Gill's breath of fresh air

Connacht SFC Semi-Final/Mayo v Galway: Fresh from his travels abroad, James Gill tells Keith Duggan about his unfinished business at home

It was with a reasonable degree of trepidation that James Gill approached John Maughan last autumn to tell him of his plans to go hiking across Europe. He had grown up with stories of Maughan's devotion to Mayo football, and Maughan's return to management had left the new generation of players in no doubt as to the respect he commanded across the county.

So he wondered about the wisdom of explaining to Maughan that on the whole, he would rather skip out on early-season training and bum around Prague and Andorra for a spell. Even imagining Maughan listening, sitting there all dapper with his easy military bearing and an open, amused face made him doubtful.

It would just sound frivolous. Maughan would just nod politely. Then at dawn the following morning, he would land at Gill's front door with some gang from the 1980s - Willie Joe and TJ Kilgallon. They would take the aspiring hiker up the mountains, wean him on a diet of berries and water and take him on 10-hour cross-country runs and army-style obstacle courses. There, they would explain at the end of it, that should be Europe enough for you.

"I suppose he was surprised all right when I mentioned it to him," Gill laughed, thinking back to the conversation. "And he was probably even taken aback when it became clear I was heading off on my own. But he was so fair about it. He just told me the management still wanted to have me around for the championship and we agreed I would be back for early April. That was it, he was very mellow about it. Told me to go off and find myself."

Boy. Even coming from a former Army man, that is a hell of a brief to give a Mayo footballer. Hasn't the Mayo search for self been an ongoing exercise in futility for several generations now? That at least is the popular opinion.

In Mayo, there are two fundamentals in life - politics and football. The possible exception lies in Westport, the Happy Valley of Mayo society. The day we met in town, election posters featuring Enda Kenny in celestial mode featured heavily on the gorgeous drive over from Castlebar.

And when James Gill, working as a labourer for the summer, ambled up towards the Castlecourt hotel, sallow and dusty and cheerful, he was given the courteous nods afforded to all county men.

Football and politics do matter here, but because Westport has forged a reputation of being a good-time place, they are not everything. In the summer, while the purebred football towns of Mayo allow the intensity of local and All-Ireland football to take hold, Westport glows with the heat of tourists and good food and late nights.

Gill is a Westport boy and loves the town, but when it comes to football, he has something of the puritan - a dash of Crossmolina Cordial - in his soul. "I know guys in this town who would be good at football or other sports and really, they just don't want to sacrifice their weekends. People enjoy themselves in this town. We seem to lose a lot of footballers between the ages of 16 and 20. They just lose interest and there are just too many attractions.

"Like, it would be unfair to class Westport solely as a drinking town because there is a lot to do here. But it is very much a drinking town. It can go a bit quiet in the winter, but even so, it would be a very rare night there wouldn't be something happening."

From that perspective, Westport was an unlikely source for one of the central figures on the latest Maughan team to emerge. Gill is walking in the footsteps of Padden and McHale in that he is a notably athletic midfielder operating in a county where expectations never sink as low as reasonable.

He is 23 years old and this, remarkably, is his fifth season with Mayo. Over a pot of tea and a sandwich, he assessed himself with a frankness reminiscent of Maughan, claiming that it has not really happened for him at championship level.

The lowest point was being withdrawn in the All-Ireland qualifier against Cork two years ago after just 25 minutes. The shock of seeing his number flashing on the board and then the sudden leaden feeling in his feet, like he had aged 15 years in a moment.

Last summer, under Maughan, he felt like he was replicating something close to the natural form that set him apart as a minor and under-21 player of considerable note. But last year ended brutally, in the rain against Fermanagh under Ben Bulben, a place on the last eight of the All-Ireland series tailing away with two late frees. It was dismal.

"I went home thinking, 'oh man, how the hell am I meant to pick it up from this'. For two or three days it was just real dejection."

In part, that contributed to his decision to go wandering for a while. The sensation that he was stumbling from one season to the next had begun to dog him. After graduating from college, it seemed like as good a time as any. Having received Maughan's blessing, he took off alone, earning money on the sites in London before gradually working his way through southern and central Europe.

It was foreign in the most personal sense - a lot of time spent alone, bussing through snowbound provinces and with absolutely no football. In the hostels, he met similar people of similar circumstance: footloose and with time on their hands.

"Nice people. There were a lot of South Americans. I was in this one hostel in Prague and the guy at the desk told me I was the only person staying in the building that could only speak one language. And it was true - most people in the hostels had Spanish and English and maybe French or German as well. It was kind of embarrassing to think about it."

When he ran low on funds, he flew back to London to resume site work for a few weeks and then headed somewhere else. At the end, he tailed along on a trip to Dubai with St Brendan's football club and splashed out at the local race meeting, the epitome of glamour.

Gill had never even been to the Galway races before: all tuxedoed up and clinking glasses alongside the moneyed set of the Middle East was a nice conclusion to the solitary months of sightseeing. Before he knew it, April rolled around.

"I suppose I was a bit apprehensive coming back up for training. The management made it easy, though, and it was just a matter of putting in a few hard sessions and I felt part of things again. When I got back, the league was over and we were gearing up towards the game in New York."

They prepared for the championship game against the expatriates with meticulous caution. But, as Gill puts it, "the game was a complete nonentity".

New York were just not capable of matching Mayo's standard. Taking advantage of the trip, Maughan had arranged for the squad to retreat into the Catskill Mountains for a week of training and team building. It was beautiful country, still and wild, and although the team worked hard, it was enjoyable rather than excruciating.

The players stayed in cabins and at night-time Liam McHale told stories about the old Mayo training days that led to the 1996/1997 All-Ireland runs, horrifying tales of totalitarian sessions that ended only when everyone was in a state of exhaustion. But that was a different era and Maughan has tailored his philosophy to fit the times.

"We were allowed an evening out at the end of it and John came along. The nearest town was Albany so we hired limousines and headed to a casino over there. It was a bit of fun, a nice end to the week. When we came home, we felt ready. But the weeks since then have been awful. Just training and waiting and playing challenge games. Seven weeks is a ferocious time to be building up for one game."

The most notable movement during the post-New York period has been the sudden and welcome return of Ciarán McDonald, the most vivid symbol of what Mayo football means today. The Crossmolina cult hero walked away from the county scene after enduring an afternoon of wretched abuse and, although Maughan admitted earlier this year that his comeback was unlikely, he is back in the panel.

"There was so little mention of it that I certainly didn't know about it until the night he walked into the dressing-room. Like, it wasn't a done deal that we all knew about.

"He just came back. There wasn't much to say except how's it going. Sure I had been in the same boat myself after missing the league. But Ciarán is such a huge figure; he is the guy everyone talks about.

"I suppose it was the question most players would have been asked: 'When is Ciarán Mac coming back?' I think I can understand his reasons for leaving - the abuse he got that day was beyond what is acceptable and his family were in the stands.

"He just reckoned this was something he didn't need in his life. It was strange to see him back, but it is great for us and for Mayo football. Kind of makes people excited about Mayo football."

It certainly ups the ante across the county. In all the football towns - and in Mayo there is no other kind - the coming of Galway to Castlebar on June 27th is the make-or-break game of the season. What little love may have existed between the counties expired during the thorny issue of last year's under-21 championship game, which Mayo refused to reschedule despite a request from John O'Mahony. That slight has not been forgotten in Galway.

Mayo needs no oblique stimulation. Beating Galway has always been paramount, particularly now that the county is enjoying a period of accomplishment not witnessed since the 1960s. James Gill accepts that the remainder of his intercounty career will coincide with the presence of a strong-to-excellent Galway team. There is no such thing as a handy Connacht medal any more.

"I hear they put up 9-18 in a challenge game there lately. I mean, challenges can be soft, but 9-18? That just isn't right.

"Padraic Joyce is back flying again and Michael Donnellan. They have class footballers and they will have for the next few years."

But Mayo has produced some talented players as well, Gill pre-eminent among them. When James Gill thinks back to the county under-21 team that reached the 2001 All-Ireland final against Tyrone, he finds it hard to explain that only five of them are with the senior squad.

Seven of the Tyrone boys that beat them that afternoon played in the senior All-Ireland last September. Thinking about that makes him impatient.

"I realise Tyrone are a super team and the great thing about them is that their individuals are never greater than the sum of the team. What I feel is that in Mayo we have some really good footballers too. Like, while I was away earlier, I was reading and hearing about Ronan McGarritty and Austin O'Malley coming through. They are just two instances. Maybe the problem in Mayo has been that we don't believe enough in ourselves.

"I often hear the older guys like Ken Mortimer and Peter Burke talk about the small mistakes that cost Mayo in All-Irelands. And it is true. Even if you analyse our game last year against Galway, we had something like 25 turnovers. That is a cardinal sin. We need to be the Mayo team that does not make mistakes."

Especially against Galway. With the politics settled for the summer, the Mayo faithful will gather tomorrow in Castlebar in abundance. Forget the qualifying system. Mayo versus Galway is one of the few ties where nothing matters beyond the day of the game. Season five for James Gill and the same intoxicating qualities and doubts hang over Mayo football. Go away and find yourself, Maughan told him last November.

And they both knew he was talking not of the vast continent but of the narrow and unavoidable passage of McHale Park on a maroon-drenched Sunday in summer.