Harte takes the top award

GAA: Mickey Harte was named Philips Sports Manager of the Year at an awards ceremony in Dublin's Berkeley Court hotel yesterday. In what must have been a unanimous decision from the eight judges, the Ballygawley native was recognised for guiding Tyrone to a second All-Ireland football title in three years that encompassed an epic 10-game run.

Harte refused to accept the plaudits, instead praising both his players and backroom team for ensuring he became the fourth Ulster football manager to collect the Philips award. He follows in the footsteps of Pete McGrath, Brian McEniff and Joe Kernan.

"Individual awards only come about because of a good team," said Harte.

"I'd say that's why so many of our boys got All Stars, because of the unsung heroes around them. No one can win these things on their own.

"You have to be part of a dedicated bunch of people and I feel very fortunate to be in the position I'm in at the moment. I have great people on the field, great people off the field and people with a great attitude. I'm just facilitating that."

Harte felt the crucial moment in Tyrone's season came when they somehow recovered to turn around a five-point half-time deficit in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin.

"I think it was a time that taught us a whole lot about Gaelic Games really because often you would have heard it said it's a great time to get a goal just before half-time," he said.

"In fact we learned it's a great time to concede a goal because if we had gone in two points down we might not have addressed the difficulties we were experiencing as much as we did when we were five down."

Conor Gormley was switched to centre back at that period and was subsequently named as one of Tyrone's eight All Stars.

"Taking drastic action helped us redefine and reshape our team and we didn't look back after that.

"A great sense of a relief came to the team after that because, after all, this was Dublin in their own back yard with a fantastic crowd behind them and when you can play through that atmosphere, recover from a five point deficit, it is a great mark of the character in the team."

This was the 24th Manager of the Year ceremony. Philips managing director Cel O'Reilly and Minister for Art, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue were on hand to present the other 11 monthly awards.

Working from December 2004 to November 2005 the recipients were Munster club football champions Kilmurry-Ibrickane manager Pat O'Dwyer, Chris Craig of basketball club, the Tralee Tigers, and for February Eddie O'Sullivan.

Trainer of Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Kicking King, Tom Taaffe was recognised in March, Mick McCarthy in April for guiding Sunderland back to the Premiership and David Jeffrey in May for guiding Linfield to a convincing Setanta Cup success.

June to September was dominated by GAA managers as Cork hurling's John Allen, Dublin football's Paul Caffrey, Conor Hayes of Galway and Harte were the monthly winners.

The October award went to Irish Cricket coach Adrian Birrell while November belonged to Damien Richardson after Cork City finally captured the National League title by defeating closest rivals Derry City in their final game.

The removal of Kerry football legend Tim Kennelly takes place this evening in Listowel at 7.30pm. The funeral follows tomorrow after 11 o'clock mass.