The King: The legacy of Frank McGuigan

Frank McGuigan was one of Gaelic Football’s greatest artists. He was laid to rest on Thursday. Former Tyrone teammates Damian O’Hagan and Kevin McCabe look at his legacy. Michael McMullan writes…

WHEN Damian O’Hagan’s phone began to ping since Sunday, it added another layer to Frank McGuigan’s standing in the game.

Messages from Dublin trio David Hickey, Alan Larkin and Tommy Drumm. Former Armagh star Fran McMahon rang from Chicago. Cork dual wizard Jimmy Barry Murphy.

“They were top class players in their day, who were all wooed by McGuigan,” O’Hagan said. “He was a legend to us, it can be emotional to even talk about him now.”

Ardboe’s statement on their social media was as magnificent as it was simple. A tribute to McGuigan – ‘The King’.

“One of the greatest footballers ever to wear the colours of club and county,” it read. “A true legend of Ardboe and Tyrone football.”

Later that day, the Tyrone senior team wore black armbands and stood shoulder to shoulder in an impeccable minute of silence ahead of their All-Ireland clash in Roscommon.

Tyrone GAA’s statement said McGuigan’s brilliance “inspired generations of players” who have since worn the jersey.

There was irony in Mattie Donnelly’s goal that swung the game for the final time. Donnelly’s jersey number? Yes, number 14, the jersey synonymous with Frank McGuigan.

“There’s no doubt he was looking down on Tyrone in the last few minutes,” O’Hagan added.

McGuigan was a footballing icon across Ireland. Even across the Atlantic, in the Bronx, he tortured teams in Gaelic Park.

Frank won an Ulster minor medal in 1971, captaining the Tyrone side to glory the following year.

He came on as a sub against Donegal in the ’72 senior final defeat while also helping the U21s to Ulster success.

“In 1973, senior manager Jody O’Neill made him the youngest ever captain of Tyrone,” O’Hagan added.

“Jody was the youngest ever captain of a Tyrone team to win an Ulster title and he handed the captaincy to Frank.”

It was an era when McGuigan’s stardust helped lead Ardboe to three successive Senior Championships.

After heading to New York as a replacement All-Star in 1977, he stayed there for six years where he met his wife, Geraldine.

He returned to Tyrone ahead of 1984, his finest hour, the Ulster final win over Armagh. He lit up Clones with eleven points from play.

A high ball in from Damian O’Hagan, onto the right and over the bar. That was only the start. Another ball in, the power to hold off a man, a dummy onto the left and point number two.

25 years on: The story of Ardboe’s 1998 title success

Left foot. Right foot. Four. It became six by the time Plunkett Donaghy launched a missile into the box. Tyrone were outnumbered four players to two. It didn’t matter. One of them was McGuigan, rising highest to fist over. Seven.

Four more swings of his left foot in the second half and McGuigan was on his way to a one of the most talked about performances ever.

It earned him an All-Star and he went on to win a fourth senior medal with Ardboe.

Unfortunately, a car accident ended his career prematurely shortly after. His magic was taken far too soon.

Tyrone GAA encyclopaedia Eunan Lindsay crunched McGuigan’s numbers for a post on X this week. In 69 senior appearances – of which 18 came in the championship – McGuigan amassed 7-137.

It’s hard to make a case that Tyrone wouldn’t have taken Sam home in 1986 had McGuigan been on board.

The sad passing of Frank on Sunday cut deepest at home. With Geraldine, his sons Frank, Brian, Tommy and Shay, daughters Kristin and Caitlin.

Frank loved following his children’s careers and more recently the grandchildren as they too began their way.

FAMILY TIME…Frank and Brian McGuigan pictured with their father Frank, younger brother Shay and the O’Neill Cup in 1998

What was it like to be a footballer and the son of one of the county’s most famous sons?

“I think what helped us was that Daddy didn’t really push us,” Brian said, in an interview with Gaelic Life to mark the 25th anniversary of Ardboe’s 1998 title.

They’ll miss him every day but they’ll have buckets of memories.

*****

Kevin McCabe misses him too. McGuigan was due to visit on Thursday for a few frames of pool. It was a ritual. They also golfed together.

When they’d meet for a monthly bite to eat, football chat would always be prominent.

They just hit it off. Together, they won three New York Championships.

“I used to fly out and play games,” McCabe said. “I got to know him and Geraldine”

When McCabe was picked as a teenager to play league games for Tyrone, he’d be sat in the back of the car, along with men like McGuigan, Sean Coyle and Peter Mulgrew.

“They were big fellas and I was only a cub,” McCabe recalls.

Ironically it was Coyle who pleaded with then Tyrone minor manager Art McRory to add McGuigan to the ’71 Tyrone squad, even after he was too shy to attend trials.

McCabe also recalls his days when playing against McGuigan. On one occasion, they were up against each other at midfield when Clonoe locked horns with Ardboe.

“I was just about to jump for a catch. He just swung his hips, knocked me sideways and caught the ball,” McCabe said.

As also echoed by O’Hagan, McCabe stressed the level of McGuigan’s natural talent, not honed by days at the pitch with a bag of balls kicking.

A viewing of his Laochra Gael on TG4 reveals Frank taking his children Shay and Caitlin to see their grandfather’s home. A primitive spot where he grew up in a family of 11.

Frank recalled being outside for hours and hours, lobbing a tennis ball up on the roof before leaping to catch.

It was time well spent. When a ball sailed into midfield in the 1973 All-Ireland minor semi-final against Cork, Frank was like a coiled spring, leaping to catch one-handed.

“When he took his shirt off, he was built like a tank,” O’Hagan recalls. “He was strong, playing in an era when full-backs were allowed to kill you.”

McGuigan’s Tyrone career came in two parts – before and after New York.

“He’s a legend but can you imagine the legend he would have been if he’d been playing all the way through,” McCabe added.

“He was known throughout Ireland for his ability and a wonderful person. Nice to be with and shy.”

Tyrone arranged a celebration dinner a week after the 1984 Ulster final. Frank stayed away from the glare and any adulation.

“He was very down to earth,” McCabe said. O’Hagan agreed. McGuigan was witty but never blew his own trumpet.

“In chatting to you, he always would have given you confidence,” O’Hagan added.

“If you were confident to take a shot on, he’d tell you to go for it. In front of goal, he was a complete assassin.

“The way teams are taking 20 passes now; to get a player into position, I’m not sure Frank would have had that patience.”

WING MEN…Frank McGuigan and Kevin McCabe at Croke Park in 1984

Digging into McGuigan’s repertoire for a standout moment is difficult for those closest.

Aside from the obvious 1984 Clones gold, McCabe recalls a Sunday in Páirc Esler when McGuigan was coming home from the US for games.

“The Down crowd were getting on his back, questioning why Tyrone were bringing him home,” McCabe said.

“He answered them in the second half. Frank got a couple of balls and just buried him in the back of the net.”

McCabe also references a club championship game for Ardboe up in Coalisland against a Moortown team that included his brother Stephen.

“One score always sticks in my mind,” McCabe said.

Frank was in the right corner forward position, almost on the goal line. The angle was acute. In the norm, well away from the scoring hot spot but Frank wasn’t the average Joe.

“He went to kick, then pulled it back but a man went for it,” McCabe said of the first dummy.

“He went to kick the ball with his left foot but then bounced the ball forward, past a defender. It took him out to the 14-yard line and he swung it over with the left.

“It’s just a wonderful score; I never forgot it. I tried it a few times myself but it never worked.”

In the colours of Tyrone, McCabe was often the man playing the ball into McGuigan from wing back.

“If I could give Frank a decent ball, I would,” he said. “I also had the option of just putting it up in the air, with snow on it, into the general area of the full forward line.”

More often than not, the ball ended up over the bar. The times that it didn’t, rarely would a defender have a handy path from danger.

McCabe’s McGuigan moments are flooding back. He remembers surging forward in a Championship game with Derry only to be closed down on the 21-yard line.

“I stopped and put the ball back out to Frank, about 35-yards out and he stuck it over.”

McCabe’s shot would’ve been a 50-50, but despite being further out, he knew McGuigan wouldn’t miss.

Picking memories of an all-time great is always going to be tough. O’Hagan thinks back to nights at Tyrone training.

“There were times when you had to be there to see it, when he was on the ball, he was unmarkable, when he was in that zone. On that Ulster final day in ’84, he was in the zone.”

O’Hagan is the current Coalisland senior manager. A winner of two O’Neill Cups as a player, followed by another two as a manager, he has witnessed the entire spectrum of footballing styles.

MEN OF ’84…Frank McGuigan played on the Tyrone team that lost the 1984 All-Ireland semi-final to Dublin

“In this era, Frank McGuigan would have been kicking two pointers to a band playing,” O’Hagan said, without hesitation.

“He was deceivingly fast. If you tried to beat Frank McGuigan over 10 or 12 yards, you weren’t beating him.

“I always thought Kevin McCabe could mark him well in training because he always fronted Frank. Then, if the ball went high, it gave McCabe time to get back around him.”

O’Hagan laughs at how McCabe would almost taunt Frank in training, as in, sell me the dummy if you want, but I’m not buying.

“He would have been all the time telling McGuigan to shoot,” O’Hagan said with another giggle.

*****

If McGuigan was revered in Ireland, it was the same in New York’s Gaelic Park. McCabe and O’Hagan have memories like it was yesterday.

“I came across Frank in a New York final and every player on the field that day was a county player,” O’Hagan recalls.

“The half forward line for our team was Pat Spillane, Ambrose Rodgers and myself.

“On the other side you had players like Dubs Fran Ryder, Brian Mullins and Tom Prendergast of Laois.”

Like he often did, McGuigan put on an exhibition in the second half to drag Tyrone over the winning line.

It sparked days of celebrations. O’Hagan didn’t make the Monday flight home. It was the same after another magical Tuesday before eventually making the Wednesday flight.

“For me to get playing with Frank McGuigan was a complete honour because he was five or six years older than me,” O’Hagan added. “You can only describe him as a man that you feel had it all.”

O’Hagan’s first year on the Tyrone team was 1980 and the joke was that McGuigan was coming home to take his jersey for the upcoming final with Armagh.

“My answer always was that it would be a total honour to give Frank McGuigan my place,” O’Hagan points out.

“I would have loved it because if McGuigan had come home and played in that final, there’s a good chance we’d have won it.”

It was McGuigan and ‘Rocky’ Gallagher who coaxed O’Hagan out to America. Away from work and football, they’d planned a game of tennis but Gallagher warned O’Hagan he was in for a long haul.

“Rocky told me I’d have to play tennis ‘til tomorrow, that Frank wouldn’t let me go until he beat me,” O’Hagan remembers.

“He was so competitive in every sport, golf, snooker, pool…anything, McGuigan would have played all day until he beat you.”

McCabe can vouch for that, coming back to his footballing talent. While those who played with and against McGuigan have an ocean of memories, the rest of the country – dined on the clips of ’84 – have lived on scraps.

Imagine if Instagram or TikTok was in vogue in the 1980s. Think of David Clifford now. McGuigan would’ve been a weekly viral attraction.

“We got to see the best of Frank, but we didn’t see enough of him,” McCabe said.

“I saw plenty for Tyrone and in New York, but the rest of Ireland didn’t see enough of him.”

A couple of phone calls to O’Hagan and McCabe to delve into the legend of McGuigan is only the tip of the iceberg. A couple of thousand words here will never do him justice. Not even close.

The mixture of sadness and pride in their voices say far, far more. Their tales and memories will last a lifetime.

“Frank McGuigan had a serious fanatical following,” O’Hagan added, painting another picture.

“There were men who just devoted their time to watching McGuigan. One of Frank’s biggest fans was Pat Shields.

“When Frank had the car crash, Pat Shields would have driven every Monday night to the hospital in Belfast.”

O’Hagan also remembers going to watch Tyrone when he was a teenager, standing beside Shields in the O’Neill Park crowd.

“Pat had one of his children in his arms,” O’Hagan recalls. “Every time Frank got the ball, he threw the child into the air and caught the child coming down again, so that he could see Frank.”

Stories like this soon tell us why McGuigan became known as ‘The King’.

Frank’s name will live on but his family and friends will miss him every day.

“It’s like losing a brother, I’ve known him that well, and we’ve done many things together,” McCabe concluded.

“I was there for him if he needed something and he was there for me. That came from getting to know each other so well in New York.

“It was an honour to have played with him, and an honour to have known him, as a person, as a friend. I’m still finding it hard to take it all in.”

They’ll all miss him. Frank the husband, son, brother, father, grandfather, and friend. A footballer and genius. A King.