Seán Cavanagh: Harte moving to Derry like Alex Ferguson taking over Liverpool

Three-time Tyrone All-Ireland winner and 2008 Footballer of the Year, Seán Cavanagh, has compared his former county manager Mickey Harte’s move to manage Derry to Alex Ferguson going to Anfield to take charge of Liverpool.

Cavanagh, who retired from football earlier this week, was speaking at an AIB event to promote the GOAL mile among GAA clubs this Christmas.

He was asked about Harte’s surprise decision earlier this year to leave the Louth footballers, who he had managed for the past three seasons, to take up the reins with Ulster champions Derry, whose stand-in manager Ciarán Meenagh had stepped away after the championship.

Cavanagh also feels that the move will leave Harte open to an “unprecedented” level of scrutiny.

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“The only comparable thing I could think of – because of his longevity – was Alex Ferguson,” he said. “I could never have seen Alex Ferguson sitting in a Liverpool dugout managing against Manchester United. It’s one of those images that doesn’t feel real almost.

“I know it will feel real very quickly. And Mickey will have thought that through, I presume. It’s just really, really bizarre.”

Harte departed Tyrone after 18 years in 2020, disappointed that he couldn’t have served one more year after that year’s championship had been so disrupted by Covid. He was succeeded by Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher, who delivered an All-Ireland in their first season.

Cavanagh said that although he had been made offers to coach other teams, he struggled with the idea of it.

“It’s just really bizarre. I could never imagine myself and I’ve been offered lots and lots of club jobs. I just hold a deep-rooted affinity to my club and my county.

“I don’t think I could have anywhere near the same kind of passion. I’m just quite traditional. I don’t think I could ever coach against the Moy or against Tyrone. I wouldn’t enjoy it because it’s not my own.

“Mickey was always that kind of manager that was great at pulling us all together in Tyrone, the whole siege thing. He was always very quick to let you know that outside of Tyrone, the other counties were to be dismissed.

“I was with Mickey from 2002 to 2017. I had 15 years or whatever with him and he was very strong around his allegiances. That idea that next year, he’s going to be standing on the line with a Derry top on him and the Tyrone guys in the opposition dug out is – I just struggle to get my head around it.”

In the immediate aftermath of finishing with Tyrone, Harte was appointed manager of Louth. After leading the county to successive promotions from Division Four to Two, his appointment was extended in March last year up until the end of the 2025 season. His abrupt departure to take over Derry was a surprise for many.

Cavanagh said that he had been speaking to a Louth player and that they were as surprised as anyone.

“I know, I was speaking to Sam Mulroy last week, and he was surprised by it too. It caught everyone [in Louth] from left field. Because they saw themselves as being on a bit of a journey. And Mickey is brilliant at doing that, he’s brilliant at getting the buy-in of a group. And making that group believe.”

For Cavanagh, his former manager’s switch is also a risk given the intensity of local rivalry in Ulster. Derry is one of the counties with whom Tyrone have a frontier rivalry and, in the current competitive environment, now their biggest rivals.

“I think because of the circumstances around it . . . I think the spotlight is going to be ten times magnified. That will put pressure on Mickey and the players.

“There will be a number of Tyrone people who will feel a little bit sore about it as well. When you’ve been with a county that long, people would have had him down as just a Tyrone man and that’s it.

“I don’t think the Louth thing diminished that because Tyrone don’t normally play Louth and, no disrespect to Louth, but they probably didn’t feel like they were competing against them.

“The reality is, Derry is Tyrone’s biggest competitor now because Derry is the best team in Ulster. So that dynamic has swung massively. It does feel for me that because of all those pressures, and because Derry people aren’t Tyrone people, if it was to not go well and if they lost a few games, the wheels could come off.

“It’s going to be difficult for him and Gavin Devlin as well as the players. There’s going to be a level of scrutiny there that possibly we’ve never seen in the GAA before. Every move he makes. Ulster’s going to be great craic with Jim McGuinness as well. I think 2024 is going to be intriguing because of all those factors.”