Fit For A King – Shane King reflects on his time in Erne colours

Niall McCoy: Football, rugby, soccer, athletics, media work, politician, musician, you’ve covered a lot of bases in your time so what is Shane King at these days?

Shane King: I’m trying to find a nice balance in life. I’m probably training and eating better now than I ever have. I’m off alcohol nine years this New Year’s Day. When you were in competitive football where everything was organised and structured, I was very good at periodising my year, saying I was going to do this and that. Then when I was working at the Odyssey after the county had finished I was working late hours and the diet went and I think I was tipping the scales at 16 or 16.5 stone. I decided to go off alcohol then and start training. I had a couple of good friends who were big into training and that helped me get back into the routine. I really enjoyed keeping in shape and I would have a go at anything athletically just for the craic. I was above average at a lot of things but I don’t think I was excellent at any one thing. That’s why I had a go at everything.

NMcC: You’ve had a go at marathons and triathlons and all those things.

SK: I did the Boston marathon one year for charity. I was on placement in Sligo and a guy staying in the hotel came into the leisure centre and I got talking to him. I asked him what he did and he said he was recruiting people to do the marathon and I said ‘Jesus, I’ll have a go’ and that was that. Five months later I was in Boston. Eamonn Coghlan was the patron of the charity and I ended up playing the guitar with Finbar Furey in a bar. He was in the spotlight and I was in the shadows. When opportunities arise, I’d hate to look back and say I didn’t give it a go.

NMcC: What was it like growing up? You couldn’t miss with your father Pat being a big Tyrone player so was it a Tyrone household or a Fermanagh household?

SK: My earliest memory of a Gaelic football match, funny I found the programme the other day. I don’t know if people would remember this in Clones, but you used to pay in through a wee square in the wall and you’d go to the turnstiles. My uncle put me through that wee square and that was the 1980 Ulster final (Tyrone v Armagh). Because my family was so involved in Trillick and the fact that Trillick were so successful at the time, it meant that I was exposed to those role models. I didn’t know who Lisnaskea were at that stage. I remember Trillick winning the Tyrone Championship in 1980 and my one memory from that is from the semi-final and my father coming home and having about 17 stitches around his eye. He went to play the ball from midfield and back in those days it wasn’t a shoulder you were met with, it was an elbow. They were losing 0-3 to 0-0 when he was stretchered off and I remember someone phoning that night and saying that their opponents only ended up with three points. Trillick probably had a reputation as a physical team but they had a lot of quality footballers too. For me, Brendan Donnelly, in an era of catch and kick he was catch and pass. A midfielder used to catch the ball and launch it in but Brendan had the ability to beat the first player and pass the ball. Sean Donnelly, John Donnelly, Declan O’Hagan, who ended up going wing half-back, the role models I had from about five until nine or 10 were all Trillick players. My father would have taken myself and my older brother (Barry) to the Trillick training. Barry was very diligent, he would have stood and watched it and I would have climbed the tree or gotten into a fight, but I remember just how hard they trained. Back then you were allowed into the dressing room and I would have been in with my father. In ’83 he was captain and I remember him going out to mark Frank McGuigan. In ’86 I was a bit older and I remember the replay with Dungannon and John Donnelly’s team-talk would have had the hair standing on the back of your neck. After that I would have been a big Tyrone fan. I remember in Clones switching ends at half time to follow Frank McGuigan. There was no point staying at the end we had been at because Frank wasn’t shooting into those goals. Eugene McKenna was another player I looked up to, he was one of the toughest players I saw on the field.

NMcC: You were always going to play, and you started young.

SK: In 1989 I played my first senior game with Lisnaskea when I was 14. They were playing a challenge match in Ballyshannon, my father was involved and they didn’t have enough players. I was told to go and stand in corner-forward and stay out of the way and not to get involved.

NMcC: And did you follow the advice?

SK: No, I did not. The first free we got I put my hand up and said I wanted to hit it and I was told to get out of the way. Then in 1991 our u-16s won the championship and I was brought into the senior panel. I came on in the league final. I’m down on the panel for the team that won the championship that season but I didn’t play any part.

NMcC: You won the u-16 title before the senior final and you had to come home from Mosney for the match after winning the Community Games 100m relay All-Ireland title.

SK: We won the gold medal in the 4×100 race. I was doing athletics along with Gaelic at that stage and throughout our time at St Michael’s we were blessed with Dom Corrigan and Peter McGinnity coaching us. We didn’t even realise it at the time. I probably would have been a difficult enough child to coach because I probably thought I already knew what to do. I have a very clear memory of Dom and Peter telling me what they wanted and Peter saying to me after the game ‘you played the way I wanted to play for 40 minutes and you did what you wanted for 20.’ My father would have been at every game I played and even when he stopped managing Lisnaskea he would have called me over to the wire at half time to give me his synopsis.

NMcC: He would have coached you in athletics too?

SK: He trained our relay team. The Community Games went town and county and we were blessed with the O’Donnell twins (Kevin and Brian) who would have been Mark O’Donnell’s younger brothers. I went to primary school with them and there was Oliver Woods who, God love him, is no longer with us and Stephen McCaffrey. We were together from P1 and went on to win the gold medal.

NMcC: So in ’91, you were winning gold in athletics as well as the u-16 Championship and you were also midfield as Lisnaskea reached the Fermanagh Junior Championship final only to be caught by a last-minute Devenish goal.

SK: My father was playing midfield with me. Looking back, how blessed was I to be able to do it? At the time he was so tough on me and Barry. I would argue with him with what I scored while his argument was about fulfilling my potential. He would say ‘if you want to be a normal person you can go and tell people you scored this and you scored that.’ He would have seen it as constructive but it was tough too. I think he was involved with the seniors for nine years and when we won Fermanagh in 1994 it was great because he was there, my brother was on the team. I was centre half-forward at that stage and I remember that morning my father giving me the challenge of what I should do that day. Now that he’s gone you get more memories.

NMcC: I’ll bounce back to 1994 because it was a crazy year for you, but you mentioned St Michael’s. In 1992 you came off the bench in the MacRory final against Dungannon in Coalisland and got the medal.

SK: I got an Ulster Colleges Allstar that year. I had been starting that year but then I was involved in a car crash after the last league game and before the quarter-final, I wasn’t able to tog in the quarter-final because I was still getting bad headaches. I came on before just half time in the semi-final and had a decent game. I was fairly disappointed to not start the MacRory final but as it turns out when I came on I had a horrible game. I underperformed but John Hanna from Brookeborough and Raymie Gallagher, the best finisher I ever played with, were the reasons we got across the line. The following year, in my mind, we had a better team but we didn’t perform on one day and Dungannon got us in the quarter-final. Those are days that you remember that annoy you. I was involved in two Rannafast finals and in the second of those I let the team down. I was only 15 at the time, but the disappointment I feel about not performing still lives with me.

NMcC: Do you mean you let them down by not playing well?

SK: I messed about. One of my brother’s best friends had an 18th party the night before and stupidly enough I had a few drinks. It was very obvious the next day that I wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Dom Corrigan was our manager and even if I see him now I have twinges of regret. There were three subs that day and I wasn’t taken off, but we were narrowly beaten and if I had been at it, it could have been different. It really cuts at me.

NMcC: A second Colleges All-Star followed the season after the MacRory win.

SK: The first year I was playing as a forward and the next year I went back to right half-back. Martin ‘Archie’ Greene played midfield and was very dominant so right half-back was a very effective position to be playing in. You had Raymond Gallagher up front and he was the best finisher I ever saw when it came to goals. Sometimes on the teams I played on, we didn’t get Raymie on the ball in the best positions. Back then football was very much man against man and maybe we could have done better to get him into the best positions. Then Rory Gallagher came along and he is still the best striker of a ball I have ever seen. Rory had a groin injury and before that, the range and distance he had was incredible. When Fermanagh won the All-Ireland B in ’97 his free-taking was phenomenal. A very clever chap too and it was no surprise that he went into county management, he was destined for it.

NMcC: Around this time when sport dominated, music was a big part of your life too. You were in a band called the ‘Whiskey Biscuits.’

SK: I had played the trumpet in the school brass band then my brother bought a guitar one Christmas and I started messing about on it. It was U2 and Tom Petty, and I’d never seen anyone pull a trumpet out at a party so I stuck with the guitar. I never took it that seriously, it was a bit of craic and a few quid at the weekend.

NMcC: Sport, football, I’m sure was always number one and I’m going to try and go through 1994 in some sort of chronological order here. Firstly, in April and May you beat Donegal, Tyrone and Derry to win the Ulster U-21 Championship. Looking back now, it’s one of Fermanagh’s greatest GAA achievements.

SK: At that time Jim Carthy was managing us and we had been training from before Halloween the previous year. The trainings Jim did were brutal. At the time we were training at the (Lakeland) Forum and when you could no longer see the clock at the town hall you knew training was nearly over. We had a reasonable u-21 League campaign but we were very lucky to beat Donegal in the first round. I had a free where the 21 meets the sideline and I decided to put it on the square, but whatever way I caught it the ball went over the bar. Then Pearse Collins from Lisnaskea got a late winner. Pearse wouldn’t have been known for his scoring power so it was great to see. There were so many Lisnaskea men on that team. Tyrone we played in Clogher and they had an off day. I think we needed a goal from Brian Maguire at the end, we almost lost that. In the final against Derry everything we wanted to go right for us went right. Mark O’Donnell was phenomenal. Derry never stopped but we always had enough of a cushion to manage the game. The disappointment was the loss to Mayo in the semi-final. We had trained so hard and went so well. So many of us had come through St Michael’s together, won a Corn na nÓg, played in two Rannafast finals, won a MacRory and won an Ulster u-21 so there was a lot of confidence heading into senior football.

NMcC: Before county though you helped Lisnaskea to the county title in 1994. What are your memories of that?

SK: One of the things that I regret is not getting a photograph with my father and my brother in ’94. It’s one of those things, you think you’ll get the chance every year. It would have been nice.

NMcC: Barry didn’t start the 1994 final because he was sick.

SK: He had food poisoning. I had a decent first half but Enniskillen came back at us in the second half. Barry came on and went to centre half-forward, where I had been, and I moved out to the wing. Barry ended up putting someone in for the goal but he wasn’t well. He was white. It was great to have a brother and father involved. Even Ronan my younger brother, he was involved with water and even with the Fermanagh days he would have been on the sidelines. It’s maybe only after the passing of my father that I look back and realise how lucky we were. I have regrets, of course. I didn’t always take my club games as seriously as I should have. If there was something on the night before you would have a few drinks. If you are a county player you should always be a role model within the club.

NMcC: After that county final win you played Gowna and lost by a point, did over-celebrating cost you?

SK: Not really. The problem for us was our physicality against them. I had played centre-half forward in the county final and Bernard Morris was their centre half-back. We had moved our corner-back to half-forward and I went out to the wing. My main memory is when the ball came to me on the wing, I did two toe-tap dummies with the same foot and put the ball over the bar with my left foot. I came jogging out thinking ‘Jesus aren’t I a great fella’ when I got a box. Things like that didn’t happen in Fermanagh football. In ’91 when Lisnaskea won the championship they played Downpatrick and for the last 20, 25 minutes they out-played them, but it was too late. It was looking at Downpatrick and looking at their five All-Ireland winners and thinking we couldn’t compete. Gowna was more physicality though, we needed a couple of years to develop.

NMcC: A week after Gowna you make your Fermanagh debut in a B All-Ireland game against Westmeath that you lost extra-time. Maybe you remember your manager Terry Ferguson arrived in a helicopter that day having been involved in a club match earlier in the day.

SK: With about 10 minutes to go in that match I kicked the ball over the bar from a very tight angle and the umpire waved it wide. It was my first ever Fermanagh score and it wasn’t given and we should have won by a point. I remember being taken off at the start of extra-time. Terry Ferguson is one of those managers that I really rate. The way he spoke to me in that first year was brilliant. After the game I was down in the dumps and he called me over and told me not to panic and that I would get a run of starts. Back in those days it was you have five minutes or you’re coming off. I hear that in underage now and I think it’s the worst possible thing you can say to anybody, but Terry kept me right. The next week we played Longford in the first game of the National League and I scored three points from play. Terry came over to me ‘remember I told you not to worry about playing badly last week? Well don’t get carried away with that.’ I thought that was brilliant. You’re 19, you think you’re 6’ 4” and bulletproof but he brought me back down to earth. Terry gave me my chance. I would have seen myself as playing in the half-forward line but he asked me who did I model myself on and had I watched much of Bernie Flynn. So I decided to play corner-forward like Bernie Flynn. The person in my head who I wanted to emulate has changed over the years, but at that time it was Bernie Flynn.

NMcC: The Ulster Championship debut came against Tyrone then the following summer.

SK: We met them two years running and they got to the All-Ireland final in the first of them and the semi-final the next. Because of that a lot of the good work Terry did for Fermanagh was overlooked. I got a couple of early scores in the first game but that was mainly down to some great ball in from Collie Curran. When I was young it was Trillick players I looked up to but when it was Lisnaskea, people like Collie were the ones you wanted to emulate. That morning my father told me to do what was I was told but to not be afraid to try things. Championship games are won and lost on something special. I think I kicked two wides before my first score. Collie or Malachy O’Rourke had played a ball across to me and my aim was to get the defender facing their goals because I could change direction then. That was the Bernie Flynn thing, any time he took on a defender he wanted the defender running back because if someone is beside you, and I knew how strong Paul Devlin would be, it’s tough. I needed him to be running backwards and needing to rotate his head to see where you were, because that always gave you enough space. The ball in was very good though. Paul Brewster went off injured that day and we sort of collapsed. We came back at them but Peter Canavan set out a marker that day that he was going to dominate football in Ulster. Paddy McGuinness was one of the best defenders we had but that day, if you dived in on Canavan he went around you and if you stood off him he’d kick the ball over the bar. Almost unmarkable. I remember being interviewed after that game and saying we were happy we were able to compete, but looking back we should have been more disappointed. The following year we played them in Omagh and we collapsed. We had a lot of injuries, a lot of players in new positions and Tyrone had been to the All-Ireland final the year before. Terry took the criticism but we, as players, didn’t perform. When he stepped away my father came on board, although Terry was probably nicer to me!

NMcC: Your dad comes in and in 1997 Cavan hit a last-gasp point to force a replay, which they win. In ’98 you’re two up on Cavan late on and lose. You were getting there and then comes that first win in ’99 when you hit 2-2 against Monaghan.

SK: We had a horrible start, I think Monaghan were 1-3 to a point up. Declan Smyth was causing us all sorts of problems. Dermot McDermott owns a sports shop in Monaghan and I would still call in. I always had time for him even when we were playing against each other and if I was doing my running I would buy my trainers off him. He was adjudged to have lifted the ball off the ground for a penalty and I actually don’t think he did. I sat the ball down as quickly as I could before anyone came over and I just picked my side. I would have always placed my penalties but that day I picked my side and it hit it as hard as I could. The ball nearly hit the net before the goalkeeper had even moved.

NMcC: That was a big day for your daddy too, having ended Fermanagh’s long wait for an Ulster win. He’d get more, win a Division Four title, a few McKenna Cups, he was involved in the 1997 All-Ireland B title. He brought a lot of silverware to a county not laden with trophies. It sounds too like he was not a man that would allow you to get a big head, and it seems like it’s something that worked for you.

SK: I don’t know if it worked or not but, put it like this, there wouldn’t be a lot of hugs given out in our house. We weren’t that sort of family, but at the same time he was very supportive in all aspects of life and gave us great guidance. Fermanagh got very professional in terms of our training under him in terms of our structure. Rather than train on a Tuesday and a Thursday under poor lights we would have added a daylight session on a Saturday. We would have went Tuesday, Friday, because he didn’t want boys to have to travel up and down on a Thursday night, and then a Saturday session that was low intensity with a lot of shooting. I thought that if we had a bit more luck we could have really pushed on. Armagh were around the same standard as us in the mid-90s but then the Kieran McGeeney influence allowed them to push ahead. I always think of that 2000 semi-final when they beat us by a point, if we had a stronger referee when Shane McDermott kicked the ball over the bar and Benny Tierney went screaming ‘wide’ to the umpires and it was waved wide, we could have won that.

NMcC: You kick a point in that game after 29 minutes and Fermanagh are 6-2 ahead. I’m sure your head was going a million miles an hour at that stage.

SK: The thing about Armagh at that time was that they were incredibly efficient. We had to work so hard and things had to go so well for us to get into that position. In five minutes Armagh could turn things around. I remember playing them in a National League game or something and Diarmaid Marsden was playing full-forward and our defenders couldn’t get past him because his tackling ability was phenomenal. He was the best tackling forward I have ever seen, really strong and he didn’t foul. Intense stuff. Back then forwards used to tackle to be seen to be tackling, but the contact Diarmaid made was so tough. Maybe we just didn’t have the drive and ambition that those Armagh guys did.

NMcC: Your dad stepped down in the dressing room afterwards and you placed doubt on your own future in an interview with the Fermanagh Herald immediately afterwards. Your future wife was from Newcastle in Down and the travelling was a lot.

SK: 1998, ’99 and 2000 I had been coming up and down the road. Over the Mournes, into the Newry, Armagh, Monaghan. Some of the training might have been down in Garrison. I was disappointed after losing to Armagh and I just knew that I couldn’t do it forever.

NMcC: You also played a bit in America at that stage too?

SK: I played in Chicago and I thought I had arrived. Paul Higgins was playing against me and he hit me a shoulder in the back. I thought it was time for me to grow up but you know when you hit someone and you feel it the whole way down your arm? I had hit him with everything and he didn’t move, he didn’t blink, he didn’t wipe his face, he didn’t do anything. Then comes the instant regret and the feeling that your life is in danger. He came into the pub that night and I went out the back door!

NMcC: Back in Ireland John Maughan replaced your father and did get you back for a bit, but the reports were that your relationship wasn’t the best?

SK: Again, that was probably my fault. John has his way of managing and that was it. There was probably the perception that I didn’t get on with him but I have a lot of respect for him. He was aiming for that next step, the discipline went up, there was no messing. We were doing circuit training and someone stopped to get sick. John Maughan handed him a bag and said ‘if you’re going to get sick, get sick but don’t dare stop.’ He was doing what he felt was right and as players we didn’t perform for him and maybe I didn’t react the best to him. I got taken off in one game and he spoke to me afterwards and there was total miscommunication. I knew that he thought I didn’t care that I was taken off, but that wasn’t true. I’ve met him for a few times and one time when he was managing Mayo I ended up at their banquet when they lost to Kerry playing the guitar and singing. He had a great turn of phrase too. I remember one lad was making his debut and it wasn’t going well and at half time he told him ‘I just saw your man coming off his field looking for change because he wanted to phone his mummy and tell her to get down here quick because he was having the game of his life.’

NMcC: By the time John came in you had moved from Lisnaskea to Bryansford in Down, but is it true you had been training with Castlewellan first?

SK: No, I hadn’t. I had transferred to Bryansford because the wife’s two brothers played for them and if you knew them, you knew you couldn’t play against them. We were due to buy a house in Newcastle and it fell through so we bought a house in Castlewellan that was to do us for a year but it ended up being our house for 16 years. I got on very well with Barney McAleenan, who was the Castlewellan manager. I maybe thought about it but I really enjoyed playing for Bryansford and the best manager I’ve ever had would have been Benny Corrigan. The championship we won in 2003 was brilliant. Eamon Burns, God rest him, came into the backroom team and didn’t pull any punches. He had two All-Irelands so he didn’t mind telling you what you needed to be told.

NMcC: You played Loup, who went onto win Ulster, and lost narrowly. A feisty affair and Paul Young was sent off for striking you.

SK: I was lucky to stay on the field that day. They had me targeted and every time I played the ball someone was coming across me. Malachy O’Rourke was managing them and knew my game. At one stage someone came across me and I retaliated and was very lucky. We missed a couple of goal chances but Johnny McBride was very hard to handle. I thought the referee could have given us a chance to draw that game, the whistle went and I thought it was a free in but he gave it the other way and then blew it up. But I absolutely loved that season with Bryansford. It was their first championship in 27 years.

NMcC: And while all this moving clubs is going on you had a rugby trial with Rochdale Hornet’s, who are a sort of feeder club to professional teams like Wigan. You also put pen to paper with Cliftonville in the Irish League and I’m just wondering how you fitted all that in.

SK: I was never going to be a soccer player. I could strike a dead ball and I had enough fitness to get up and down the pitch. I had seen guys from school who hadn’t made it who were so far ahead of me. I saw Tom Mohan playing soccer and if that guy didn’t make it I had no chance. For the rugby, Mick McGurn was conditioning coach with the Leeds Rhinos and I went down to train with Leeds for two days, kicking with Iestyn Harris, Barrie McDermott and these guys. Doing your gym session and David Batty walks past, it was a great environment to be involved with. Unfortunately in one of the last games with one of the feeder clubs I sprained my ankle really badly and I ended up missing some Fermanagh games because of that. I had to be 100 percent fit to perform and I could never perform if I wasn’t at that level. They were great experiences though and I just loved the idea of being a full-time athlete.

NMcC: At the end of that 2001 season you transferred from Fermanagh to Down, how was that received?

SK: The Fermanagh guys met with John Maughan and he hadn’t decided if he was coming back. I went down to that meeting and told the players that were there that I wouldn’t be returning. Oddly enough Pete McGrath asked me to join the Down panel, I met him at the Canal Court. John Maughan didn’t stay on and Dom Corrigan took over and one of my biggest regrets is not playing another year with Dom. I had no family ties to Down but it was either you play county football or you don’t play county football and I’d play for whoever if it meant I got to play. My first league game ironically was against Fermanagh. Barry was still on the panel at that stage and I was marking Paddy McGuinness. Gregory McCartan was dominant that day and to play with Gregory was great. It was one of those days where everything went right for me and on your third or fourth point you are thinking ‘get it into me, I’m shit hot.’ Now, I’d never say that out loud, but I remember Ger Houlihan playing against Fermanagh one day and he announced ‘get it into me, I’m shit hot.’ That became a phrase of ours at Fermanagh training then. ‘Houli’ wasn’t telling any lies.

NMcC: Then in the 2003 Ulster semi-final, Down met Fermanagh and a minority of Fermanagh fans booed you when you came on. How did that feel?

SK: A minority? It was the whole lot of them. I spoke to a friend of mine from Belcoo who was with our Barry and I asked him how Barry reacted. He said ‘I told him to stop booing but he wouldn’t.’ During the game that had no effect on me, and I actually think it hurt Fermanagh more. They were coasting, we were a man down and I remember the first ball I went for, someone came to bury me. I stepped back, and he went over the sideline. We had a man off and Ryan McCluskey was on a yellow, so I wanted to take him on. I put the ball over his head knowing that ‘Clucker’ always makes contact. I made a meal out of it, he walked and the teams were levelled up. What actually was disappointing that day came after the match. We walked down the hill towards the Creighton and a few people threw bottles at me. Football is like that, I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Nobody wanted to see Fermanagh get to an Ulster final more than me, but I wanted to get to an Ulster final.

NMcC: Eventually your playing days came to an end.

SK: After I finished with Bryansford I transferred to Castlewellan and played a few games with their reserves. I went over on my ankle and that was three months and I knew it was time to quit. Then I was doing triathlon training and other things and building up my leg muscles and last summer actually played with a Louth club, Cuchulainn Gaels in Omeath. I helped the guys found that club in 2005 and I was back training with Lisnaskea before lockdown, then it didn’t work out. Then the opportunity came with Cuchulainn Gaels and I played a few games. I don’t know about next season, I’ll be 46 and you’re one injury away from not running again. My son Patrick is away training to go the defence forces and I really enjoyed training with him. I go to the gym with Ruairi. The younger fella, who is a first year in school I’d go for runs with him at the weekend. I cycle with Shimna Wheelers every weekend and do about 90k, well I hang off the back of them towards the end. I’d like to do some adventure racing next year.

NMcC: What about politics? In 2014 you ran for the SDLP in the local elections, do you harbour any more political ambitions?

SK: I shared the SDLP’s vision for education, sport and health. I was asked would I consider it and whilst I didn’t get elected I wasn’t far off. I don’t look at it as a failure, I look at it as an experience and either you learn or you feel regret and I have learned. I probably have a different view on it now having been involved, there were a lot of issues, but I always said I’d try everything I could.

NMcC: You did some media work too post football, the BBC and also with the Daily Ireland.

SK: I absolutely loved the work I did with BBC, the half-time analysis. I did co-commentary and then I make a stupid, harmless, off-the-cuff comment and that put an end to everything. I did a bit of commentary there with Fermanagh TV there recently and I still loved it.

NMcC: You mentioned your son Patrick earlier. Back in 2017 he suffered a brain injury in a bike fall in Rostrevor but it sounds like he is doing really well now and the family is good.

SK: I’m blessed with a healthy family. We try to be as active as we can and we are blessed with the Mournes. Ruairi and Conleith are showing plenty of promise with the football, Patrick and Daniel don’t play. My daughter would be the most athletic of all the children, she is into gymnastics. Each child has to follow their own lives. I find myself drifting into my father’s shoes, I might call Ruairi over at half time and tell him what I think he should be doing better.

NMcC: Do you ever see yourself going on to manage?

SK: I tried it with Liatroim and I’m not sure if I ever would want to again. There are managers I would love to work with. I’d love to be involved with a team maybe in the strength and conditioning side of things and the actual coaching too. But let’s see what is in store in the future.

NMcC: And what do you miss most?

SK: My best friends I have met through the GAA, the people I respect. What do I miss the most? That moment when you break a huddle just before a game. You are in a huddle with 15 men, you don’t speak to them every day of your life, some you may not even get on with, but in that moment you know that for the next hour you have those bºoys to back you.