'County football has allure, an aura, a magnetic pull' Ahead of the Tailteann Cup final, DeclanBogue sits down with the legendary Pete McGrath for an in-depth reflection on a life lived in football
A smallish man radiating charisma is making his way along the sideline as the Meath team comes out to begin their warm up for the Tailteann Cup group game against Down.
Seventy years on, young Peter never left the house. In between, he brought two All-Irelands to Down, the first when he was just 38, in 1991. McGrath will happily admit that if such an approach had have been made, he would have considered it. But he knows deep down that it wouldn’t be enough for him. Five years on, we are in the same chairs, the same pictures – sporting and political – are on the walls. And you ask: would you feel the same way today?
“When you get a situation where Down are in a final playing against Meath in Croke Park, there’s going to be a big, big crowd there and it is an important game… Well it awakens all kind of emotions and memories. Unless they meet at wakes, then the only time McGrath will come into contact with that generation is at matches or else a rare anniversary event.
He rediscovered serious form for Clonduff in the county leagues under Frank Dawson. McGrath and Murphy checked him out and after one game, asked him back.Said they were going to win the All-Ireland. That there were full 15-a-side games in training every night and everyone was champing at the bit. It brought recrimination. James McCartan went off to play soccer for Glenavon. Greg Blaney stayed away and moonlighted as a hurler for the resurgent county team in the small ball code.
“Liam Hayes says in the paper that this Down team doesn’t know what it takes to win an All-Ireland. Well, as far as I am concerned, we don’t know what it takes to lose one!” If he wanted to spend time with them, he could. But he has no interest in their preferred collective pastime of playing golf. What if Pete McGrath had married and had children? What if he was running round now on the school-lift circuit with all the other hard-pressed grandparents? Would football have meant as much?
“Football is at the core of so much and if you see me talking to someone on the street, you can be quite sure what I will be talking about.” “So he arrives here yesterday. This 90-year-old man, you’d swear he was 75. He sits here and talks about Mayo and if they will ever win an All-Ireland while he is around.
Sam Mulroy is a young lad but he has him in, learning the ropes of senior county football. He suffers a bad ankle injury in the first O’Byrne Cup game. He keeps showing up and going to training sessions anyway. McGrath hands him books throughout the season. McGrath sets it all up after the teams have eaten together. Pays a little tribute to Mulroy and what a great young lad he is. Gavin presents it. The book is the autobiography of Jim McGuinness. Diarmuid Connolly sees this and his face is like thunder. Gavin makes the presentation anyway.**
In the last decade he spent four seasons in charge of Fermanagh, and then one with Louth. He’s now with his own Rostrevor club as well as the St Mary’s Aghagallon senior footballers in Antrim as well, joined by his nephew, also called Peter. “But you are right. I think we’re living in a society where if you’re beyond a certain age, well, I mean, you know, you’re out of touch, you think that people who are over 60 or 80 that they all go and live in a cave somewhere, and don’t know what’s going on around them in any sense.
They washed up in Division Three. They didn’t get out of it, but the Tailteann Cup final represents a chance to escape that reality for a spell.“The advantage Conor Laverty had going into this year was the fact that he had managed the U20s for 2022 and 2021. “I think they will score at least two goals against Meath. I think they’ll get through for two goals and if they do, I think they’ll win it.”He turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. Every day, he either runs or lifts weights. Since Covid though, he’s not pushing the same kilos.“John Morgan, who was the guru of weight lifting up at Burren, he said, ‘You can’t stop the biological clock. You can slow it down, but you can’t stop it.
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