I suppose when I look back to 1982 there are a couple of things that immediately strike me. One is how the years seem to have passed so quickly but also I am drawn to remember the lads on that squad who have passed to their eternal reward far too prematurely, most notably John Mohan and Seamus Callaghan.
John played in front of me in the half back line and we used to fall out during every game. He blamed me or I blamed him for making the mistake which led to us conceding a score. We were both very competitive or two ‘yaps’ depending on which way you look at it but things were only resolved when we agreed that during games, come what may, we would not utter a word to each other until the match was over. That did the trick and we continued with this arrangement for as long as we played together.
Seamus, although not on the starting team that year, was a very committed member of the panel and was another who was not afraid of letting you know what he thought. He was to come to prominence over the next couple of years and like John went on to play for Fermanagh at Senior level.
By the time 1982 came around Roslea were being written off a ‘League’ team, given that we had won the Division 1 title in both 1980 and 1981 and also one that was labeled as not having the stomach for the intensity of the championship.
At the start of ’82 the late Tommy Murray had stepped in as manager in what was something of a surprise appointment as, while Tommy had been a central player for the Shamrocks in the late forties and early fifties he had not been involved with the club for some years. He was a shrewd reader of the game and whilst he would have discussed various things, today they’d be called tactics, individually with players he certainly would not have dwelt long in his pre match talks in the dressing room The only words he would utter game after game would be … “Right Lads get out and get in” We all knew what he meant …. Get out on to that field and get stuck in. Tommy Callaghan was a selector and the training was taken by the late Benny McDermott.
Early season we were very hit and miss and certainly were not as consistent as we had been in the previous two years and this had the effect of us not been seen as leading contenders for the Championship. In the first round we played Kinawleyand won easily and then drew our old nemesis Teemore in the Quarter Final. . . .They had put us out of the championship in the previous two years. They couldn’t put us out for the third year in row could they ? We knew as we prepared for the match that unless we were on our game that is exactly what would happen. In the end we buried the hoodoo and won by 6 points, 0-10 to 1-1. Erne Gaels were next up in the semi-final and as they were the current County Champions we certainly were not complacent. The first half of this game as I remember was low scoring and was nip and tuck and I think were level at half time. Francie McGuiness and Peter McGinnity were scorers in chief for us as we tapped over a few points to go ahead in the second half but the win was secured after big Sean Connolly clattered into the goalkeeper in a race for a 50/50 ball with about 10 mins to go and Paddy Connolly had the easy task to side footing the loose ball to the net. I’d say the keeper is still sore !!. The game finished Roslea 1-9 Erne Gaels 0- 4 and we were through to our first County final for 20 years.
We were training in the old pitch behind St Eugene’s and the dressing room was a tin shed with a mud floor and no lights. This caused particular problems when you went rooting for your clothes after training in the dark. In that scramble it was not unknown for some boys to go home with somebody else’s underpants on them never mind the wrong trousers. Training was well attended in the lead up to the final, and even by a few boys that we hadn’t seen much of all year. We seemed to do lap after lap of the pitch. At least it seemed that way to me as someone who was usually positioned somewhere out the back. The Herald photographer arrived in due course at the training as the photos for the team pen pics were taken. The information given to support the pic was given by each player in turn and some boys had miraculously either grew by 2 or 3 inches or lost a stone weight overnight such was its accuracy. There was a rush to get the Fermanagh Herald the following Wednesday to see who had told the biggest lie.
The final itself was played in Brewster Park, which had recently opened and its size probably suited our style of play. I don’t remember the exact number but over the remainder of that year and the next few years we played multiple games there before we were beaten on that pitch. Of the game itself I only remember bits of it. We started very poorly and were four down early on before we got a couple of points in reply.
Sean Maguire then took a shot from about 40 yards out which sailed over Kevin McKenna who was off his line into the net. I distinctly remember Kevin then taking the kick out short to me something we would rarely have done as it was usually kicked to the middle. I kicked it up the wing to Gerry McGinnity who sent it in to Paddy Connolly. Paddy was out in front, gathered and laid it off to Peter who stuck it in the net. I remember that the St.Pats forwards were still back-slapping and congratulating each other for scoring their goal when we had scored ours at the other end. St Pats didn’t score again in the first half as we got on top and went in ahead at Half time. Our defence were on top at that stage and with Liam Mulligan and Paddy Lynch catching everything in midfield we dominated the second half. The only other thing I remember was the forward I was marking, Johnny McCaffrey,saying to me after Peter scored our third goal “that’s us f**ked anyway”. Kevin in goals saved a penalty late on too I think. To win the Championship brought great joy to the parish and I remember the parade up the village with the New York Gold Cup particularly well.
We played Carrickcruppen the Armagh champions, again in Brewster in the first game of the Ulster Club. All I remember about it was that Red got a goal to put us ahead in the second half but that it was level late on. We got a point ahead and held on for dear life. In almost the last kick of the game John Mohan caught the ball on the line but was pushed over. They thought they had it won but a free out was given.
Given our progress we were starting to get serious about things now and I remember Gerry Lynch, John Joe McNamee and myself heading out on a Saturday to cut down four fir trees at the mill to use as uprights for floodlights which were erected on the old pitch … we only needed four as we could only light up half the pitch as the other was under water at that time of the year. The lights were powered by a generator attached to Tommy Murray’s tractor, which was parked in the shed beside the dressing rooms. I recall one player who shall remain nameless . . . Red . . . ducking into the tractor on the way past as we were doing laps to pull up the throttle resulting in the lights going out much to Tommy’s annoyance. Red was obviously finding the going tough and by the time the tractor was sorted we all had our breath back. Something else I recall was that the tractor had no lights but had to be taken up to behind the Village Inn by John Mohan each night after training for safety. Someone would be despatched to the end of the old pitch laneway to check that there were no police about as the tractor was neither taxed nor insured andJohn would focus on the lights in the distance as he steered up the laneway in the dark. One night a couple of the rogues in the team unbeknownst to John had run to the river and filled two buckets of freezing water and slipped into the hedge half way up and when the unsuspecting John got their length they completed soaked him almost causing him a heart attack from the shock and making him lose control of the tractor,
Next up was ‘Blayney in the first round which was played on a very wet day. They were big favourites given they had a lot of county players and probably underestimated us. All I recall was their physical approach which earned us a lot of frees in the first half which we converted and in fact I don’t think they scored in the first half. Len Carberry was sent off and another recollection is of Scotstown supporters who were fully behind us against their arch rivals “getting to know ‘ the ‘Blayneysupporters up and down the terraces during the game. We won in the end by 9 or 10 points after a great team effort and I also recollect the late Johnny Mohan running onto the pitch after the game to give me a huge bear hug and he was absolutely delighted with the victory.
We were back in Brewster for the semi final against Castlewellan from Down. The worry before this one was how would we cope without Len at full back but a young Aidan Connolly stepped in and played very well that day. We got a good start when a poor sideline kick from Benjy Toner went straight to one of our players who booted it in to Benny Maguire at full forward who netted. I think they came back well at us in the second half and it took a Francie McGuinnessgoal to put daylight between us in the end.
Before the final which was to be played in Coalisland, Sean McCague from Scotstown, who was the then Monaghan County Manager, and who was to go on to become President of the GAA, came to our sessions to help us out and was on the line when we played St. Galls . We hired an ‘Ulster Bus’ to take the team to the match and that was a big deal as we now felt we had hit the big time. Of the final itself, I remember the huge crowd and I believe there was over 10,000 at the match and in truth we probably froze a bit on the day. I was marking a guy called Jim McDaniels who was about 6’4” and I would have needed a ramp to get up to his height in the air. I think they scored 10 points before we got a goal before half time from Benny Maguire to go in 7 points down at Half time. My memory may be playing tricks but I think about 6 or 7 of their points landed on the top of the net having just got over the bar as they shot from far out. They were totally dominant however and we never got into our stride, Second half we were a little better scoring a few points early on and when Peter got a goal midway through to bring it back to 5 points and we looked as though we had a chance. They regrouped however and held out to win in the end by four points. We were beaten by a better team on the day, that is not in doubt, but the frustrating thing was we played nowhere near our potential or at the standard of previous games. The other frustrating thing was that in most years, winning three games in the Ulster Club Championship would have won you the title but not this year as we had to play in the preliminary round. To add salt to that wound, St Galls had only to play one game to reach the final as the Derry Champions had been thrown out of the competition as a result of a row in their County final. The disappointment of this defeat probably has grown over the years as it would have been great to be the first Fermanagh club team to win that title. There is also the realisation that we had a good enough team to do it only that we underperformed on the day.
Things have changed over the years in many ways obviously and one change is that Tournaments are no longer a feature in the summer time. In ’82 we played in numerous tournaments and won four or five. In all that year we played 39 games and I think I only missed two or three. There certainly was no talk of ‘burn out’ in those days.
Aside from all that I remember the good times that year, the smile our success put on peoples faces around the parish, the memories that were made, the craic that we as well as players along the way and the friends I made for life. 40 years only seems like a blink.
