ALL-IRELAND SFC QUARTER-FINAL MAYO v MEATH:MAYO AND Meath will always be linked with the cordite and melodrama and sheer weirdness of the 1996 All-Ireland final. It simplified the natures of both counties to a cartoonish degree: the swarthy, unbreakable Royal County men tearing back to the rich plains with the loot, and poor Mayo destined yet again for the long trail of sorrow back west from Croke Park. But, in truth, the connections between the counties run much deeper than that strange and memorable confrontation of 13 years ago.
It has become common in Gaelic games to see intercounty teams as reflecting the attributes – and shortcomings – of those places from which they emerge. And after the 1996 final, the quick conclusion was the footballers of Meath and Mayo were just hard-wired differently; that something deep and hidden had propelled the Meath men towards ultimately triumphing in a contest that they ought to have lost twice while some demon impulse lurking within the Mayo men saw them fall short in a match that twice seemed to be theirs. Meath and Mayo were just different.
BUT HOW THEN to explain that Mick Lyons, perhaps the archetype of the modern Meath football man, could trace his great-grandfather back to Louisburgh? Or that John Nallen, the great roving Mayo man, is a revered figure in the Royal County from his days of lining out for the county? That Anthony Moyles, the redoubtable defender on the current Meath team, is a grandnephew of Tom Langan, dashing full forward on the fabled Mayo All-Ireland vintage of 1950/51?
Or that Paddy Moclair, whose name now graces the county cup for the Mayo senior championship, was a regular visitor to Meath to see his sister and his family? “He used to come along with me on occasion to see Summerhill games and he was very taken with Robbie O’Malley,” recalls Pat O’Neill, a nephew of Moclair’s and a former chairman of the Meath County Board.
“Robbie was only about 14 or so at this stage but Paddy liked to watch him playing on the underage teams because Robbie’s father was from Castlebar. He was always giving out to me: ‘What are ye playing him at full back for? He is a corner back’. Whether he saw something or whether it was a lucky guess, I can’t say.”
Before 1996, Meath football teams caused little trouble in the Mayo psyche. It was Meath whom Mayo had comfortably dispatched in the 1951 All-Ireland final to claim their second consecutive title. The counties had a good if uncomplicated rivalry and their summer meetings in subsequent decades were irregular and generally good contests.
In the 1967 All-Ireland semi-final, Meath won 3-14 to 1-14 but the teams were evenly balanced and there was the sense of a coup about the two goals that divided the sides: the first one came due to a mix-up in the Mayo defence and with the Connacht men still stunned, Meath quickly tacked on another goal.
“I remember that day because I accidentally broke Red Collier’s collarbone,” says John Gibbons, the Louisburgh man who went on to enjoy a distinguished career with Meath.
Gibbons had come through the Mayo under-21 side that won the All-Ireland that same year; he had scored 3-3 in the Connacht final against Roscommon and was regarded as an up-and-coming prospect. When John Morley withdrew with appendicitis, Johnny Farragher was brought back to midfield and Gibbons was selected and made his mark by bouncing into Collier.
“I don’t claim any credit for it! It was just one of those things. But I think it was Red that sent the ball in that led to the goal that pushed Meath ahead of us.”
John O’Mahony was in the crowd that day. “Still have the ticket receipt somewhere,” the current Mayo manager says. “It was my first time in Croke Park and so it made a very strong impression on me. And obviously, it was a disappointment for Mayo.”
Disappointing as the match was for Mayo spectators in Croke Park, it had a spooky dimension for those back home. A power cut occurred early in the second half when the teams were tied, knocking silent the televisions and all radios except the surviving battery-operated models. The electricity was out for no more than 10 minutes but when Mayo folks tuned in again, Meath had gone two goals clear, as if by some kind of black magic.
AS THE 1970s turned into a litany of disappointments for Mayo football, that incident became part of the mythology. John Gibbons won a league medal with the county side in 1970 but they crashed out of that summer’s championship on a wet day against Roscommon.
By 1973 he was captain but another disappointing performance, this time against Galway, led to sweeping changes. He found himself gone from the panel the following year; as it turned out, he was bound for Meath, where he had been offered a job as a primary schoolteacher in Summerhill.
Movement from Mayo to Meath was common; many families had moved east through the Land Commission. Gibbons found he never had to look very hard to find Mayo connections within the county. And he discovered a fresh enjoyment for Gaelic football there, playing midfield for Summerhill and coming up against marquee players like Joe Cassells and Lyons and a young Colm O’Rourke.
He was invited on to the Meath squad in 1975 and played in successive Leinster final defeats to Dublin in 1976 and 1977. He says now that the decision to play for Meath was not one he made lightly but he harbours absolutely no regrets.
“I’m a Mayo man and I have nothing but the height of respect for Meath and Meath football. You know, people say that Meath football is tough and dirty but in my 12 years playing there, only one incident could be considered a dirty belt. The outside feeling is that Meath can be tough, physical and a dirty team. But I never felt that. The first day I walked into the Meath dressingroom, I was treated as if I was there all my life.
“Nobody called me a blow-in or complained that I was taking the place of a Meath man. They picked me. My aspirations were always to play with Mayo because I am a Mayo man but Mayo did not want me at that time. And so I was grateful. I owe Meath football a lot.”
Gibbons had finished up by the time Meath won the Centenary Cup in 1984 but knew a lot of the squad that would form the teak-tough Royal side of the late 1980s and was, of course, there in Croke Park when Meath met Mayo in the 1988 All-Ireland semi-final.
That match marked John O’Mahony’s first visit to Croke Park as a manager and, because Mayo went on to reach the All-Ireland final the following year, it is soon forgotten about. The final score betrays a strangely lop-sided narrative of attacking play: 0-16 to 2-5. Meath were All-Ireland champions then and very much the controlling force but Mayo, young and ambitious, pushed them all the way.
“Liam McHale had a goal disallowed very late in the match,” O’Mahony recalled.
“I remember he had the jersey torn off him that particular day. Afterwards, people commented that he shouldn’t have been playing full forward, that it wasn’t his natural position, but he was actually playing further out and then moving in around goal for the set-pieces.
“He got his fist to the ball and it looked perfectly legitimate and the end of that match could have been extremely interesting had it stood.”
It was, of course, the beginning of McHale’s luckless All-Ireland run against Meath teams. Stunning in the drawn final of 1996, McHale was the man collared by referee Pat McEnaney to walk along with Meath’s Colm Coyle after the furious bust-up that took place early in the replay. Just like that, Mayo had lost their most charismatic and important player. The pragmatist in “Coyler” undoubtedly knew Meath had fared better in the distribution of punishments.
In a column he wrote in the Mayo News last year, Kevin McStay recalled sitting in the foyer of Jury’s Croke Park hotel last summer in the company of John Maughan and George Golden, manager and selector of that 1996 Mayo team. They happened to meet McEnaney.
They chatted amicably and the brawl was mentioned in passing.
“When Pat left our company, I mentioned what a sound guy he was and all agreed,” McStay wrote. “But in unison we asked aloud: what in the name of God was he thinking about on that damned day? Until the cup arrives back to the Sweet Plains, I expect that day will continue to haunt us.”
Tomorrow’s quarter-final invites an inevitable focus on that occasion. But John O’Mahony is content that it has little practical bearing on the upcoming match.
“I think James Nallen is the only member of our squad who was playing then. Aidan O’Shea was six or seven years of age then, to put that perspective on it. Everything has utterly changed, for both teams since that match.”
Meath and Mayo are battling for the right to join the big three of Gaelic games. Tyrone, Kerry and Cork have evinced a degree of firepower and ambition that other contenders have not been able to emulate. But the last quarter-final of the year reunites two counties of unimpeachable football tradition. There are countless associations between the counties and the more obvious often feature in the local newspapers whenever the counties meet now.
TREVOR GILES, the effortlessly-composed centre forward on the Meath All-Ireland winning teams of 1996 and 1999, has Mayo family through marriage. John Madden, who kept goal for Mayo in 1996, has family in Dunshaughlin through his marriage and, speaking about that infamous match he told the Meath Chronicle this week: “Time heals and people realise you learn from life’s lesson along the way. The bottom line is that they won.”
Sometimes John Gibbons thinks about the difference between Mayo and Meath as football counties. He recalls his minor and under-21 days in the green and red when the attitude in the dressingroom was of irrepressible confidence.
“We loved to show off our football and we felt that we were capable of beating anyone. But when it came to senior, I don’t know was it the weight of expectation or what that dragged us down but there did seem to be a brittleness about our mentality that stopped us closing out games.
“And what I noticed about Meath is that they don’t fear anybody. They may be inferior to Mayo on Sunday but they won’t fear them. You know, a poor Meath team can often get more out of itself than a superior Mayo team.
“But I do know that in terms of 1996, it is not Meath that Mayo begrudge as much as the circumstances; the way that a final we should have won turned so sour for us. And in Meath, they have very high regard for Mayo as a football county.”
1996 will smoulder for decades to come but between Meath and Mayo, there is land, love and much in between to bind them. Tomorrow, it boils down to a football match. Expect cats and dogs.
