‘Good luck to him – I don’t know what all the fuss is about’
Scullion says new boss Mickey Harte can bring Derry to next level
“Sure a lot of counties have outside managers”
WHEN the Laochra Gael crew looked to capture Tony Scullion’s life and footballing times for the latest series on TG4, a sense of place and identity ran through the filming.
So before ‘a wee boy from Ballinascreen’ gets to talking about changed days and a figurehead of Tyrone football — Mickey Harte — managing his own county for tonight’s McKenna Cup final against Jim McGuinness’ Donegal, he talks about the old days. Simpler days. ‘We grew up with nothing, absolutely nothing,’ he says. ‘Four miles from Dean McGlinchey Park, which was my home ground, which was the county grounds for years as Celtic Park was being done up in Derry City.
‘God rest my father, he took me on the handlebars of his bike to watch Derry play. So the GAA was all our life. At the start, it was the wireless that kept us informed on most of the games. If they weren’t in Ballinascreen, we didn’t get to them because there was no transport in our house.’
He explains how ‘there was no electricity in our house’, so the big Croke Park days involved the family ‘sitting around our kitchen tables listening to All-Ireland finals and semi-finals and my daddy always saying “Kerry were the team”. That was back in the 70s and Kerry were the team. He loved Kerry and he says — there were three of us — he says, “Boys, you’ll not beat Kerry. Derry will never get there”.
‘Little did he know, before he passed away that Derry had won Sam and his son would be playing. And the day I took Sam Maguire down 22 Carnamoney Lane and put it on daddy’s knee, to me, that was worth a million pounds. That’s what the GAA is about.’
As you can see, Scullion’s heart and soul is all Derry. This rawboned, teak-tough corner-back was a defensive pillar on the team that made the breakthrough for the county’s sole senior All-Ireland in 1993. Tyrone were as much a fierce rival then as they are now. But he’s not one of those to question the appointment of the man who led Tyrone to three senior All-Irelands to the position of Derry senior manager for 2024.
‘Good luck to Mickey Harte. I don’t know what all the fuss is about here. We’re delighted to have Mickey Harte and Gavin Devlin as Derry management. I don’t see any problem, there’s outside managers going into every county and we’re hoping Mickey Harte can take us another step, into an All-Ireland final in Croke Park hopefully later on this year.’
It just adds another layer to the story that the McKenna Cup final pits him against an old sideline foe in McGuinness, who is also back in management. Plus the fact that the game is on in Healy Park in Omagh, a venue so familiar to Harte.
After coming up just short against Kerry in last year’s AllIreland semi-final, does he think Derry can take the next step under Harte? ‘I think we can. Mickey has been trying a number of players in the McKenna Cup and lads are stepping up. I think we need more depth in our squad. And that’s what Mickey’s trying to find.
‘I would say we’re in the talk but let me tell you, we have a long way to go before we think about Croke Park. Donegal in the first round of the Ulster championship in Celtic Park, a Jim McGuinness coached Donegal team — you can’t look any further than that one unfortunately.’ In Tyrone, plenty have looked aghast at Harte swopping the Louth senior job for Derry. Former star players like Sean Cavanagh and Owen Mulligan voiced the county’s shock and dismay, with Cavanagh describing the move as ‘really, really bizarre’ and likened it to Manchester United legend Alex Ferguson taking over Manchester City.
‘In the past maybe, when I was playing, there was rivalry between Derry and Tyrone, but over the last number of years, Tyrone were too good for us and were on a different level to us. Now we have closed the gap and we are starting to get a result against Tyrone,’ says Scullion.
‘Personally for myself, I have no issue with it.
‘Yes, I have Tyrone friends who say they are not too happy with Mickey and Gavin going to Derry.
‘I don’t think that’s an issue with me. Sure a lot of counties have outside managers and clubs outside managers. It’s the modern way.
‘I don’t know. I would say Louth might be more annoyed, more so than Tyrone or Derry people.’
This modern way of changing horses is one of the reasons they are expected to come to Omagh in their thousands this evening.