Updated at 11.57
By Alan Foley
OUTSIDE OF ANFIELD, the home of Liverpool FC, there’s a statue of Bill Shankly. The inscription below is stark and simple: He made people happy.
Although for too many years to count, Donegal’s championship aspirations had ended in tears, there was a cutting rawness of emotion as the team bus pulled up at the Diamond in Donegal Town under the cloud of darkness last Monday week.
A day beforehand, Jim McGuinness’s side had, as the manager himself admitted, underperformed at Croke Park in the All-Ireland final and consequently lost 2-9 to 0-12 to Kerry.
The groggy players emerged from the bus red-eyed and silent, still the picture of utter devastation. McGuinness was consoled by Brian McEniff – the man who had guided Donegal to the 1992 All-Ireland title – and wore a brave smile.
Michael Murphy, the team captain, was called to the stage as tears streamed down his face, embraced by Daniel O’Donnell – one of the county’s loyal supporters. Murphy’s teammates filed in behind him. Those who wore the jersey are more than players. They are, as McGuinness insisted upon arrival, ambassadors for the county.
“It’s been just phenomenal to work with them and I just want everyone in Donegal tonight to acknowledge them and hopefully there’s a lot more to come from them as well,” McGuinness said from the stage.
Although the mood was sombre, there was a sense of enormous pride from every one of those 6,000 supporters who stood in the rain; just as there was from the 3,000 who attended the beaten finalists’ banquet in the CityWest Hotel the night beforehand.
Four years previously, McGuinness had, at the third time of applying, been named as Donegal senior team manager. The Donegal U-21s, who McGuinness had guided to an Ulster title and the 2010 All-Ireland final, were operating in a parallel universe to the seniors.
Those seniors, managed by John Joe Doherty, had just been lumped out of the championship – the first county in the country evicted that year – following a 2-14 to 0-11 hammering by Armagh at Crossmaglen in a first round qualifier. It concluded Donegal’s season, their annus horribilis.
“God Almighty would not have success with that current Donegal team and no matter what way you look at it we do not have the players,” 1992 All-Ireland-winning captain Anthony Molloy said in The Donegal Democrat just three days later. McGuinness, though, believed in those players and they would soon believe in him.
“Top of the agenda will be to get the team back playing for the jersey; getting pride in the jersey – hunger, good football and then getting them to enjoy playing the football and working hard for each other,” McGuinness told club delegates the night of his appointment, the last Tuesday in July 2010, at Jackson’s Hotel in Ballybofey.
In Donegal Town two weeks ago, more so in defeat than in victory, McGuinness was acutely aware that his ambitions from day one had finally been realised. Maybe that’s what made up his mind?
Shortly before 11 o’clock on Friday night, his panel each received a text message to thank them for their immense efforts over the last few years; wishing them the best for the future.
About half-an-hour later, the news of McGuinness’s departure ripped through the wires. “The journey,” as it was continually referred to by the man himself, had come to an end.
On appointment, McGuinness asked for a four-year term. “Olympic cycles,” he said recently, “are four years for a reason.” That utterance, in retrospect now, meant that whatever chances there might’ve been of his continuation in charge were dissipating.
After the system breakdown of 2013, where Donegal were usurped in Ulster by Monaghan and obliterated 4-17 to 1-10 by Mayo at Croke Park, McGuinness asked his players: “Do you want to be remembered for a 16-point loss in an All-Ireland quarter-final?”
McGuinness had given his word on a four-year term in 2010 and hop-scotched from Glenties to Glasgow, where he is now employed as Celtic FC’s first team sports psychologist, whilst trying to raise five young children. He remained true to that word and that continuity of service was accepted by his players, some of whom shelved their own retirement plans for one last stab.
McGuinness’s tangible achievements, in a county not accustomed to success, pen an incredible tale. It’s worth recalling that McEniff’s five Ulsters – the first of which came in 1972 – and the All-Ireland 20 years later were the only pieces of silverware Donegal had ever lifted in championship football.
When McGuinness took the mantle ahead of the 2011 season, Donegal hadn’t won anything in the championship in 19 years and his more experienced players hadn’t won so much as a match in the Ulster championship in four calendar years. Confidence was low; expectation not even at that height.
Since then, with by and large the same panel of players that McGuinness infused with his own U-21s, Donegal have appeared in four Ulster finals, winning three, and featured in two of the last three All-Ireland finals – defeating Mayo to take Sam Maguire to the hills for only the second time in 2012.
Donegal, in four years, have triumphed in 20 of his 24 championship matches – a winning percentage of 83.33. McGuinness has overseen victories over all of the established forces – Dublin, Kerry, Mayo, Cork, Armagh, Tyrone, Monaghan, Kildare, Derry, Cavan and Down, who have 90 All-Irelands between them.
Of the four losses, McGuinness had struck the first blow to Kerry and Mayo, whilst gaining revenge against Monaghan and Dublin for previous defeats – the latter in the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final, which was perhaps the most unconventional game of football ever played, as Pat Gilroy’s side defeated a claustrophobic Donegal 0-8 to 0-6.
The 3-14 to 0-17 win over Jim Gavin’s Dublin in this year’s All-Ireland semi-final is perhaps the utopia moment, a tactical masterclass that showed the swiftness of development. It’s a day that will be forever punctuated in the memory of everyone in Donegal.
When Joe McQuillan’s final whistle tooted, Donegal’s seniors – the same afternoon as their minors – had overcome Dublin in their respective All-Ireland semi-finals to set up two final clashes with Kerry.
That’s the company McGuinness has taken Donegal to; rubbing shoulders with Kerry and Dublin – Gaelic football’s two most traditional forces.
But for Colm McFadden’s stooping slap striking the base of the Kerry post one second from the end of injury time last Sunday week, Donegal might’ve been in an All-Ireland final replay this weekend.
In 2010, Murphy’s last minute penalty, which rammed off the Dublin crossbar at Breffni Park, might well have won the All-Ireland U-21 title. The margin between further successes and apparent failure was merely inches.
Donegal people, as recent referendums have shown, are known for their streak of devilment; unafraid to go against the grain. A geographical remoteness in Ireland’s poorest county has seen its folk need to be, in a way, indigenous.
McGuinness encapsulates those traits and that’s what has endeared him to the people of Donegal. He was and is one of them, celebrating in their multiple victories and manning up after the sporadic defeats.
“Once you have given everything there is nothing else to give,” he said following Donegal’s recapturing of the Anglo-Celt Cup in July. Although that statement was in reference to his players; it also carries a telling undertone to his personal situation.
Now, following his departure, a huge void remains. As well as being an intelligent, engaging, controversial and revolutionary manager, Donegal have lost a leader. He conducted the pre-match warm-ups with the ferocity of a fringe player and personally gathered the necessary funds for training camps in the Algarve, Johnstown House or Lough Erne with the acumen of a businessman.
That devotion has seen a change in the culture that had been engrained in Donegal football for decades. After years of hopefulness and sometimes hopelessness, his teams went to Croke Park or Clones expectant.
A simple evaluation tool of any manager suggests a given tenure has been successful if he leaves things in a better way to how he found them. McGuinness has metamorphosed Donegal and leaves a sense of belief – something that might be impossible to continue – but an incredible one nonetheless.
“I’m very aware and have always been very aware of what football means to the people of Donegal,” he said after the 2012 Ulster final. “I’ve said it all along, seeing smiles on people’s faces makes everything worthwhile.”
McGuinness has seen pride restored and, in the north-west, there are plenty of smiles on people’s faces. More than anything he has, as Shankly did at Anfield, made people happy. And that is his greatest legacy of all.
- Alan Foley