Fulham boss McCartan is as hungry as ever to land the big prizes
IF EVER you needed proof that an All-Ireland medal is not a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to a lifetime of milk and honey, consider Gregory McCartan. He was a footballer of superior skill and confidence, a physical embodiment of what Pete McGrath prized in a footballer as Down won the 1994 All-Ireland title. And yet he now has to make his living in England.
A joiner by trade, he is employed by Farrens and has worked his way down from Liverpool to Coventry, Northampton and now to his shared three-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, while he works at a school being built for children with special needs beside Heathrow Airport.
It means less time with wife Sinead, sons Rossa (22) and Eanna (21) and daughter Sorcha (16), who was presented with a school’s All-Star medal for camogie last night.
Still, he has some consolations, chiefly his sporting ambitions as Fulham Irish, the club he managed to a London Championship eight weeks ago, face Andy Merrigan Cup favourites Corofin of Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-final tomorrow in McGovern Park, Ruislip (1pm throw-in).
“With the football, this year I have been over for six or seven weeks at a time. It’s a bit stressful sometimes but what can you do?” asked the colourful Castlewellan man.
“I would love to come home in the evenings and Sinead might have dinner ready for me and I might sit in front of the fire.
“Unfortunately, whenever you quit work here you have to commute an hour and 15 minutes or so and then make your own dinner. It’s eat, sleep, work, repeat. What can you do? At the end of the day I’m 47, and there are only a few more years at it. When you are working hard and trying to make a few quid, you have to stay at it.”
Only for football, Sundays would be a killer. During the summer he will have a Fulham game to manage at, or if they were playing on a Saturday there would be an inter-county Championship match to catch or even watch some of their rivals. But during the winter it’s tough, especially if his flatmates have gone out for the day.
So he catches a train or a tube and strikes out for other areas of London and ticks them off an imaginary list. As Samuel Johnson said to Boswell, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”.
In any case, how could you be tired when you are still involved in football in December? All those nights slogging their guts out with the lights of Wormwood Scrubs Prison to guide their way gives their lives meaning. Eight weeks ago they beat Tir Chonaill Gaels in the county final, the showpiece day for the new Ruislip with a pitch like carpet replacing the old gluepot.
The following day they gathered in Putney for a day of celebrating and, although they awaited the arrival of their most famous recruit, threetime All-Ireland winner Owen Mulligan, he never showed.
“He went for a hot bath!” revealed McCartan of the legendary Tyrone figure, who played for London in this year’s Connacht Championship having followed the same path in search of regular work.
“He has really surprised me. People might have thought he was this wild man, great craic, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve never seen any evidence of a wild man. He is a shy character.”