Brogan's belter evokes class of '85

Keith Duggan meets the scorer of one of the finest goals at Croke Park and member of yet another Mayo team who missed All-Ireland glory

On a bustling day in Castlebar, alternating between August sunshine and black showers, the tall man stands outside the Welcome Inn at the appointed hour. Although his appearance is not that of a typical former GAA star, he has the long, light stride of an accomplished athlete and at 41-years-old, Pádraic Brogan looks well: a little chunkier than in his athletic prime, black hair tied back in a neat pony-tail and eyes that glint with humour.

Twenty-one years ago, Brogan was the unstoppable colt on a rising Mayo team that took Dublin to a replay in an All-Ireland semi-final. A truly great metropolitan era was in decline then but that team were crafty and tough enough to see Mayo off.

Kerry won that year's championship, bridging the path to Gaelic football's last three-in-a-row success. But unlike most semi-finals, Dublin and Mayo 1985 has lingered in the memory, mainly for the goal that Brogan scored in the replay. It shines like starlight through the murky passages of Mayo's storied expeditions to Croke Park over the last 20 years, a score of such unarguable power and grace and adventure that it was celebrated as a victory in its own right, impervious to the result of the match.

"To be honest, I have kind of left football behind," Brogan said hesitantly over the phone when asked to reminisce about those times and the Goal of the Year 1985. But out of politeness, he agreed to meet, to talk purely about football.

So in the pleasant, slumbering bar of the Welcome Inn - "We had a few good nights in this place back in the good old days" - Brogan studies a black and white Mayo team photograph taken on the afternoon of the replay. It looks, as it is, like something from another century, from the classically plain short-sleeved jerseys to the crowded Hogan Stand and the impoverished looking corrugated roof of the Nally Stand. Brogan stands on the extreme right of the back row, towering, arms folded, lost in thought.

"That is the first time I have seen this since 1985," Brogan marvels.

"What I remember about it, really, is we were sort of a team on the up. Mayo football had done nothing since 1970 and not much was known about us. We played Dublin early in the year in a challenge, a pitch opening in Westport. And we beat Dublin that day. I got injured, I was playing well enough at midfield and with about 10 minutes to go I fell on the ground and Brian Mullins and Jim Ronayne fell on top of me. I ended up in hospital with a punctured lung.

"I came on in the Connacht final that summer against Roscommon but I just wasn't fit enough. My breathing was very bad. So the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin was my first real crack at things. We were down about seven points with 25 minutes to go and I was brought in as a substitute with Tom Byrne and Billy Fitzpatrick. I felt a lot of pressure too. The first free I took was about 60 yards out and I scored it. And the team got a lift and in 20 minutes, we had come back to draw level and we should have beaten them.

"The second day, there was a few changes made to the team and I started. The first half was close. We came out the second half and Ciarán Duff got an early goal. We were down about four or five points about 15 minutes in. And I knew in my head we had to score a goal or the game was finished. I had moved out towards midfield and I started this run towards goal. Johnny Monaghan passed it to TJ [ Kilgallon] and I was at full speed when I got the ball and I just soloed it about two of three times and shot from about 25 yards out. And it went up to the top corner of the net.

"YOU DON'T EXPECT it to happen but the thought of a goal was in my head. I spotted the move, I had drifted out the field and I could see it. Now, it looked spectacular but it was just an instinct. We rattled Dublin again but missed a few frees and then Dublin got another goal. That killed us off."

It is often said that the Mayo team of 1996-'97 squandered an All-Ireland title but scanning that 1985 vintage, it is clear there was serious quality in that team as well. Brogan was prodigious, representing Mayo at minor, under-21 and senior levels in the same year (1983, when he won an All-Ireland under-21 medal. In 1982 he scored a match-turning goal for St Jarlath's in the dying minutes of that year's colleges final) but in 1985, he was still the youngster on a team of what he describes as "formidable men."

"Look at them, a big physical team. Run across that photograph there. Tom Byrne was 6ft 5in. I remember him hitting Mick Holden and nearly putting him into the Hogan Stand. John Maughan was a strong man . . . TJ. We were a strong team and we played the old, long-ball game. John Finn played out the drawn game with a broken jaw, which has to be admired.

"And they were talented men. John Maughan obviously went on to management, Peter Ford there too. Martin Carney and Kevin McStay are doing their thing on RTÉ. We were an ambitious team and we were serious about it. But it didn't happen for us."

Brogan played for Mayo for a further decade, losing an All-Ireland final in 1989. He appeared as a substitute against Donegal in the 1992 All-Ireland semi-final, having spent a year playing with the Tír Conaill men the previous season. "I got a fair few belts too, they were lining up to say hello," he laughs. "But they were a fine bunch of lads and I was delighted for them."

HE THINKS HARD when asked if he played in the 1993 semi-final, when Mayo were obliterated. "Oh, that fiasco against Cork? Yeah, came on as a substitute." He was also a monumental figure for Knockmore, the rural club that achieved phenomenal consistency in the high standards of Mayo's club scene. Brogan won six county titles between 1983 and 1997, the year they lost an All-Ireland club final to Joe Kernan's Crossmaglen.

"I had my ups and downs in my own life but I still set a high standard as a football player. I had ambition. I set out to win All-Irelands. And I retired because I couldn't reach those standards any more."

He remembers his last day playing very well because it was the last time he set foot in a GAA ground. It was local championship against Crossmolina, with Ciarán McDonald influencing the event like a shaman, conducting the match as he pleased. Brogan remembered what that felt like but he couldn't summon it anymore.

"I remember falling on the ground and hitting my head and I saw stars. And I remember thinking: 'Brogan, it's time to get out of this game'. Ten years before, I would have been up like a shot. Wear and tear, man, it took its toll. I just said: 'that's it. It's all over'. I never missed it. I was about 32. I have never gone to a football match since. And I don't want to. No interest."

He grins when he says this, aware it sounds provocative. Individualist that he is, he walked away without so much as a backwards glance but he is being unfair on himself by claiming lack of interest. He talks animatedly and knowledgeably about the present Mayo team and is optimistic about Sunday. He will watch the game on television, shouting and coaxing today's stars. The Dublin game holds special resonance. In the 1970s Brogan grew up watching the exploits of his first cousin Bernard, the classy midfielder on Kevin Heffernan's iconic team who used to travel west for holidays in Knockmore when they were youngsters.

"I would have admired Bernard and seeing this cousin winning All-Irelands had a powerful effect on me. He was a fine player and I suppose had that bit of luck to come at the right time. Plenty of other players are not so fortunate. If there is one thing I have learned about playing with teams, it is that to win an All-Ireland, all the conditions have to be perfect."

He has, of course, watched the progression of his second cousin Alan, current idol of The Hill, with special interest.

"I would have met Alan years ago, when he was a boy. But I am told he asks for me and that he wonders, you know, what I think of him. He is a good footballer and he is improving every year. He is that type of a player that creates scores and he is a good athlete. And when Alan plays well, Dublin play well."

He has such a forensic read on the present Dublin team and goes through the various hypotheses of tomorrow's semi-final that it seems perverse he won't be there to witness it. Isn't it a shame that 21 years after lighting up Croke Park he won't be there to see the next generation? "Sure I would never get a ticket," he laughs.

"Arragh, that is probably why I don't go to matches, in case I would start missing it and would want to go back. Maybe some day I will go back and get involved but not now. And I was asked to play Over-40s and this, that and the other. But you're only wasting your time. When your day is gone, it's gone. You have to accept it and move on with your life. And with Mayo football, it is the same.

"PEOPLE ARE FRUSTRATED in this county because we have come so close. But we haven't done it for a number of reasons. Some people say it is sad, or whatever, but so many things have to be in place to win an All-Ireland. That is the past. You cannot live in history. If you wallow in emotion about the past, you won't make progress. You have to live in the now. It is about this team now. Mickey Moran has come in and done a good job and we are in an All-Ireland semi-final. Listen, Dublin have not won the All-Ireland yet. Neither have Kerry. Mayo are there, it is a three-horse race.

"Ciarán McDonald is an exceptional footballer and he will have to be at his best for the next two outings. We have plenty of good forwards. My main worry is Mayo haven't scored any goals yet. But they have some nice footballers and if they go into Croke Park with the right attitude, I don't believe Dublin are unbeatable."

He did not believe 21 years ago either. None of them did. He bumps into Willie Joe Padden around Castlebar occasionally and has seen Peter Ford here and there but it is the nature of many players to go their separate ways once a team disintegrates.

Brogan still holds warm memories of the camaraderie of being involved in a serious football team, the closeness that comes with trying to achieve something memorable. It was hard, it was exhausting and it was fun. And then it ended. He says he is rarely stopped on the street now and prefers to let his sporting life lie where it belongs, in the past.

Work and family can put light years between a man and his sporting feats. Asked about posing for a contemporary photograph, he laughs and demurs, pointing at his 20-year-old old self and advising to "just stick in a picture of that fella there".

It may seem odd to distil a long and exceptional football career into one explosive passage but in the case of Pádraic Brogan's goal, it is no injustice. You may not see him around McHale Park much these days but it is fair to say the name of Pádraic Brogan still holds a magical potency all across " the dark fields of the republic", those famous, haunting words of F Scott Fitzgerald which might well have been written for Mayo.

"That goal, 'twas sacred," admits Brogan finally.

"To me football was something I did. And it was great when you see people being happy because of something the team did. To bring happiness because you can express a bit of a talent, well, that made me happy. Some people ask will it ever be scored again. If I was to brag about it, then no, I don't think so. It happened in my lifetime. And I probably could say before I die, well, I did something: I might have scored the greatest goal ever seen at Croke Park. I am not bragging. But that's reality!"

And he throws back his head and laughs mightily, offers a firm handshake and a gruff "all the best" and disappears into the late-afternoon shopping crowd in downtown Castlebar.