In from the fringe with one eye on Croke Park
Edinburgh’s only GAA club has worked hard to fulfil an ambition of claiming an All-Ireland title
CORMAC O’GARA is planning to return to Ireland later this year, possibly back to Donegal. The Dunedin Connollys manager has had 13 good years in Edinburgh but the Scottish capital, for all its splendour, isn’t home. So, in July, he is making the big move. Before all that though, there’s a journey to complete, one that can end in Croke Park next month.
There are a few less glamorous places to take in before reaching that particular destination, among them the outskirts of Edinburgh on a dark and wintry January evening. O’Gara has been slightly delayed as there was an incident on the train from Glasgow, where he works. By the time he arrives, some of his players have erected the temporary Gaelic football posts on the council sportsground. They will be taken down at the end of the session, as they are each and every Tuesday and Thursday.
As preparations for an AIB All-Ireland JFC club semi-final go, it’s fairly unconventional. Yet, it has engendered the sort of team spirit that has taken Connollys to an All-British title and past Leinster champions Rosenallis in the All-Ireland quarter-final. Now, only Tyrone’s The Rock St Patrick’s stand in their way at the Armagh Athletic Grounds today.
One step from Croker. The team’s flying wing-back Ronan McGurk, a former Tyrone minor, puts it into context.
‘When you decide to leave home and go and live and work outside the country, then you are really giving up on that dream of ever playing in Croke Park,’ says McGurk, a dentist who works a few miles outside Edinburgh and who doubles up as the club chairman. ‘But here we are, within 60 minutes of realising that dream.’
Edinburgh conjures up images of its Castle and Arthur’s Seat, the Royal Mile and its famous festival. But amid all the distractions this city has to offer, Dunedin Connollys midfielder Robbie Howe, a former Kildare underage player, reckons they have put in more than 110 training sessions since last March. And completed a six-week strength and conditioning programme prior to that. This is a team serious about its football.
‘A lot of that is down to Cormac,’ McGurk explains. ‘We train as hard as any top senior club at home and like those club teams, you have to have the right attitude. Everyone has to be committed to it.’
O’Gara says that when he landed in Edinburgh as a student back in 2003, the first thing he did was seek out the GAA club. Times have changed, though. Most of those relocating to Scotland for work will try to maintain the link with their home club. For a while, at any rate.
‘It probably takes a player a year of doing the trek over and back for league and championship, with the toll on their body, to say it’s not worth it,’ O’Gara points out. ‘But to be fair, that has a lot to do with Connollys. We are fairly serious about where we want to go and what we want to do. That’s no disrespect to any other club in Britain. We train hard twice a week, because we want to be competing at All-Ireland level.’
Connollys captain Brian McAteer hails from Sligo and trekked over and back to his club, Drumcliffe/ Rosses Point for a year before it became too much.
‘When you come over, everyone does it for a little while,’ McAteer says. ‘The initial reaction when you go away, it is you want to go back and play for the club, to stay connected. Everyone goes through that phase but the travelling takes its toll.
You are leaving on a Friday evening and a lot of our lads are from the western seaboard, so that’s even more travelling. The fact that we play at such a high level ourselves is a driver to keep lads playing with us. When people see that we are competing for All-Britain titles every year and a game away from Croke Park, it shows that there is a good standard on your doorstep.’
The nature of a GAA club in a place like Edinburgh means the players tend to be transient. They stay for a few years before moving further afield – or back to Ireland. McAteer reckons that he’s in Edinburgh for the foreseeable future, though. Having come over for college six years ago, he got a job and married a Scottish woman last May. ‘I will be here for a while, anyway,’ he smiles.
But building a squad over time is not a luxury afforded Connollys. ‘The Rock were able to slowly build their team, knowing there’s a couple coming every year from minor.’ says Alan Ward, who acts as O’Gara’s assistant while still doing his bit on the field.
‘We don’t have that. Every year, you lose four or five guys who go travelling and you get a fresh influx of talent. So we have to look at a few new players in February and March. That can be a disadvantage but it can be an advantage too, this year, the few new guys have pushed us on.’
Life blew Ward into Edinburgh in 2002 from Roscommon, initially as a student. For the past 14 years, he has filled every role in the club that needed filling from club secretary to Ladies football manager and thought he might be in the city for life. But with two infants at home, his wife has a yearning to return home to Belfast. Ward has witnessed plenty of
change in those 14 years. There was a time when the side was stacked with students. When O’Gara managed Edinburgh’s Napier University to a British third-level title in 2010, there was a general crossover between the two squads. Not any more.
There are still plenty of Irish students in Edinburgh but few want to join the local GAA club. Connollys stand on the brink of an All-Ireland final with a squad almost entirely made up of professional people. ‘We had two students in the squad, but they both graduated recently,’ O’Gara says.
While it’s Donegal that’s generally most associated with Scotland, Mayo is the county with the largest contingent on the Connollys side. Six of their most established players are from the county, including Brendan Parsons, brother of current county star Tom. Frank Molloy, a regular for Mayo seniors in the late 1990s, is the elder statesman of the team while his brother-in-law Sean Malee is another that played with the Mayo senior side.
‘I don’t know what it is with all the Mayo men. And they are all forwards,’ O’Gara chuckles. ‘This idea that Mayo don’t produce enough forwards, it doesn’t seem to be case with those that come to Edinburgh anyway.’
The county’s record when it comes to finals in Croke Park has also been considered. ‘I am joking with them, that we’re dropping them all when we get to the All-Ireland final,’ Ward says with a smile.
O’Gara and Ward feel the team are going better than ever. They had two challenge games in Ireland recently, against Mayo’s Kilmitagh when everyone was home for Christmas and they travelled over to St Patrick’s, Stamullen in Meath a couple of weeks ago. They won both.
As Dunedin are so dominant in Scotland, they generally have to travel to England to get a real challenge. But O’Gara is pleased with how they have responded. ‘I think Cormac and Alan knew there was more in us after we won the British title, they just didn’t say it to us,’ McAteer says. Next weekend, there will be an influx of Irish tourists for the Six Nations opener in Murrayfield, although the Connollys hope to be too busy to entertain much.
‘It’s funny, I only really appreciate how beautiful Edinburgh is when my friends and family come over to visit,’ says Howe, a physiotherapist by profession. ‘Most of the time, you just take it for granted.’
What nobody is taking for granted in Connollys is just what an opportunity is presented in Armagh today. They flew into Belfast yesterday, travelling down this morning.
‘We have to grasp this opportunity. It is once in a lifetime and there is some really good quality here and we want to show it in this game. We have to strike while the iron is hot,’ says O’Gara. If they do, he will return home later this year with his legacy in Edinburgh GAA circles secure.