Club culture breeds a generation of winners

"We're like any town. There are sportsmen in every town, but they haven't achieved what we have. We've been labelled bandit country and still are to an extent. But what we have in Cross is some great sportsmen and great people."

- Joe Kernan, February 16th, 2000.

By the time the Crossmaglen players reach evening training, there is frost in the wind. Joe Kernan, the Rangers' manager and figurehead, has asked Meath star Tommy Dowd to come along and take part of the session. He throws in little novelties like that occasionally, an outside voice to keep the ears sharp.

On St Patrick's Day of last year, you'd have found Joe in the underbelly of Croke Park, pleading larceny and vowing to get out of the game. Crossmaglen had just become All-Ireland club champions for the second consecutive year despite not playing well. Joe was breathless and reckoned he had seen enough wonders for one lifetime. Yet here he is again, affable and chatty on a cursed night, on the threshold of Croke Park once more.

"Sure, as the man says, we love it," he laughs, half apologising. "Ah no, I took a month and the players were very persuasive. I've five young sons myself, you know, and I just thought if we break the thing now, we mightn't achieve what this team possibly should achieve. Touch wood, it's all going well so far."

Crossmaglen is a name which carries multi-layered mystique. In 1975, when he was Northern Ireland home secretary, Merlyn Rees branded the whole of south Armagh as "bandit country". When asked about his comment in Toby Harnden's book of the same name about republican movement in south Armagh, Rees did not retract a viewpoint that many locals saw as a slur.

"When I would go down there to Crossmaglen," he recalled, "I would get out of the helicopter on a GAA field and run to the police station which was heavily fortified. For my money, that's bandit country. It was a bit like the Wild West."

The British army's decision to confiscate the Crossmaglen Rangers GAA pitch and near-lying property at the outset of the Troubles and to build a watchtower over the ground gave birth to an image which seemed almost clinched in its symbolism. Wrought iron and military steel shadowing the playing fields of Irish dreams.

Rangers' history is as rich as that of the organisation to which it is affiliated. The club was founded back in the 1880s and generations of families have worn the black and amber shirt. Local publican Paddy Short, whose nephew Cathal will play against UCC tomorrow, stores a book written by his brother Con. One chapter is devoted to the Jamesey Kernan tragedy.

"Yeah, he was an uncle of mine," says Joe Kernan. "He was playing for Armagh in Belturbet - I think 1926 was the year - and he got an injury and I suppose we weren't as wise about these things then. Unfortunately he slept on the injury and bled internally and died. There wasn't a ball kicked in the town for a full year after that out of pure sadness. It's said that my grandfather threw a ball out in the street then and that nearly started it all again. It's just one of those wee stories."

Such stories weave through families and decades and pitches and tournaments across the province and beyond. Cross, as Kernan says, is built around the square and although not particularly agricultural, it was well known as a market town. Primarily, though, it is football territory, the club history a glistening heirloom. For youngsters and supporters, the club is almost a guardian, an expression of normality when Cross became synonymous with the bad times.

"The first time I walked into the club house and saw all the pictures of heroes from past teams, I just thought I'd like to be on that wall some day," says forward Gavin Comiskey, pausing from the training drills momentarily.

In winter, Rangers train under lights and in their beams his breath bellows out. Comiskey is quiet spoken and polite, a solicitor who journeys from Belfast three or four nights a week for training. He has known virtually all of the squad since they started school. As he sees it, these halcyon years for the club is a welcome chance for people to maybe stumble upon a heartening portrayal of Cross.

"Anything that shows the place in a positive light is good," he says. "I've seen it maybe more than others living in the city this past seven years, but people do react when you say where you from. Ah, they'd have to with the bad press.

"But see, we've trained under that shadow for 16 years," he says, pointing at the silhouette of the security base.

"And it doesn't bother me at all. We just don't concern ourselves with politics in the club. I haven't lived in the town since peace time, so I don't see what everyday changes there may be. Apart from getting the bit of ground back, it's made little difference to the club. But it doesn't matter anyway. We are just a football club. The rest, we don't care about."

John McCluskey, the former Down and Armagh trainer who has been commuting to Cross to take sessions for this championship, treads a similar path.

"Myths grow up about places. You come down here and see that it's just a typical small Irish town. Families and chats and rows, its own little Ballykissangel-type scenario. As far as Rangers went, well, I was a bit intimidated to be asked to train a two-time All-Ireland winning club. Their reputation went before them. But they have such a great approach. Friendly, good fun and very professional. Always willing to learn. Whatever it takes to improve, Joe Kernan will do it."

And so on this night, big Joe huddles on the periphery as Tommy Dowd passes on little bits of practical sorcery. Kernan was a county man for close on two decades. In Short's and other bars, you'll find photos of the athlete in younger days, grinning and handsome.

He reckons that somewhere in the narrative, Armagh blew an All-Ireland. "1980 was probably the year. 1987 was my last year and we lost an Ulster final to Derry by a point. Probably could have gone on then. 1977, though, we were just too raw. And that was the year that made a lot of us famous, funnily. For losing. "That's what's great about this Cross side - it's good to see Armagh folks leaving Croke Park smiling. And all the lads from those teams - Thomas McCreash, Sean Devlin - we meet up now and again. And a smile says it all. That's what these boys here will have in 15 years time."

In Cross, football heroes remain a constant. Tomorrow, it will be Oisin McConville or the McEntees or young Short. Gavin Comiskey's eyes fire up when he talks about the first All-Ireland championship win. Carlights and bonfires on the way home and then, in the square, thousands gathered. It was a late night in the clubhouse and Comiskey has made the cluttered wall of fame already.

"These lads will not know what it is they are achieving for years yet," says Kernan, before jogging towards the huddle.

Around nine, an army helicopter materialises, its echoes filling the skies. Beneath them, a few kids sit in the local takeaway. The town square is empty and on a night close to freezing, the pubs are slack. And from the field rises the sound of footballs whipping against nets . . . shouting . . . a lone whistle.