by Donal Keenan
Cormac describes the winning feeling as ‘phenomenal. It was a proud moment for each of us individually and then collectively as a family. It is an indescribable feeling. For our parents it was a very proud day. They instilled a simple philosophy into us – it was to get out there and do your best. If you have a talent don’t sit on it and don’t come home thinking you have not given everything. It didn’t just apply to hurling. It was a valuable lesson for life. I considered myself very lucky to have come along and been able to latch onto a terrific team.’
The pressures two years later were quite different. Tippe-rary had surrendered their Munster title to Cork in 1990. ‘People were beginning to question our worth, were we as good as people had thought?’ Conal recalls. ‘We knew we were good enough. The question was did we have the bottle to go out and win another All-Ireland and prove that we were a really good team.’ They beat Limerick, then they overcame Cork after a replay. The Galway hoodoo was broken in the All-Ireland semi-final. For the first time since Tipperary’s re-emergence they faced Kilkenny. Cormac and Nicky English were injured in the build-up to the final. Both started, neither finished. But Tipperary won a second title. ‘We scraped home but it was a huge relief to get that second All-Ireland. That proved how good we were.’
Celebrations were put on hold. The Cashel club reached the Tipperary final. Ailbhe Bonnar had joined his three brothers on the team. Brendan was a selector. Their father looked after first aid. Justin McCarthy had joined as coach and they won the Tipperary title for the first time in the history of the club. They added the Munster title and in February 1992 played in a memorable three-match series against Kiltormer of Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final. Kiltormer eventually won the tie and went on to All-Ireland glory.
Cormac retired in 1993. Colm and Conal continued to play and lined out in the All-Ireland final against Clare in 1997 which they lost by a point. ‘We had great chances to win it,’ says Colm. ‘Everybody remembers the chance Johnny Leahy missed, but there were other chances too. But it would have been an injustice if we had won that one. Clare were well drilled and they got a run at us.’ Colm played for one more year. Conal remained until 2000, but injuries were becoming more frequent. He had suffered cruciate, back and hamstring problems between 1994 and 2000 and underwent surgery for his back problem. Just before the All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway another injury struck and he called time with Tipperary. ‘There was a small sense of regret that we did not achieve more. We had been so close. But then we were lucky to win two All-Irelands.
‘It was a great adventure, not just for the three of us, but for the whole family. They would all meet on the night before big games and we would always meet up with them afterwards. It was like having seven or eight christenings or weddings a year. It was special for my father and mother. It hadn’t been easy for them and I think the hurling success was in some way the fruits of their labour.’
* * *
During his thirteen seasons with Tipperary, Conal witnessed big changes in the inter-county scene. ‘Preparation has changed dramatically. We brought a new sense of professionalism to it in 1989, the way we were trained and the way we were treated, the equipment – we had everything we needed. We had a professional trainer. But it was still quite social and enjoyable. We had a great time. By the time I had finished it was work. It had moved on to another level. An inter-county footballer or hurler nowadays is almost full-time. You need to be in the gym every day, watching your weight. The social aspect of it is nearly gone. You train and you go home.
‘I remember we won the Waterford Crystal League in one of my last games and we were waiting for the bus driver afterwards to come out and bring us home. When I started the bus driver would always have to wait for us because we would be in no hurry, hanging around, maybe having a few drinks. You don’t do that any more. That is the way it has to be now to compete at the highest level. Just look at the 2009 hurling final. The intensity of that game for seventy minutes solid was incredible. I know games evolve, but it is so intense now that there is no room for error, you have to be the right weight, you have to have the right body fat, you must have your stamina work done, your speed work, your skill work. You have your psychologists and your various coaches and that is what you need if you are going to compete. Just look at the physique of the players now. Hurling has at least kept the skill level along with the intensity, which is the advantage it has over football and last year’s final showed that. Football has the intensity but it has detracted from the skill levels.’
Conal is constantly amazed at how players manage to mix the modern demands with work and believes there are some jobs that will not allow time for inter-county hurling or football. ‘If you have a job that requires more than forty hours a week and that doesn’t allow the player the flexibility to work around that forty hours then it is almost impossible to be an inter-county player. It is becoming a young man’s game. You won’t see many self-employed guys playing hurling at the highest level in the future.
‘Players are making huge sacrifices and you wonder where it will end. There is talk about pay for play, but very few professional sportsmen do what these guys are doing. The problem here in Ireland is that even if pay for play was introduced the market isn’t big enough for a player to earn enough over a ten-year career to provide for himself later in life.
‘The GAA has changed; it is no longer just a body set up to promote Irish culture. Its structures are no longer amateur. It has changed a lot. It is now big business, but the people who are creating the business are making all the sacrifices and a solution has to be found. To play at the top level now you have to put your career on hold. But players cannot afford to do that. They must have a career to provide for themselves and in many cases to provide for young and growing families. A lot is being asked of them and the time has come for this to be recognised with some form of payment.
‘But that is only part of the solution. There must be an all-encompassing solution in relation to careers. The GAA must become actively involved in helping players in their careers away from the games. The GAA could become a university for inter-county hurlers and footballers, providing greater scholarship incentives, working on CVs, finding work placements, etc. For example, they could work on a pilot scheme whereby their major sponsors would give players six-month work placements. Massive revenue is now generated by the inter-county game. Because players are spending more time training and preparing – sometimes as much as sixty to seventy hours a week, more than they spend on their careers – the GAA is attracting major sponsorship from local and international companies. Gate receipts are higher than ever before. A large section must now be diverted into a scheme to help the inter-county players in terms of enhancing their job prospects and their futures.’
Colm has seen at first hand all the changes. He has spent years working with Waterford Institute of Technology teams, is one of the most qualified hurling coaches in the country, has worked in the inter-county game with Waterford and Tipperary and was appointed Wexford’s senior hurling manager in 2008. He returned to inter-county hurling with Tipperary in 2000 and won an All-Ireland Intermediate Championship on a team managed by his older brother Brendan. He played at club level with Dunhill in Waterford until his coaching duties demanded his full attention three years ago. ‘I love coaching and working with talented young players, but there is nothing to beat playing. I would have played for as long as I could, but my coaching commitments took over.’
Cormac’s teaching career has brought him to Milltown in Kerry where he is now principal of the Presentation Secondary School. He played with Dr Crokes in Killarney and won county titles. He has coached a number of teams and for two years was part of the Kerry hurling management setup. ‘We had great times,’ he says of his hurling days. ‘I was lucky because I was getting to the end of my career when the lads were just starting. I am so glad our career paths crossed. It was a privilege.’
The McHugh Brothers
Donegal’
s James McHugh keeps a watchful eye as his brother Martin shoots for goal. © John Quirke Photography
Almost eighteen years have passed but there are moments when one could be forgiven for thinking that time has actually stood still. There are changes around The Diamond in Donegal town, evidence that it enjoyed the favours of the Celtic Tiger before the world economy imploded, but in many ways it is still the same. The façade of the Abbey Hotel is familiar, though inside it has been modernised. This is a busy February lunchtime in 2010, a cold but bright day, as Martin and James McHugh arrive for lunch.
The bar, where food is served, is doing a tidy business despite the tourist season being quite a way off. All that activity stops briefly when the two brothers from Kilcar enter. Everyone acknowledges their presence; a series of ‘hellos’ and other greetings lead them to an end table where their privacy is respected. Except for the attention of one elderly man. He means no harm, of course, and Martin and James happily engage him in chat. The subject is football. It always is.
They talk about the prospects for the year ahead, albeit briefly. Inevitably, this conversation becomes a reflection. Nearly two decades on from Donegal’s only success in the 1992 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, memories of the homecoming to The Diamond on the night after the game, the tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters welcoming the Sam Maguire Cup and the thumping sound of Tina Turner chanting ‘Simply the Best’, remain fresh in every mind.
‘Sometimes,’ says James, who lined out at right half for-ward on that famous September day beside his older brother, ‘you feel the county is still living on that day. And maybe it’s not such a good thing.’ But he has a smile on his face. Donegal have not enjoyed anything like that level of success since and has dropped down football’s order. But that roller coaster journey to the All-Ireland title and the entire experience has left an indelible mark.
Football was central to the brothers’ lives before thoughts of playing for Donegal even entered their minds. It still is. A week on from our meeting and the McHugh brothers are together again, this time watching their sons Eoin (James) and Ryan (Martin) playing for Carrick Vocational School (VS) in the Ulster Under-16 Championship against Cookstown. The opposition coach is Peter Canavan.
Carrick VS has always been an integral part of football in south-west Donegal. ‘A real breeding ground’ is how Martin describes it. They both recall fondly the inspiration provided by Barry Campbell, now retired, in the school. They won Divisional and County Championships with regularity. They graduated to the county vocational school team. Martin recalls playing in an Ulster VS final, he’s not sure which year, when Packie Bonner lined out at midfield; a solid grounding for his future career as one of the Republic of Ireland’s greatest goalkeepers.
South-west Donegal was always a hotbed of football. Jim McHugh won a Donegal Championship with Killybegs in 1952 and his sons and daughters were reared on stories of that success and the great rivalries that grew up over the decades between Killybegs, Glencolumcille, Kilcar and other small rural communities. Their uncle, Frankie Daniels Cunningham, was president of the Killybegs club and one of the foremost supporters of the game all his life. ‘In places like those,’ says Martin, ‘you had the pub, the church and the football field. No other game was played.’
They also had big families providing lots of boys to play football. Farming was still profitable, the fishing industry was going well and the fish factories were creating plenty of employment to keep the boys at home. As Martin and James were growing up in the early 1970s, Kilcar enjoyed a period of great success, winning three Donegal Under-21 Championships in a row between 1972 and 1974. For such a small club competing against the big guns from Letterkenny and Ballyshannon, this was a serious message.
During that same period Donegal won the 1972 and 1974 Ulster Senior Championships. Martin remembers travelling by bus to Clones for those finals. In 1974 Michael Carr from the Kilcar club played; Finian Ward from Glencolumcille was at left half back. Danny Gillespie was a sub. ‘Michael was a player I really looked up to,’ says Martin. ‘We used to go training on our own. He was a great footballer but he was also a great athlete and I learned a lot from him.’
Although Martin was making quite an impression with Carrick VS, he failed to attract the notice of the Donegal minor selectors. It seems incredible today that a player who would become the central figure in the county’s historic All-Ireland breakthrough never played minor football for the county. ‘No, I went off for trials and all of that, but I was never picked,’ he says with a smile. ‘At the time St Eunan’s in Letterkenny and De La Salle in Ballyshannon were the strong schools. I was just a wee lad from Kilcar; I was small so I didn’t get too many passes and I wasn’t noticed.’
In 1980, the Kilcar selectors decided that nineteen-year-old Martin McHugh was good enough for their senior team. The club won the Donegal Championship for the first time and the wee man kicked ten points in the final. A month later he played in the National Football League for Donegal against Tipperary in Ballyshannon. ‘I always remember the Tipperary full back wore glasses. I never saw it before or since. And he was a good footballer too.’
So began a senior inter-county career that would last fifteen seasons and earn him plaudits as one of the outstanding footballers of his generation. ‘I was never dropped,’ he states before making a mild correction. ‘Well, I was dropped once for a game against Sligo. But the game was never played because the goalposts blew down. So I think I can say that I never missed a game for which I was selected.’
The intense club rivalry that was generated throughout the 1980s, as well as ever-increasing inter-county involvement, ensured that football would be central to the lives of the McHugh family. James was elevated to senior level in the club in 1981 and played minor football for Donegal a year later. Martin played his second year at under-21 level in 1982, a significant milestone in the history of Donegal football. They had lost the previous year’s Ulster final to an Éamon McEneaney-inspired Monaghan. Team manager Joe Watson stepped aside and Tom Conahan took over. Matt Gallagher, Eunan McIntyre, Tommy McDermott, Brian Tuohy, Anthony Molloy, Donal Reid, Charlie Mulgrew, Joyce McMullan and Paul Carr were just some of the squad members who joined McHugh on the famous journey that brought Donegal its first All-Ireland inter-county success at any grade. ‘It was a major breakthrough and it did put us on the map. The county won another under-21 All-Ireland in 1987 and that all contributed to a change in mood in the county.’
The schedule with Kilcar was hectic. James captained the club to their second Donegal title in 1985. They would also win in 1989 and 1993 when younger brother Enda played. ‘My father always rated him better that either of us,’ says Martin. ‘He was a defender, very strong. The fact that he came after the two of us didn’t make it easy. But I always remember the Ulster club final in 1993 when we played Errigal Chiaráin. He was marking Peter Canavan and did as good as job on him as I have ever seen.’ Enda also played in the county minor and under-21 teams.
James was taking his time joining Martin on the Donegal senior team. ‘I wasn’t a great one for winter training and I also broke my ankle twice,’ he explains. Martin defends him: ‘James was very versatile and that went against him. With the club we played him corner back one day, centre back the next and midfield if we needed him. Then we played him in the forwards. He was so important to the club. There are people here in Donegal who would say he was one of the best club footballers ever in Donegal.’
Martin and James McHugh lined out alongside each other at numbers ten and eleven for the first time in Championship football for the 1990 Ulster Championship. Their parents, Jim and Catherine, watched with pride as the two boys played a leading role in Donegal’s win over a highly rated Armagh team in the Ulster final by just a point, 0–15 to 0–14. That day is naturally cherished. Other memories of that Championship bring creases of pain across the foreheads of the two brothers.
The draw pitted Donegal against Meath, the champions of
1987 and 1988, in the All-Ireland semi-final. In terms of achievement there was a gulf between the two teams. But they had played each other in League games and the Donegal players didn’t have any fears. Before the day had ended the entire Donegal half forward line of Martin and James McHugh and Joyce McMullan had been replaced. Meath won fairly comfortably by 3–9 to 1–7. ‘Definitely one of the worst days in football for me,’ is Martin’s sad recollection.
‘That game affected me more than any other and I’m still not sure why. The game just passed us [the half forward line] by. [Anthony] Molloy had a brilliant game at midfield with [Brian] Murray. They easily won that battle. But for some reason the three of us never got into it. Maybe it was the long ball being driven in from farther out, I don’t know. I went home and wanted to lock myself in. We [Martin and Patrice, his wife] were living in a flat at the time and I wouldn’t have come out at all but for the fact that our son Mark was born on the Wednesday. I felt I had let everyone down, I had let my family down, the people down. I had let Donegal down. It is hard even now to work out what went wrong. Meath were a really good team, but that wasn’t all of it. Kevin Foley marked me that day. I had kicked eight or nine points off Liam Harnan in a League game, which is probably the worst thing I could have done. So Foley marked me. He didn’t get much ball, but neither did I so his job was done. We got a lot of stick after that which I felt was unnecessary.’
James believes that Donegal lost their way before that semi-final. ‘Donegal’s best game was a short passing game, whether people liked it or not. It might not have been attractive but that is the way all the clubs here played and it is what we were used to. For the game against Meath we changed. We played the long ball into Tony Boyle and it didn’t work. You have to say too that Meath were a brilliant team. Just look at the full forward line – O’Rourke, Stafford, Flynn. That says it all.’
