The season of goodwill did not extend to Cavan football in recent weeks and it seems that matters are still unresolved as far as the management of the team is concerned.
A county board meeting which was due to take place last night was postponed until tonight without any explanation. The embattled Cavan team manager, Liam Austin, was not available for comment yesterday.
The crucial meeting will take place tonight at the Carrick Springs Hotel in Crosskeys, about five miles from Cavan town when delegates from all 40 clubs in the county are expected to attend.
Trouble had been simmering in the Cavan camp for some time with a number of prominent players unhappy with the way the team was being managed. It is understood that some players were not happy with the way the team was being guided and trained and the former Monaghan star, Hugo Clerkin, a qualified PE teacher, seems to be in the eye of the storm and has been singled out for some severe criticism by some players.
The team manager, the former Down midfielder, Liam Austin, also came in for criticism which amounted to an expression of no confidence in the backroom team and this attitude was conveyed to him in what many believe amounted to an expression of no confidence.
The problem reached a peak towards the end of November when Cavan were overwhelmed by Fermanagh in a National League match 3-13 to 0-8. Losing to Fermanagh represented the nadir of Cavan's recent fortunes and matters were not helped by the fact that Fermanagh finished that match with only 14 players.
Something of a stand-off has developed since and Liam Austin is on record as saying that he and his fellow selectors will not stand down. The other selectors, apart from Clerkin, are Mickey Reilly, Barry Tierney and Martin Lynch.
Efforts to arrange "clear the air" meetings have, so far, been unsuccessful. In the meantime Austin and his team management colleagues issued a statement which said: "We the full management team feel sad and disappointed that Cavan football has been dragged into the public domain in this way.
"We have been in control for less that 12 months and have spared no effort for the good of football in Cavan. Recent unease appears to have surfaced following the National League match against Fermanagh (November 29th) when, firstly, the county board chairman (Brendan Keeney) was deemed to have undermined the position of the team manager when he refused to leave the dressing room when the manager requested a private meeting between himself and his players.
"A subsequent team meeting was cancelled by the county executive without consulting the team management".
From this it would seem clear that the executive, the team management and a group of players are all at logger-heads and tonight's meeting of the county board promises to be an interesting one.
The present situation is not unique in Cavan. Yesterday a source close to the team, who refused to be named, said that he could remember that no fewer than 14 managers had made efforts to improve the lot of the team since Mick Higgings had resigned in the late 1960s. Higgins, who won All-Ireland medals with Cavan in 1947 and '48, as manager later led Cavan to four Ulster titles in the 1960s.
The county then experienced its leanest period until 1997 when Martin McHugh of Donegal managed Cavan to win their first Ulster crown for 28 years.
Among the men who managed the team in the interim were Gabriel Kelly, who had three terms in the management seat, P. J. Carroll, who had two, Father Benny Maguire, Eugene McGee and Eamon Curley.
Although losing to Fermanagh on November 29th, Cavan have already beaten Sligo and Waterford in the current National League and have home matches against Longford, Tipperary and Wexford and an away match to Carlow to come and are still very much in the running for promotion.
They do, however, have a very tough draw in the Ulster championship when they must travel to Celtic Park to meet Derry.
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