COUNTY | Love Will Not Tear Us Apart

Friday 20.05.2016

It’s not often that we post something from a Derry man but sure in the weekend that is in it here goes…

Love will not tear us apart

By Steven Doherty

Familiarity breeds contempt.

The rivalry and rancour has been built up to epic proportions. The professionalism and mutual respect of the first O Fiaich game has given way to something much more sinister and spiteful. The hostility has reached an all time high, or low. If hatred is too bold a word, then certainly dislike is not. Distain even. And as the season approaches the business end the antagonism has intensified.

It grew. It festered. Each game, each Tyrone win and Derry loss, further ratcheted up the rancour, and once-cordial relations are now at a low.

No-one gave an inch nor asked for one. And as Sunday approaches the air is thick with anticipation and malice. Yes, the press box is no place for the faint hearted when the Sperrins rivalry is in session.

They arrive early and, like Germans in Spanish seaside resorts, the Tyrone journalists take all the good seats. Paddy Hunter is the first man there and the last man home. He’ll not leave Celtic Park on Sunday until the last of the tay and cream fingers are red up. Kevin Kelly arrives with a smile, the smile of an assassin who’s bullet has your name on it. And if there’s a bottle of wine or two on the go Kelly’s your man and the bottle doesn’t stand a chance. Francis Mooney will be there too. Francie is the Micky Harte of the Tyrone press pack – quiet, intelligent, fiercely partisan.

Quiet is not a word, however, you’d describe Noel McGinn as. McGinn is the rascal of the gang, always up to no good and stirring the pot for all his might. In fairness, he’s good craic and if it weren’t for the fact he was from Tyrone he’d be dead on. As a manager and player with a fiercesome reputation, McGinn is an altogether more mild mannered operator behind the Team Talk microphone, but you can’t help but think that if things got a little feisty McGinn would find somewhere unpleasant to stick that microphone.

As individuals they have the one-eyed Tyrone sports reporters have various strengths and weaknesses, but the Red Hand Commando Press Corp hunt as a pack when the Derry/Tyrone game is on and they are as formidable as their counterparts on the playing pitch. They enjoy nothing better than sticking it to the Derry lads, big time. A bad loser is one thing, but a bad winner is so much worse.

And on the opposing side of the press room we have our own champions. Tall, brave, handsome men, all from Derry. Family men, Mass going men, good living gentlemen. Much work is undertaken for charity by all these fine patrons of the arts. Barren years has not blunted the passion for their county, and every Tyrone victory simply reinforced everything we know to be true –we’re Irish by birth, Derry by the grace of God.

The Derry reporting cabal is led by the wizened and legendary scribes Seamus and Bernie Mullan, veterans of many footballing conflicts down through the years – full of old stories and unremembered tales. The young pretender, Cahair O’Kane (formerly of this parish) can be found just beside Lord Dungiven and Baron Bernie of Ballerin. Cahair has recently reinvented himself as the new Jackie Fullerton, as comfortable in Windsor Park and Ravenhill as he is in Owenbeg. But the Drum man never forgets his Derry roots and is an ever present in the Free Derry Corner of the Celtic Park Press Box.

The Journal’s Micky Wilson sits beside O’Kane, the yin to his yang. Technically from Down, but exiled now at the Top of the Hill and with a hatred of Tyrone so intense he’s more Derry than the rest of us. Slaughtneil’s stat master big Mal ‘no North, no south, just Derry’ McMullan and Paul ‘Mackey’ McIntyre, half man, half Wolfhound – 100% Oakleaf, completes the Derry writing contingent. Oh, and not forgetting the bluffer from Glack, the Warrior’s Code himself, fond of the egg n onion pieces and awaiting the tap on the shoulder to tell him his time is up. Together, I think you’ll agree there’s a little something for everyone, particularly the ladies. Guardians of the galaxy, the justice league and the keepers of the flame. With laptops.

Four times the Derry and Tyrone have crossed swords this year already, with Derry yet to register a win. And don’t the Red Hand writers know about it. The banter begins early, long before throw-in. And as the last line of Amhrán na bhFiann is bellowed out “C’mon Derry, ye boy ye!” the opposing forces engage.

The Tyrone mob always start it. Always. And it’s usually McGinn. He’ll poo poo clear Derry appeals for a penalty, with the same gusto as he used to administer kidney softeners on the football pitch. Nervous laughter from the Derry side soon becomes full-scale ‘heated debates’. Agreeing to disagree is never an option. Cuss words are sprinkled into debates as frequently as Tyrone footballers feign injury. A stray ham bap can be launched from either side with the precision of a sniper from nearby Creggan and it’s best to keep the head down to avoid serious injury.

And then there are the neutrals who come to the biggest derby in GAA as much for the press box banter as the battles of the field. Declan Bogue from Fermanagh – detached, suave, cool. Bogue was once asked if a fight broke out between the Tyrone and Derry journalists who’s side would he take. “I’m so fond of violence,” came the Telegraph man’s clinically cold reply, “that I’d just wade into the thick of it with the two arms windmilling.”
The legendary Martin McHugh could be mulling about, bemoaning the modern defensive game (perfected by Donegal), while Thomas ‘Have you all seen my documentary?’ Niblock appears for all the big games, dressed in his Sunday best.

Derry PRO Dermot McPeake and his Tyrone counterpart Eunan Lindsay stand side by side, partitioning the two warring parties, like a pair of bouncers keeping order outside one of the Downey’s many nightclubs, and guarding any late team changes like a Derry man hiding his betting slip outside McBride’s bookies.

Unlike Celtic Park, the home of hospitality, Healy Park is a caterer-free zone, with sandwiches and buns as visible as the Tyrone full forward line. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bring your own bottle, just to be sociable of course. A glass or two of fine red wine also helps the imminent Derry defeat go down a little easier too, but again you have to be quick with your glass when Kelly’s about.

Which brings us all back to Sunday and Derry v Tyrone, part four. And while you are out in the stands cheering Derry on, booing those low down dirty Tyrone dogs, or gouling at the referee, spare a thought for the Derry journalists in press box. There will be fireworks aplenty in their too and the abuse being thrown at Oakleaf writers from McGinn and co..
An old girlfriend once caught me in the arms of another woman outside the Gorteen nightclub in Limavady late one sorry evening and asked me to explain myself. ‘My only crime,’ I told her, ‘is loving too much.’

Love life. Love your club. And never stop loving Derry. No matter what.

Doire abu!