Raymond Gallagher on playing through the pain

By Ronan Scott

IN Raymond Gallagher’s day, a corner-forward was supposed to stay in the corner.

During the ‘90s and early ‘00s, the game of football was a simple 15 versus 15 affair where battles had to be won, and any variation was frowned upon.

For Fermanagh man Gallagher, this was restrictive.

“Especially in the games when we were getting well beaten. You were standing at the other end of the pitch and there was nothing you could do. It was like standing watching a fight and getting held back.”

Gallagher played for Fermanagh from 1992 to 2003 at various levels and at different times, but not every year. That was part of the frustration.

But what he found in that time was that the GAA had an accepted path, a way that teams should play and there was very little deviation. Players and managers accepted that this was the way that things should be done, even if it was to the detriment of their fortunes.

“In those days most GAA teams didn’t have any tactics. It was 15 against 15 and you stayed in your space, stayed in your own wee patch.

“I used to play corner-forward and it was stupid and you hated it. Even if you went out the field a bit they would shout at you to get back.

“In those days most teams wouldn’t have changed tack. You need to change tack.”

Not changing tack would be the biggest mistake of Raymond Gallagher’s career.

He was a bright star in the early days. He went to St Michael’s, Enniskillen and under the guidance of Dominic Corrigan, and alongside a talented crop of players, they won what was then the school’s second MacRory Cup title in 1992.

That led to him making it on to the Fermanagh minors and u-21s. He helped Fermanagh win the Ulster U-21 title in 1994, the county’s third, and first since 1971. They have not won any Ulster titles since then.

He appeared for the Fermanagh seniors as a minor, and was part of the team that won the All-Ireland B Championship, the McKenna Cup and the National League Division Four title in 1997.

Yet, Gallagher had problems. A string of serious injury problems, including cruciate, back, and Gilmore groin problems, would curtail his impact.

“I always wonder where I would have been had I not had the injuries,” he said.

Those injuries were warning signs, but the way the GAA was back then meant that he couldn’t change tack.

One wonders why Gallagher didn’t stop and just demand to get proper treatment. Like the corner-forward, you have to play the game the way it has always been played.

His acquiescence to the situation is partly to do with the era, and the association’s naive attitude towards fitness.

“The way they were then compared to now is that you were basically cast aside. You got your operation and you might see a bit of physio but you are left to your own devices.”

That’s Gallagher’s assessment of it. He partly blames the circumstances, but if you listen to his story, you realise that he was doomed from the start. Doomed because he was in love with football from an early age, and no matter what happened, injuries, set backs, he was going to play without realising that the injuries would curtail his career.

His earliest memories are of loving Gaelic games.

“I was five when I first went to Croke Park,” he said.

“I was mad about Gaelic. I remember going to the 1980 All-Ireland hurling semi-final, Galway and Offaly. I remember that my mum and dad told us that they were taking us show jumping or something in Croke Park.

“I can remember being in the upper Hogan and asking ‘when are these horses coming out?’

“Then I can remember the teams coming out and it was just brilliant. You can imagine the atmosphere a that time.”

The wide-eyed Gallagher was then treated to a trip to the changing rooms where he met the players.

“I loved hurling at that age. My team was Offaly, but I loved Galway and Limerick, not the traditional teams that would have been winning all the time.”

He himself was from a non-traditional team, in that the primary school he went to was a couple of miles outside of Belleek, which was where his mother taught.

Those early days reminded him that Fermanagh’s underage structures don’t compare to other counties.

“I might have had a bit of club football, but I can’t really remember. U-12s was the youngest team, I might have played when I was eight or nine.

“That’s the way it was in Fermanagh. If you go to a bigger county like Tyrone, or Dublin or Kerry, there is a lot more going on from 6, 8, 10, 12.”

Gallagher has no brothers, and while he is a cousin of Rory and Ronan Gallagher, they were too young to compete with.

In those early days he didn’t have competition around him until he went to secondary school.

“The primary school I went to was a rural school. There was only six or seven boys and I was the only one who was really into football.”

So when he went to St Michael’s, Enniskillen the opportunities to play the game he loved opened out in front of him and he welcomed them.

“I went to St Michael’s in 1986 (first year). I wouldn’t have known much about St Michael’s. I wouldn’t have known much about college football. I was coming from Belleek.

“My football started to snowball from there.”

Success came quickly, and he was able to make the teams a year ahead of him.

He won a Corn na nÓg title with players a year older than him.

“We won that and then got beat in two Rannafast finals in a row.”

The love of football had gripped him tight, and he was getting support from his family as well.

“My dad was a full-time farmer but he would have went to watch a lot of the schools games. They were great memories.”

Gallagher says that it was when he started to play MacRory Cup football that he was really hooked.

“That’s when you got to test yourself against players outside your county, like Diarmaid Marsden and Paul McGrane. They would have been my age group.”

His talent was really flourishing, and he was making a name for himself as a forward.

“I can remember scoring an overhead kick against St Colman’s. It was around the time when Hugo Sanchez was playing for Real Madrid.

“I’ll always remember it to this day, the ball came in, and I could have caught it, but I kicked at it and it went into the top corner. It was one of those ones where if you had had a go at it a thousand times you would have missed it.

“Big Dom was over the team and he was about to roar and shout, but he just turned away laughing. Or so the boys on the bench told me.”

That’s not to say that he was a player who was desperate for attention, even if trying an overhead kick in a football match would suggest otherwise.

“I was never a show off. I would be the opposite. I just wanted to get the job done. I wanted to do anything to help. I’ve been known to head the ball to the net a few times. I wasn’t being a bollox, It was just the easiest way to score.”

He likes to think of himself as being the sort to put his team-mates first.

“They said I was a team player. There are players who aren’t. Some forwards are more worried that they scored or played well. A lot of ones I knew, if they scored 1-3 and the team lost, they’d be happy enough. I didn’t think like that. I would rather have won a final and played absolutely shite, than played really well and lost.”

Gallagher said that in those days football came easy to him. He had to work on his fitness of course, but the skills felt like second nature to him.

His coaches were Dominic Corrigan and Peter McGinnity at St Michael’s. Gallagher said that those men were a great help, but they were more guides than coaches.

“They are going to coach your technical ability or decision-making or team play. But the basic skills, I think you either have it or you don’t.”

The Corn na nÓg success at St Michael’s was important as it made the young Gallagher realise the team’s potential, and reaching those two Rannafast finals supported that.

A few years later they would make a bid to win the MacRory Cup title.

In 1992, they would achieve that goal.

“We got well beaten by the Abbey in the league stages but we had already qualified, as had they. Football was getting more physical at that stage. There was a bit more niggle creeping in at that age. There was more hitting. That last league game was a good kick up the arse.”

They won their quarter-final and then pitched up against St Patrick’s, Maghera, who were one of the kingpins in schools’ football.

“Beating Maghera in the semi-final was the big one.

“They had big Geoffrey playing. Paddy Heaney was playing too, at midfield, and boys like Seanie McGuckin.

“Myself and Mark O’Donnell played right and well. We did most of the scoring.

“Maghera had a ding-dong with St Colman’s from 1988 onwards. To step into that company was a big confidence booster.”

Next up was Dungannon in the final, a side that were the defending champions.

“It was a poor game, and there were real blustery conditions but we hung on.”

How Gallagher assesses that win is interesting. Some players might regard a MacRory Cup win as being a marker, something that signifies that here was a team that had potential to be great. Gallagher does not agree.

“I always felt that MacRory football was great, but it doesn’t compare to county. If you think of any good Hogan Cup winning teams, and their players, very few go on to have established county careers.

“It will do you no harm but you have to kick on. There were boys I played with and against, they were brilliant in their day. I mean you’ve never see anything like it. But they never played again in some cases.

“Winning is no guarantee that you will move on.”

This is interesting because Gallagher said at that stage he had no comprehension of his future, in terms of football or anything.

He said he was a typical teenager, enjoying life from day to day.

“When I was at school I never did a tap of work. There were guys who played football who were very clever and got As. Or there were guys who wanted to be dentists and worked hard. I didn’t do anything. All I wanted to do was play football. I think in general at that age you don’t think that far ahead. There are those who do look at what they want to do at college, but they aren’t planning ten years ahead.”

This is crucial because it was as a teenager that Gallagher would get his first injury. A Gilmore groin problem. And rather than regard that as a warning, a caution about how he perhaps needed to care for himself, he pushed on through. But as he said, back then they didn’t change tack.

“At that age you aren’t planning too far ahead. You have county minors, and I had four years of county u-21s. You are not thinking about down the line. You take each year as it comes.

“At that age, one year rolled into the next. In my seventh year we had a better team (at St Michael’s). We won every game and then got beat in the quarter-final. Dungannon caught us cold.”

And after MacRory football, Gallagher’s career moved over into minor, u-21s and seniors with Fermanagh.

He was fast tracked into the Fermanagh team in 1993 by Hugh McCabe, the then manager. Gallagher had played in the minor side’s win over Armagh in the first round, and was then asked to play for the seniors in their replay against the Orchard a week later.

“I probably was a bit shocked. At that stage I had only came on in a league game for the seniors against Kerry in Enniskillen.

“I trained with the seniors that week before the replay.

“[Hugh McCabe] told me an hour before the game that I was going to start. If I had known before I would have shit myself.

“Obviously you are wary. I was a young guy of 18 playing against the likes of the two Grimleys. They were mature men who would cut you in two. But you don’t have time to think of that because it was a couple of hours before the game.”

McCabe’s move worked as Gallagher scored 1-6 in the 4-8 to 1-16 thriller. He remembers it as a game that they should have won, instead history shows it was a famous comeback for Armagh as Denis Holywood (2) and John Grimley hit late goals for the home side.

“It was 15 against 15 in those days. We were nine points up with eight odd minutes to go. It was crazy. We played Armagh off the park.”

Gallagher likened the situation to that of Mayo, and their performances against Dublin in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 All-Ireland Championships.

“If you look at Mayo, and the way they played against Dublin, had they changed tack would it be different? Hindsight is a great thing.

“If you look at the way Mayo beat Dublin in 2012. The last couple of plays there were 30 men inside the 45, there was no way it was going to happen.

“Even Kerry last year, they probably should have had everyone back against Dublin (in the All-Ireland final). They had the game in their grasp. You need to be able to change tack.

“Look at the greatest teams. They will change tack if they are one nil down. Everything goes out the window in that situation.”

Changing tack was not an option for Fermanagh, or at least that’s what hindsight has taught Gallagher.

He says that Fermanagh have sometimes been hampered by mindset and resources.

“In Fermanagh, as a smaller county, you needed to do things the same if not better if you ever wanted to win something.

“Any year in Ulster you were going to have to take out one of the top two teams. It’s hard to explain.

“You were going in in hope rather than expectation. You knew that some of the teams had better players.

“You heard stories about lads who had been at college with players from other counties and they said that they are at a different level of preparation. The level those other counties went to was different than Fermanagh.

“You needed to be on a level playing field in terms of your preparation, the team preparation and in terms of boys thinking about what they want to do, and who they would be playing.

“Some days we would go out and boys wouldn’t have a clue about who they were marking or what club they were from, or what foot they kicked with. Stuff like that.”

It touches upon an issue that Gallagher has with Fermanagh football, and how their attitude is different to other places in Ulster.

“If you go to south Derry or Tyrone, and something in the club is organised then 95 percent will be at it. In Fermanagh it is through other enough.

“For Fermangh to win something, because it is a small county, with a small amount of clubs, unless you have a really exceptional group of players, you have to do things as well, if not better than everyone else.

“Everything you do, club, underage, whatever, needs to be at least at the same level as the top counties, if not better. It wasn’t and isn’t. That’s the difference.

“You can rock up and hope to win or expect to win. But you can only expect to win if you are prepared. I know that from being at the coalface.

“In fairness now in the last six or eight years, it seems to be great.

“In the past, Fermanagh have had better teams but they aren’t as well prepared as they are now.”

However, they were well prepared for the 1994 u-21 campaign.

“In 1994 with the u-21s we had a good group of players. Jim Carty was the manager.

“He was old school, and he was very passionate. He was a real character. He had us out way before Christmas. He would have had boys going hard. He ran the shit out of us.

“The nucleus of that MacRory team was there.”

It was in 1993 that the Gilmore’s groin issue arose. And so he went into that u-21 campaign barely having enough time to recover.

“I had only trained two weeks and Jim Carty said I was playing. I played well against Donegal. We beat Tyrone and we rarely beat Tyrone.

“Then we beat Derry in the final.”

That win was the county’s third Ulster title.

He remembers preparing for the All-Ireland U-21 championship by taking a trip with his cousin Rory and the Fermanagh manager Carty.

“Myself and Rory went to the Connacht final. We would have went to watch club games in Derry, and we went to the 1994 game in Celtic Park.”

This practice of going to matches was something that Gallagher always enjoyed.

He was a football obsessive, and that’s why he tended to know teams very well.

“I was fanatical about football at that age (teenage years). I would have gone to club games in Tyrone, Derry and Donegal. I would have known every player.

“That was a time when there was less of a spotlight on the GAA.

“You would even go to watch challenge games and then you would get a bit of knowledge.

“I would know what the players were like. What way they are likely to start.”

Gallagher thinks that this sort of behaviour was of its time.

“I know a lot of boys wouldn’t go to matches, and boys now wouldn’t go, but I used to love it.

“I think that was an ’80s, ’90s, 2000s thing. I don’t think that happens anymore. The next generation has a different way of going on.

“I can remember going with Rory and Paul Courtney to Celtic Park to watch Ballinderry and Bellaghy in the championship. Both of them were going well.

“They would be big rivals. There would have been boys in the crowd shouting abuse. And then we would egg them on. If they would shout at a certain player we would shout as well. It was always a bit of craic.

“You would go up there and get into the crowd and then egg them on. They’d end up looking at you.

“It was just a day’s craic. I always found that going to Derry or Tyrone they were lovely people in the bars.”

However, in those early days he did more watching than playing. A cruciate injury in 1994 would rule Gallagher out for two years on and off.

“In 1993, when I was just finished minor, I was flying at that stage. I was well thought of. But then I had two or three years of injuries and I didn’t play a whole pile. I played a bit between the Gilmore’s groin and a cruciate.”

It was at this point that he began to realise how the inter-county system was set up, and that there was little thought about injury and recovery.

“I remember playing against Tyrone in 1996, Terry Ferguson was over the team, and he basically told us if you are not fit to train, not to turn up. I don’t hold that against him, I liked Terry. But that would be unheard of now.

“No one is to blame for that.

“It is different now because county teams have boys who will help players who are coming back to full fitness.

“You look at the likes of Mattie Donnelly with Tyrone. He’s out with an injury, and he is probably getting regular attention from the strength and conditioning coach.

“In my case I was 18-19 but I was left to my own devices.”

Such was his love for the game. Gallagher was always going to battle his way back into contention.

“I always wanted to get back playing.

“It’s hard to know what I missed out. When I did come back I was fit to do nothing for six months. Now you would have some programme in place. I definitely feely that I missed out on a bit of development.”

His return to action coincided with Fermanagh’s great year in 1996 when they, under Pat King, beat Tyrone in a McKenna Cup final, won the Division Four league and the All-Ireland B Championship.

“When Pat King took over in 1986, around that time I was wearing a big knee brace but it was uncomfortable and I started training without it, and then the confidence came back.

“Coming from a cruciate injury, you have some confidence issues.”

The run in 1997, when Fermanagh won that All-Ireland title proved to Gallagher that the Erne county were a team with potential.

“The All-Ireland B was a good test for teams.

“You were getting more games. We played four or five games against decent teams. Extra competitive games that you didn’t have. That helped develop a team.”

Yet while Fermanagh were developing, Gallagher’s frustrations were about to return. The injuries would return in the early 2000s. He had to have two discs removed from his back in 2001

“I had had surgery in my lower back in 2001.

“The surgeon would have said there was little chance of playing.

“I was lucky to get back after the back injury, But I feel that I missed out.

“I definitely didn’t reach the level of athleticism that I should have been at. But I was just glad to be back playing.

“I came back from that and played, but what was frustrating was the lack of proper medical attention. I was lucky that I did come back.”

The thing is, the signs had been there a few years earlier. Had he been warned by coaches, or if he had thought more about his future, then something might have been done to address the situation. But changing tack is hard.

“A couple of times over the years my back muscles had gone into spasm.

“I just thought it was a muscles. Had I had an MRI scan then it would have noticed things. I had disc problems, possibly from kicking ball off the ground.

“I can remember in 1996 I went into serious spasm and I missed the All-Ireland Junior final drawn game because of it.

“I remember it flared up in a club match against Ederney and it was like nothing that I have ever had before. I had to be stretchered off. And then I was panicking. I couldn’t stand up or walk straight.

“That was in April 2001. I ended up having an operation in August 2001. Nowadays it would have been sorted out straight away. There was time wasted.”

Gallagher feels that the GAA has changed a lot since then. There is more effort put in to protecting players.

“At that age I was a young fella. In any other sport it would be looked after.

“It was because of the amateurism. There was a lack of direction. Naivety perhaps. There might have been the element of having to pay.

“You would have been fighting a battle to pay,

“I had all three operations in the Mater in Dublin. It was a battle to get things sorted then.

“Reflecting on it, it was a big regret with how it finished.”

Yet there was a final chapter to Gallagher’s career.

He would get over that surgery and then return for a big year in 2003.

“2003 we had a good year. It was my last proper year. It was very enjoyable.

“Dom was over us, and Martin McElkennon was training. We had a good core of players.

“Tyrone beat us in the league semi-final but they were at a different level.

“We beat Donegal in Ulster. We should have beat Down in the Ulster semi-final.

“Shane King came on for Down that day. Ryan McClsukey got sent off. We had that game won.

“Tyrone might have tanked us in the final, though Down should have beat them.

“We played Mayo in 2003 in a Qualifier. It was a bad evening. I played okay and we won, and that was brilliant.

“We had got to the All-Ireland quarter-final, but we got tanked by Tyrone. Tyrone ended up beating us by 20-odd points and that put a dampener on it.”

There are plenty who remember that Fermanagh got one step further in 2004, reaching the All-Ireland semi-final.

Gallagher says that 2003 was the stronger year.

“In 2004 they had two chances to beat a poor Mayo team that we had beat the year before. People get carried away with that.

“We (he and some of the other senior players) all stepped away after 2003.”

Gallagher had moved to Dublin at that stage and was playing his club football with St Brigid’s with whom he won a club championship.

The county was still calling him though. He returned for one final flourish.

“2005 I came back but I hardly got on the team.

“I had been living in Dubin, I had asked back a couple of times. If I can get a transfer back home I would. But my heart wasn’t really in it. When the season rolled out that was the end of it.”

He says that it was the right decision, but there are still the nagging thoughts about what might have been.

“It’s never easy to step away. The way it ended for me, I was struggling. Unless things were going to the next level of preparation, I knew it wasn’t.

“The guys I grew up with were retiring.

“To retire at 28 I would never have envisioned that. But things change.”

Gallagher said that he’d like to say that he has no regrets but he doesn’t think that’s possible.

“Of course you have regrets. You are going to get injured. If players say they have no regrets they are talking shit.

“I am sure if you ask guys in Donegal will say they have regrets, say the 2014 final.

“I’m sure that Fermamagh regret not wining an Ulster title.

“We won very little. But the small things that we have won I have been involved in them all.”

The nagging regret is, that had he realised his injuries needed better care, or someone had stepped in to help, then he might have won a little more than he did.

“I did enjoy it. But looking back things should have been done differently.”

As he said himself, you have to change tack.

r.scott@gaeliclife.com