McEnaney stays on as attempt to remove him fails

MEATH FOOTBALL manager Séamus McEnaney last night survived an attempt to remove him by the county board executive, led by chairman Barney Allen.

A two-thirds majority was required from the 74 club delegates and officers voting at a specially convened meeting at Páirc Tailteann in Navan. The secret ballot came back 43-31 to remove McEnaney, meaning the Monaghan native survived with six votes to spare.

That negated the need for the second tabled vote: to return Seán Boylan as manager for a 24th championship campaign.

However, it was revealed that the 63-year-old Boylan will remain involved coaching Meath underage structures, despite recently stepping down as director of football.

McEnaney will now be permitted to at least finish the second of his three-year term when Meath open their Leinster championship campaign against Wicklow on May 27th.

His removal would have made him the fourth manager to go since Boylan stepped down in 2005.

Allen last night admitted approaching McEnaney on three occasions since Meath’s nine-point defeat to Louth on April 8th – which saw them relegated to Division Three – seeking his resignation. However, once the clubs had spoken, the outgoing chairman ended last night’s meeting with a change of attitude.

“Seamus McEnaney now leads Meath into the championship and we wish him the best of luck,” said Allen. “He has the full support of the Meath county board.”

Considering McEnaney clearly did not have such support in the past few weeks, county board treasurer Pat Clerkin felt obliged to call for “unity” within the county to ensure this embarrassing saga is not reflected on the field.

The attempt to remove McEnaney after just 18 months was prompted by that Louth defeat, with the Meath county board officer Francis Flynn noting: “I remember the last 10 minutes of the Louth game when they were playing keep-ball and Louth supporters were telling their players to ‘take it easy on them.’ That’s Louth people saying to take it easy on Meath in Páirc Tailteann!

“My phone never stopped ringing that night with people wanting to know what we are going to do about it. We couldn’t sit back and do nothing.”

Allen also stated he received “abuse” from Meath supporters.

Despite threatening a major breakthrough as manager of Monaghan from 2006-10, McEnaney’s appointment in place of a relatively successful Eamonn O’Brien got off to an exceptionally difficult start when local selectors, Barry Callaghan and Liam Harnan, stepped down last May, citing several reasons but the primarily the recall of a 38-year-old Graham Geraghty to the panel.

Ultimately, McEnaney’s first championship ended in failure after defeats to Kildare in both the Leinster championship and the qualifiers. This season Geraghty joined McEnaney and Skryne’s Tom Keague on the management ticket, while also remaining part of the playing panel.

“The real loser in all this regardless of the result is Meath football,” tweeted Meath footballer Kevin Reilly last night. “I think everyone has put politics before what really matters.”

Several delegates made it clear that the decision by Allen to approach Boylan, without consulting the clubs first, may not have worked in their favour when it came to the vote.

Boylan was appointed to the new post of Meath director of football last September, on the same night McEnaney survived rumblings for his removal after just one season.

However, Boylan stepped down after a few months, citing frustration at his suggestions not being put into practice. Nobody even met him to find out what they were. “For whatever reasons we just didn’t get sitting down and talking about matters relevant to it,” said Boylan.