In Focus: Kieran McKeever – a born winner

By Ronan Scott

Kieran McKeever can remember a day during Derry training when he and Enda Gormley were told if they didn’t stop fighting, the whole session would be stopped.

The pair of them had been having such a battle the coach called a halt to give them a dressing down.

“Myself and Enda Gormley always wanted to mark each other. We were both very committed. I remember a coach stopping training one day and he said ‘If youse boys don’t stop fighting I am going to call this training off’.

“There was another man there and he stepped in and said ‘Wait till I tell youse boys if youse were all as committed as them two men, then we might f***ing win something’.”

This is the story of a player who do whatever he could to be the best. Who had incredible drive and determination.

“I always wanted to be the best. I wanted to be first to the ball.

“I seem to naturally have the motivation. It is in the DNA. My father was a fan of Gaelic Games. He was a Derry minor and coached a lot of teams. He managed Derry minors at one stage.

“But I don’t know where that will to win and hunger has always been there. I’ve always had it. I still have that eagerness to help. I am chairman of the club and vice chair of the county. I really enjoy it. Maybe there is something wrong with me.”

That depends on whether you think winning four Ulster titles is a problem. The other Derry man to have won four is the legend Sean O’Connell. O’Connell’s were all football. McKeever has two hurling and two football medals.

McKeever started playing for Derry in 1987, after Derry had been knocked out of the All-Ireland semi-final by Meath. He joined for the league.

He had always been a centre half -back but he started playing for Derry at right half-forward. Then he moved to the half-back line. But it was in 1990 under Eamonn Coleman and Fr Sean Hegarty that McKeever started in the position for which he is most famous.

“They were looking for a corner -back, but everyone else who went into corner back deliberately played badly so they didn’t have to play here. Everyone except for me. I would have played in nets if I had been told to.” McKeever laughed at that memory.

“I played centre half back for Derry minors and u-21s. Never in a million years did I think I would be a corner back.”

At 23 years old, he was living his dream of playing for his county.

He was steeped in GAA. His Father was a former player and coach who played minors for the county. McKeever junior was a passionate dual player, and had won titles in both codes right up through every level.

He had played minors and u-21s for his county. At underage he was a centre half-back or midfield because of his personality of a leader.

“For some people it is natural for them to organise and talk to people and lead during the game. I liked to encourage people to get out there and win the ball. That’s what I liked to do. I wanted to show leadership to by calling for the ball and going for the ball. I was very motivated and single minded. I wanted to be first to the ball. I hated losing. I wanted to be first every time. Even if someone beat me ten times in a row I still wanted to beat them. And I would try my best to do so.

“For me it was always about the next ball. My father used to preach that to us. He managed a good few teams when I was growing up. It was all about being the first to the ball, and it was about the next ball. The next ball was the most important thing. Maybe I was jealous of the boy who got there first. I made damn sure that I was first to the next ball.”

The drive to succeed was fostered at club level.

Even when the club wasn’t going on, around Dungiven there were estate leagues. So the young McKeever was getting competition all the time.

“I was always striving to be the best I could, the fittest I could. If someone scored a point against me it was a massive disappointment personally for that to happen.

“You had to refocus and make sure that that didn’t happen again.

“You had to read the forward. You would work out if he was right footed or left footed, you worked out if he liked space, or if he liked to hug the line. You read what he was like within the first ten minutes and then you had to cope with that.”

He said his first experience of playing for Derry was awe. He had dreamed of playing for Derry and then when he reached that goal he couldn’t believe it.

However, the Derry set up was not what he imagined.

“Derry had got to the All-Ireland semi-final but pre-Christmas there weren’t that many at training. I remember training in Greenlough. We were doing these runs across the field and I was trying my best as usual. But someone says to me ‘hey you need to slow down and pace yourself’. I thought what are you talking about. I sort of looked at them. But I didn’t stop or slowdown.

“That was the difference in me.”

It was the difference in McKeever, but it was also the difference that Derry needed to win an All-Ireland.

“When the boys came on the panel, the likes of the Lavey boys, and Anthony Tohill came back, and Enda Gormley. They were people who were winners, who wanted to be fitter and who wanted to be better. There were so many leaders on that team. That changed everything. The success was as much player driven as manager driven.”

McKeever said that in 1991 he noticed a change in attitude.

But he also said that that was perhaps inspired by the arrival of another notable name in the squad also changed things.

“I can remember when Gerry McElhinney joined for a few games. You could see that he thought faster than everyone else. I remember that because it made us think ‘we need to think a bit quicker’ and ‘this man has come back from playing soccer and he is thinking quicker than we are’.”

McElhinney had been a star for Derry in the mid 70s but went to England to play soccer. He was the old guard of Derry, but he taught them an important lesson. It was one that the young McKeever, who was always desperate to know how to get better, was glad to learn.

This is the same McKeever who always enjoyed marking Enda Gormley because he pushed him to his limits.

“I wanted to be the best at the position I was playing. Enda wanted to be on me. So I wasn’t going to let him win the ball. It didn’t matter what it was, I was going to win the battle.”

The team wasn’t entirely serious or sober. There was craic to be had.

“There was always plenty of times on the bus, Fergal McCusker and Enda Gormley would have wound Brian McGilligan up about burning the hurls. And Brian would have bit.

“Everyone wanted to relax and wind down but we knew there was hard work to be done.”

McKeever said that there was talk of a new plan in 1990. It developed further in 1992.

“In 1992 we won the national league, but we were trying to implement a system. But we were inconsistent in implementing that system.

“Especially against Donegal in the championsihp. The following year we tried to perfect it in the lague.

“The one great thing about that period was that after every game, we sat down in the changing room and we talked about the positives and the negatives. And how we could turn the negatives into positives for the next game. So every game we went out in we were learning.

“That got everyone thinking about their own game and the team game.”

At that point, McKeever was confident about his place on the team, but also about how the team was playing.

“We had great communication between the goalkeeper and the full backs and the half backs. You knew what your job was. When the ball was in a particular part of the pitch you knew what your job was.”

McKeever always had a leadership role. He was vice captain 1992 to 1994 and was captain in 1997 and 1998.

He was able to work with management, and he always felt that he could talk about issues.

But in Coleman, Derry had a manager who did things his own way.

“He used to wind you up. He would come to me two or three weeks before we were playing Tyrone and say ‘Peter Canavan is up around Ballygawley saying that he is going to score 1-2 off you in the next match. What are you going to do about it?’. (And McKeever performs Coleman’s high-pitched Ballymaguigan brogue)

“So he had you thinking early on.

“Eamonn knew how to man manage. Even in winter he would say things like ‘Dermot McNicholl and Kieran McKeever, youse have two big arses on youse, what are you going to do about it?’.

“That was him. He was pushing you all the time. He was pushing you to be the best. And he treated everyone the same.”

So Derry had the right manager, they had great players, and so many leaders on the team.

“Everything seemed to happen at the one time. Everyone wanted to push each other to win.”

It perhaps says something about McKeever that he doesn’t remember individual performanecs.

“I always went out to do my own job. The team winning was the satisfaction for me. That is what made me most happy. It wasn’t individual praise. Me being man of the match and Derry getting beat wasn’t good enough.

“I don’t know about highlights and standing out.”

He did have challenges to overcome before the All-Ireland in 1993.

He tore ligaments in his ankle in 1992. And it is during this incident that we can learn a bit more about McKeever.

“I didn’t really get through it. I bluffed my way through it, and played through the pain barrier to make the Ulster final. I was marking James McHugh that day. I went over on it (the ankle) after five or ten minutes. I ended up spending the rest of the game running after him instead of him running after me.

“That was a downer. I was selfish in doing that. I sort of let the team down. I wanted to play so badly. That was the thing. I was lucky that I didn’t have a lot of injuries.

“In that case I just wanted to be on the team.”

Therein lies the key to McKeever, he always wanted to play, he always wanted to win, and sometimes his decision

making was effected because of that drive to compete and be first to the ball.

But the mistakes of 1992 were soon forgotten first when Derry won the National League the following season.

“We didn’t get much time to celebrate. We played Tyrone in the final, and we played them in the championship two weeks later. So we didn’t get a chance to think about that one. (winning the National League final against Tyrone).

“But that was special. That was our first national title. When we beat Meath in the semi-final of that national league. That gave us so much belief. Eamonn Coleman preached that we had to win a national league first and then we would win an All-Ireland. So beating Meath brought our confidence from knee height to head height.

“Winning that national league set the tone. We were going for the All-Ireland the next year.

“We had to beat Donegal but we knew we could beat Donegal as we had played them a lot, in challenge games, and we knew we had the measure of them.”

In 1993, they achieved their goal, of winning Ulster and then the All-Ireland. Eamonn Coleman’s plan had worked.

McKeever recalls the effect that the victory had on the county.

“Immediately after the win Brian McGilligan and myself took the cup to Derry city. That was a big thing for us. It was a good thing for us. There are a lot of good Gaels in the city. I thought that was a good thing to do to bring the cup into the schools.”

There was a lot of celebrating after 1993.

McKeever said that it was hard to get back on track after the All-Ireland success. They felt obliged to go to as many dinner dances as they could, and bring the trophy to as many schools and clubs as they could.

“It was a roller coaster. But so was my whole career. it was year after year. you never took time to sit back and think about it.”

In 1994, preparations for the famous Down game in Celtic Park weren’t entirely perfect. The squad wasn’t fully ready. Some players were coming back from injury. McKeever still thinks that the team should have won.

“We were a bit understrength. But there was only a kick of a ball in it. I don’t think that I have got over it. It was a game we never should have lost. But Down always seemed to get the break of the ball. When Fergal McCusker got the goal I thought we would have pushed on but we didn’t. There were weak links that showed that didn’t usually show.

“You can’t say there were any one thing that is a reason. There are lots of things that happen. You can never blame one thing for a team getting beat.”

The aftermath of the Down defeat saw Eamonn Coleman depart as manager of Derry. This was a shocking moment for football in the county.

McKeever’s role in the situation was the go-between the team the county board when the players were striking after the decision to remove Coleman.

“There was a lot that went on. It’s never water under the bridge. The players were hurt. I don’t know to this day why Eamonn Coleman got the sack. There were rumours going about. It was difficult to accept that a man who won you an All-Ireland got the sack. Maybe there was something we don’t know about.

“He built the team, yes there were others involved, but he built the team and that team could have won more.

“I remember that we won the National Leagues in 1994 and 1995 with ease. We didn’t really train for them. We didn’t harbour ambitions to win the Naitional league we just went out to win the game. Yet when it came to the championsihp the spirit was gone.”

This was the dark period for McKeever. Here was a man whose life was dedicated to winning. He was filled with ambition to succeed. He wanted to, in his words, win every ball. But after the Coleman incident, the team around him had lost its drive.

The potential was there to win. But the meaning had gone.

“There was something missing. It’s hard to put your finger on it. We didn’t have that edge or killer instinct.

“You never went out to just do okay you went out to win. But it came back to us. As Eamonn Coleman said ‘players are there to play football, so go out and play’.”

In 1997 Brian Mullins led Derry to the Ulster final, but they lost by a point in a game remembered most because of a point that should have been called wide.

“Things happen in matches you can’t dictate for. There was a ball that was two or three foot wide. Larry Reilly bounced the ball twice then scored.

“There is never much between teams. It is on the day. I wouldn’t say we were better than Cavan. But small margins made the difference. I am sure Donegal have plenty to complain about from 1993 and 1998.”

Yet at the same time there was frustration in Derry, there was success in Dungiven. McKeever was part of the Dungiven team that won the Derry and Ulster Championship.

It was a competitive era for club football in the county. Lavey and Bellaghy were strong, but the St Canices were championship specialists.

“We had leaders on that team. We had a lot of players who played for Derry. We had a will to win. We had players who believed. We drew with Glenullin and then beat them after a replay.”

They beat Lavey and then in Ulster beat Errigal Ciaran in the final.

“It was a big thing to beat Errigal Ciaran. They had a great team. But the break didn’t help as much. It was difficult getting boys out training over Christmas because they aren’t used to it.”

Unfortunately they lost to Corofin, in a game when they had a man sent off.

“They went on and won it. It was very disappointing. We felt we could have won the All-Ireland.

“In the club people still talk about that. We tried our best to get over the line. They double marked Joe Brolly and Geoffrey McGonigle and we found it hard to get the ball in to them.

“It was frustrating. We had the belief to win that year. But after the game that was the most dejected changing room I have ever been in.

“We haven’t won a championship since. So we are still getting over it.”

McKeever is involved in his club, and has seen first hand that the current crop of underage players have the attitude that could take them places. He says there are good players, good dual players coming through.

In the years after 1997 and 98. He had captained Derry to the Ulster title in 1998. But he found it hard to keep his fitness.

“I would have did a lot of work on my own in the winter. I would have went to Owenbeg and did laps of the pitch in the dark. The wife would have walked and I would have did the running.

“Derry had high standards. You had to be in some condition to compete with everyone else. But it was tough in those later years. I had been there since 1987.”

Eamonn Coleman returned as Derry manager in 2000 and he did a clever thing to stretch another year out of McKeever. He switched him to centre half back.

“It was where I envisioned myself playing when I went to Derry. It gave me a new lease of life. I played there for the club and that’s where I played my best football.”

They won the league final against Meath. McKeever marked Graham Geraghty that day. He got man of the match in the drawn final. Derry won the replay.

McKeever also won the football All-star and after Derry won the Ulster Hurling title as well. He was nominated for the Hurling All star.

“It was an honour to get nominated for both.

“I had been to the Football Allstars in 1992. You take it when you get it and you appreciated it.”

The end was near though for his football.

“For a few years I had been thinking about the end. You had a lot of good young players coming in. Paul McFlynn and Johnny McBride, players like that were young and getting stronger. It was becoming their team. Myself and Henry Downey for example knew were at the end.

“You had to be fully committed. You couldn’t play here or there. I was having back spasms. and I couldn’t go through the pain any more. I couldn’t give the commitment. The back wasn’t gettting any better. I said to Eamonn and he accepted it.

But in 2001 Derry went on a run in the All-Ireland championship. McKeever could only watch from the sidelines.

“You do have regrets. You always want to play. I would still play if I could.”

Yet while the football ended he was able to keep the hurling going. There were a few reasons why he kept hurling. One of the reasons was that he loved hurling more than he loved football.

He grew up as a dual player and he carried that into his county career.

He won two Ulster Championships, in 2000 and 2001.

“Those were special. Derry got to Division one in the hurling at that time. We went to play Kilkenny in Nolan Park. Tipperary in Thurles. Cork in Park Ui Chaoimh. We were playing against legends of hurling like DJ Carey, Henry Shefflin and John Power.

“You had the right to be there but it seemed to be surreal.”

He remembers the day when Derry played Kilkenny when Co McEldowney marked DJ Carey.

“Co never gave him a puck of the ball the whole game. Not one puck, up until late in the game, but the one chance DJ Carey got he put in the top corner.

“I remember Gregory Biggs got man of the match. We ran them close.

“They were great moments pitting yourself against the best.”

The reason why Derry’s hurlers had success in the 2000s was the same reason the footballers were successful in the early nineties.

“They were very committed. They trained harder than they have ever trained before. In hurling you wouldn’t have everyone committed like in football. Then you had dual players, like myself. I was asked to not play hurling which I did. And I regret that. I loved hurling more than I loved football. I really missed it.

“Being able to come back and win it the following year was good as it meant that it wasn’t a fluke. The attitude was so good. And we had some great hurlers.”

McKeever fondly remembers hurling against Wexford and marking Martin Storey and getting in a row with him. And he met up with him again a few years ago and they laughed about that

row in Sleacht Neill. The way he talks about his hurling days really suggests that it was an important time for him.

He remembers that as fondly as he remembers playing underage Feile hurling in Croke Park.

“I can remember being in the old changing rooms, with the big bath. And the crowd. That was a special moment playing in Croke Park.

“I can remember being at the Christy Ring School of hurling and John Fenton teaching us how to hit sideline cuts.

“I remember winning an All-Ireland u-16 B against Offaly. I won an Ulster u-21 as well. Derry hadn’t won that in a few years. We won it in Down. I got my arm broke that day. Noel Sands accidentally pulled three foot below the ball (he laughs).

“So hurling was a big part of my life, it was massive from an early stage.”

Yet there is the obvious disappointment that he didn’t get to play more. The issue is that being a dual player in Derry, and in Ulster is hard.

“Most managers want you out. It is not often you get managers who will accomodate players missing training, or accomodate training on the same night.

“In Dungiven we try to have the hurlers and footballers train at the same night. We will have all the footballers go ot the hurlers one week, and the hurlers go and train with the footballers the next week so they are not out every night of the week.

“The big thing I don’t understand is that for any manager what they want is for a player to give quality. But the only way you are going to have quality is you are fresh.”

In 2000 Derry won the Ulster Hurling Championship and that was the same year that McKeever retired from county football. So the following year he was just a county hurler.

“I was playing centre half forward. It wasn’t easier but the training didn’t take its toll as much as football becaue it was more skill based.

“I was playing against the top teams. Every day you were learning how to play hurling.

“I remember playing for Ulster in the Railway Cup. I was marking Andy Comerford. You know the way players pull on the ball two or three times together, and I remember coming away from the tussle and thinking my god that is a strong man.

“Those were great days.”

But all good things come to an end. After 2001 he knew time was up.

“I was ready. I was having a lot of trouble with my back. It was seizing up. Especially during the winter training it was tough and painful.”

But retirement was not easy.

“When you are used to go out and train three or four nights a week., when you stop it is a shock.

“I didn’t miss playing for hte first couple of years. Maybe I had burnt myself out. But then after a few years I went back to playing Derry over-40s. I enjoyed the reminiscing, the Downey’s and Enda Gormley.”

What he remembers, and what he misses is the challenge.

“You were going out every day and marking the best forward. You had that challenge of trying to prove that you were the best. I had good mental strength. I could concentrate for 70 minutes or whatever it was. That challenge was something that I enjoyed.”

And he did it both codes. But that’s what happens when you are a player who is so determined to be the best, to beat his man, to be first to the ball.