatting to the boys. She seemed okay about it.

“I thought she might call me in to the office. But she turned to me and said: ‘Kevin, a moment of madness after an hour’s provocation’.

“That was all she said.”

But it was the conversation that Henry Downey would have with him, that would have a long-standing effect upon Madden.

“In the subsequent years I played a lot of football but that was the last time that I was ever sent off. That on its own is testament to what I learned that day.

“You sort of try to turn things round.

“When you are faced with challenges you have to work out how you can turn things round and create a positive.”

Kevin Madden would face a number of challenges in his life, both sport related and otherwise.

And it was his determination, and temperament that would serve him well.

MacRory Cup football earned him a reputation as a star footballer, and the then Antrim manager John Morrison drafted Madden into the Antrim team in 1995/96.

“I remember the day we played St Colman’s, and John was at the match. Antrim were going to play Roscommon. John said to Henry, ‘I’m taking young Madden with me’.

“I didn’t have a bag or anything. I don’t even think I had a phone call to say I was on the panel.

“Henry said not on your nelly.”

Madden couldn’t commit to Antrim till after MacRory was over, and then he had to serve a six month ban for the sending off in the final.

So he didn’t play county senior till late 1996.

When he got into the squad, he took the lessons he’d learned from Henry Downey and used them to get an idea of how Antrim could improve.

“The difference between Antrim being really competitive and winning matches in Ulster and coming up short, was just commitment. That sounds blasé, that would not be an issue now, But that was the big thing back then. We didn’t have great numbers at training.

“You had managers bringing back players three or four weeks before championship and starting them ahead of fellas who had trained all year.”

Last year, a former team mate of Madden’s, Ronan Hamill, told Gaelic Life that the change in attitude in the Antrim squad came when the two Kevin’s; Brady and Madden joined the Antrim squad.

Hamill said: “For me the spark was Kevin Brady and Kevin Madden wanting to play. The ethos changed. There was a realisation that we had to train to compete. They had played at a seriously high level.”

The way that Madden talks about that period emphasises that.

“We didn’t fear anyone. We knew that we could compete with anyone. Perhaps other players fed off that. But there were other players who were like that. Then you had players like Gearoid Adams, Anto Finnegan and Sean McGreevy who felt that way too.”

But stepping up into that arena was not straight forward for Madden.

There were still signs that his temperament needed work.

“One of my first National League games was under Morrison in 1996. He had me bigged up like mad.

“He said stuff like ‘you are going to be an All-Star’.

“We played Roscommon and we were getting cleaned at midfield. I was in corner forward and I had got two touches of the ball, and scored two points. After 25 minutes I got the shepherd’s hook and he put on a midfielder. I was raging. My temperament had improved on the pitch, but that was a red rag to a bull. I went straight in to the changing rooms, got togged in and as I was ready to leave the team were coming back in at half time.

“Just as I was bursting out the door, I met big Beefer. He says to me ‘where do you think you are going son’, I said ‘Get out of my road John’.

“Next thing he had me pinned up against the wall, and that made me the focus of the entire half time team talk. He was giving the team talk, and he had me pinned up to the wall. He was saying stuff like ‘this wee man here, he is hurting. He is fucking hurting after being taken off’. He says, ‘where is your passion like his?’.

“It was classic reverse psychology. I had wanted to leave the dressing room, and I felt so hard done by, next thing he was massaging my ego.

“Morrison was so ahead of time in terms his coaching.”

Madden, who has worked as a coach now for over a decade, sees now all these years later how clever that move was. Morrison turned a negative situation into a positive, both motivating a team, saving an embarrassing challenge to his power, and also reminding Madden that the team was more important.

It was a lesson in serving the team.

But it also showed how determined Madden was to show how good he was.

He remembers his championship debut in 1997 when Antrim were five or six points down against Donegal, and he came on and scored 1-2, including one of the best goals he had ever scored.

Antrim only lost by two that day.

The following year they met Donegal again in the championship.

“That year Kevin Brady made his debut and he was brilliant that day. It was a sign that we weren’t a million miles away.”

The second year Kevin Brady made his debut, and that was the start of their partnership.

“I really enjoyed playing along with Kevin. He was a very unselfish player. He knew how to run off the ball. His creativity was the strongest side of his play. He was a very intelligent footballer.”

In 1999 the Antrim management job was vacant and a few players went to Brian White and asked him if he would be interested in taking over.

“Whitey brought in Hugh McGettigan and Harry Brennan and created a real good, professional set up. Something better than we had seen.”

Key to the 1999 season was winning the All-Ireland B title.

Madden sees that as a catalyst for their big year in 2000.

“Winning matches, beating teams who are of a similar standard or better helps. We had a bit of momentum. Antrim weren’t that far behind the other counties.”

But 2000, while an exciting year for Antrim, was a strange and startling one for Madden.

His determination and temperament on the field were not in doubt, but things did not go to plan.

“That year was surreal for me. We had won the All-Ireland B, then that December we went to Casement for a few free drinks and then we went to the Bot that night.

“Myself, Brady, and Dermot Niblock were together. Dermot had only just come on the panel. He was full forward on that All-Ireland B winning team.

“Me and Brady said we’d go to the Egg (Eglantine Inn, across from the Bot) for one. I went to the toilet, then I spied Brady. He was in a state. He said to me ‘get over quick, Dermy Niblock’s just been knocked down’.

“I ran over and Niblock’s lying there. Bouncers are around him, and the ambulance arrives.

“We realise he’s fighting for his life. One of us had to go in the ambulance. So I said I’d go with him. We rushed to the hospital. Talk about a sobering experience. I knew he was fighting for his life. The paramedics were putting adrenaline in him. So I said to him ‘Hang in there Niblock, we have Down in the Championship. You are going to be playing full forward and we need you’.

“If we are going to have any chance of beating Down we need you big man.

“I forget so much about football, but I remember that conversation. He was in such a bad way that he couldn’t hear me but that’s what I said.”

As it turned out neither of them would play in that game.

Dermot Niblock had very serious injuries, and while he recovered, he wasn’t able to play county football again.

“He was in a coma for a couple of weeks, and never got to be the footballer that he could have been.”

He missed the incredible day when Antrim won their first Championship game in 18 years.

Madden wasn’t able to play either because he had broke his jaw in the National League.

“A big part of me was disappointed. I had hoped I would make it back but it came too soon. Greg Blaney was my dentist at the time. He had made me a gum shield to get ready for the Down game.

“There was something about that day. That was the day when Dessie Reynolds made the speech. He was terminal with cancer he said that all he wanted to do before he died was to see Antrim win a championship match. That set the tone.

“You had the four seasons in one day, you had McGreevy’s brilliant save from a penalty, you had Shenny’s frees, you had Brady toasting the Down defence, Gearoid and John Kelly and Anto Finnegan giving nothing at the back.

“When you look back it didn’t come as a surprise.”

Madden made sure he was fit for the next game against the team he loved to play against, Derry.

The determination within him made sure of that.

“I think it was two weeks between Down and Derry. I was able to take contact, and get ready for the Derry game. There was a huge sense of relief of getting the first championship win in 18 years.

“We wanted to put a performance against Derry.

“I think Derry were 1/5 with the bookies. A friend of mine who was on the Tyrone panel, was going to America the next day, he had £1000 on Derry to win a 1/5, £1000 to win £200. He was probably rushing to the bookies at half time. He was a sick pup at the end of that game.”

It was a remarkable game. After trailing by eight at half time, the Saffrons went on a barnstorming performance in the second half, that saw two goals from Kevin Brady, and points from Kevin Doyle and Kevin Madden earn a draw. It was almost a win as Shenny McQuillen’s free dropped just short.

Madden had not started the game.

“I watched Tohill put on an exhibition of place kicking in the first half. We were eight points down. I said to Brian White at half time ‘you need to get me on there, or the game is going to be over’.

“I just wanted to play against Derry after going to school in Magherafelt. All those years of patronising. I always felt that there was that extra edge. That game was getting away from us.

“I think I just lost it. Eamonn Prenter was on the back room team. I said to him, I have to get on here. It wasn’t a case of being arrogant, it was just a case of watching this game slipping away.”

The feeling must have been agonising for a man who had been so determined and driven, to feel like his chance was slipping away.

“Going on with ten minutes to go would have been too late. I think Whitey had a plan in the back of his mind that he would bring me on to get a bit of momentum, maybe lift the crowd. I remember when I was warming up getting an unbelievable reception from the Antrim support. You would have thought that at nine points down half of them would have packed up. But they just believed in the team.”

His point, then Brady’s two goals got Antrim right back in the match.

“It was a warm day, and you could see that some of the older Derry players were struggling with the heat. They were starting to tire. We had all the momentum. It was mad that I came on at eight or nine down and we blitzed them and the next thing the game was in the melting point. Both teams had chances to win the game. That was one that got away.”

Madden admits that Derry men will say that Antrim folk only want to talk about the drawn game and not about the replay.

He said that Derry were far and away the better team in the second match.

“They were a level above us, but on that day, for 20 minutes, we were a match for them.

“We missed an opportunity to cause the upset of all upsets.”

The following year was frustrating. The county final that ended in a bust up had repercussions as players didn’t commit to the county.

Cargin were stripped of the title after a row with St Paul’s and the bad feeling in the county made it hard for the Saffron footballers to build on the progress of 2000.

“When you lose two or three players from a season when you are going well it is hard to get back. I’m not saying that’s the reason why we didn’t back it up in 2001, but it certainly didn’t help.”

What was also notable about the years afterwards was their returns to playing Derry. Antrim met The Oak Leafers again in 2001 and 2002 in the Ulster Championship.

“We were sick looking at them,” Madden said.

“After getting that scare (in 2000) [Eamonn] Coleman must have said that there is no way those boys are beating us. They weren’t great games, and they didn’t live up to the standard of that performance in 2000.”

Those years were important for another reason as Madden was met with another challenge, off the field.

When he broke his jaw in 2000 it was the catalyst for him finding out he had an underlying heart condition.

In June 2000, he got a letter from Cardioolgy in the Royal to ask him to come in for a check up.

“It seemed strange. I was born with a murmur when I was a child. But it was fine. So when I saw the letter from the hospital I just put it in the bin. I got another letter, and put it in the bin as well. I was coaching at that stage, and I couldn’t afford the time. I think I then got a third letter for another appointment. I remember ringing the school, where I was doing the afterschool and saying to them about the appointment. They said to me to just go to the appointment.

“I remember going in to the appointment in the Autumn, the cardiologist did the test on me and he said that I had a faulty valve. He said don’t worry about it, he said that it never would bother me.

“He said that it was a condition that affected a small amount of the population, and I might need surgery when I am in my 50s. He said not to worry about it.

“Two weeks later, he rang me back and said that I had a severely leaking aortic valve. He said ‘you are going to need heart surgery, stop everything that you are doing. Stop county training, stop running, your heart is severely enlarged’. He said to cut it all out.”

Madden remembers the shock that he was in, but his primary thought was about sport.

“I thought, am I going to be able to play football again?”

He got mixed advice about that. Some said he would be out for 12 months, others said he would never play again.

The gravity of the situation wasn’t on his radar. He didn’t think about the fact that there are those who die in heart surgery. He met his Italian surgeon, and they spoke about the procedure.

Madden had a choice to make, to go for a tissue replacement for his valve, or a mechanical version. The tissue choice would have a shorter lifespan than the mechanical one which would last for the rest of his life. But the mechancial one meant that he had to take blood thinners, which weren’t conducive to playing football. He chose football, and the tissue version.

“He said to me, have you anything coming up that you want to be ready for. I said there’s two things, my brother is getting married on Easter Monday and I am best man, and the second thing is Antrim play Derry in June. He said no bother you will be right for both of those things. Hearing that was music to my ears.”

He got the surgery done in February, and was back playing six weeks later. He realises now that that was crazy.

“Hamstring injuries have kept me out for longer.”

That was him, he was able to play against Derry in 2001.

It shows again the determination that Madden had to play football. He went to oxygen chambers in order to get himself fit again.

“Looking back it was crazy trying to get back within three months.

“It was so important to me to get back. All I could think of was getting back for the club and county.”

It was an important year for Portglenone as they were pushing to get back to division one, which they did, for the first time in their history.

“That was in the space of six years. In 1994 I was a springy 15/16 year old. We won four in a row of championships and then in 2001 became a division one team.”

It was all down to that determination that was so strong inside him.

In 2003, the Antrim team backed up their 2000 form when they got another championship win over Cavan.

“That was an enjoyable championship,” Madden said.

“We caught them off guard. PJ (O’Hare, the manager) might not go down as one of Antrim’s best manager. He had his strengths and weaknesses, but one of his biggest strengths was his tactical nous. PJ was not a motivator like Henry Downey, but he was incredibly clever when it came to tactics. He was a great man for coming up with a game plan. I always felt that he would have been a very valuable asset on a management team because of his intelligence. I don’t think he got the credit he deserved.”

Antrim won 2-9 to 1-10, both Saffron goals came from Darren O’Hare, PJ’s son.

“Darren was a clever, big footballer. He could lay off a goal or take on a goal himself. The second half Cavan put Dermot McCabe to full forward, and they resorted to long ball.”

On a high after that game, Antrim turned their attention to playing Tyrone.

“After we beat Cavan we played Tyrone and Armagh. We played Tyrone in the Semi-final and Armagh in the back door, all within six days.

“Tyrone and Armagh would then go on to play in the All-Ireland final.

“It was important that we got another win, and to play a big game in Casement Park, an Ulster semi-final in front of a big crowd.

“Tyrone beat us well (1-9 to 1-17), but we lost 0-15 to 0-12 against Armagh. We were a bit flat against Armagh, but they were flat too after winning the All-Ireland the year before. It was one of those games that had that inevitability that we were going to get beat but it was close enough.”

Madden scored 0-9 that day, a starring performance against the Orchard.

They may not have got the result, but Madden proved again that his determination would serve him well.

In 2005, Cavan took Antrim to a replay and won. The Saffrons would go on to play Meath in the qualifiers but were well beaten 5-12 to 0-13. Madden scored a point from a free, but it would be his last score for the Saffron seniors in championship football, and his last game for the county. Madden’s season ended though when he did his cruciate in a club game.

It was another untimely injury, as the 2005 season was a great one for his club as they reached the county final. And a frustrating continuation of a pattern in his career where injury ruled him out of important chapters.

“It was a great year for the club, and a disappointing one for me. That was when St Gall’s were starting to dominate, but they weren’t the formidable team that you saw in 2006 or 2010.

“They were beatable. They beat us in the final by three points. It was disappointing to miss that.”

That was close to the end of Madden’s playing career. The determination was still there, but his body was going to fail him again. He rehabbed his cruciate and got back to training for Antrim, but in the weeks before their 2006 championship opener against Fermanagh he went for a check up and the doctors discovered that his tissue valve had started to fail, there were also evidence of an aneurysm.

“I was basically told that I was putting my life at risk. So that was basically me hanging up the boots at county level.

“I didn’t handle it too well. I think you want to be able to finish their career on a high. That can be winning something, but few are able to do that. But at the very least you want to be able to go out on your own terms. I wasn’t able to do that.”

For a player who, at 18, decided that he would no longer lose control of his destiny, and that he would do everything he could to succeed, it was deeply frustrating that it was his own body that gave up on him.

“I felt that my best years were in front of me, but I was told at 27 or 28 that I was finished. I was putting my life at risk if I continued.

“It was not only hard to take, it was hard to heed.”

Madden made the right decision and stopped playing, but he couldn’t get rid of the thought of what might have been.

He couldn’t watch club games or Antrim games.

“It’s hard to come to terms with because football was so much a part of my routine.”

The odd thing was that he didn’t feel weak, he felt strong and fast.

“Antrim should have beat Fermanagh in 2006. I thought, and still think, what if I had kept my mouth shut for five or si