Declan Bogue interviews DJ Kane, a former Gaelic football player, who is now managing his own club, Newry Shamrocks, after thirty years.
Declan Bogue DJ KANE BOUNDS into the foyer of the Canal Court Hotel in Newry with the same fizzing energy, the same bright-eyed enthusiasm, the clear-skinned vitality that you instantly recognise.
He lies back into his chair and goes through the bullet points of a catch-up. He’s managing his own club, Newry Shamrocks, this season. And you recognise in that moment that this is what real, deep friendship looks like. Even love. Why not? Those words made their way into headlines, with ‘Massacre At The Marshes’ a particular favourite. But the squad broke up, the summer was over, and it led to a winter of discontent.
“Typical players, we knew we were shite, but we didn’t want to accept the responsibility. Looking back with a bit of maturity and common sense, the headline didn’t look good. “The fall from 1991 wasn’t a gradual decline. It was a fall off the edge of a cliff. “It was the catalyst. We were getting someone who there was no fluff with. That’s what the players needed.
“What we were like from 25 to 30, married, strong personalities, we enjoyed each other’s company and took a beer. And that Monday, a round of league fixtures would frequently be pencilled in. Playing for your club was mandatory. RC: “And then they beat us, they beat Donegal, Cork, Dublin. It wasn’t that they skipped around and got to a final. They beat all they had to beat. Kerry weren’t in great shape.
DJ: “Pat would have got on with the players very well. He would have been jigging about in training with you, doing things as well as coaching. He was like a livewire at every training session.”In the winter of ’93, Down players were put through a battery of fitness tests in Jordanstown University. Before big games, they would hide themselves away on the grounds of a religious order in Waterfoot, north Antrim.
RC: “There were several times that year that lads who would have shared a car lift together on the way up, didn’t go back down the road in the same car. They had fallen out. Cork then, in the All-Ireland semi-final. Dublin in the final. Charlie Redmond finished that season as the top scorer, but he suffered from the penalty spot with Mickey McVeigh batting his shot out.
Footage from an excellent BBC Documentary of that era still available online at https://t.co/nlsGz6JNfo pic.twitter.com/UIcbsGL4Z3Carr and Kane had three years as the management from 2007 to 2009. What they found, puzzled them.RC: “I suppose we got involved because, after being in with the U21s in the late ‘90s for a few years, then the minors, I probably felt that — and we were both playing at that time — that there were good enough players in Down but something missing.
A year later they got up from Division 3 but a loss to Fermanagh in Ulster was crushing. They limped on for another few weeks past London and Laois in the qualifiers, before Wicklow beat them in the Aughrim bearpit as it was at the time. Since then, Down have gone through McCartan – twice – the late Eamonn Burns, Jim McCorry, Paddy Tally and now, Conor Laverty. All Irelands, heck, even Ulster titles, are a distant memory.
“I know again that a group of fellas have come up with a blueprint or a strategy that they felt would help Down get back on track. That was, I think about 2016, maybe. And it could have been funded. Money is never the problem. You will always get money. There’s enough people in Down if the project is right and the right people are involved.
Declan Bogue DJ Kane Gaelic Football Newry Shamrocks Club Management
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