‘Everyone has got challenges in life but when they see other people who can overcome them, it can be so encouraging’
Sambo McNaughton’s honesty about his childhood struggles has helped people all over Ireland
TWO years have passed since Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton pulled back the curtains for all to witness the torment of his school days, but the phone calls keep coming. In the 21-year history and the 193deep archival library of TG4’s acclaimed Laochra Gael series, none was as powerful as the one broadcast in January 2022 when Cushendall’s rock revealed why hurling to him was always more than a stick and a ball.
There were all kinds of reasons that programme jarred. This was a man who once had to get out of Belfast on the strength of a UDA death threat and had endured the kind of state harassment that became almost a ritual for hurlers and footballers in the North during The Troubles. But it was an act of unthinking brutality nonchalantly dispensed in the classroom which moved him to tears.
McNaughton was inflicted as a child with a speech impediment, which, in his own words, it was dealt with by a two-pronged strategy from his teachers. Some chose to beat the stutter out of him, while others just deemed him not worthy of being taught. That served to remind that the ignorant old days are regularly confused for the good old ones.
The sight of him breaking down, as he recalled being made to stand at the top of the room to read while his teacher beat him on the back of the head with a book, demanding he stop stuttering as his classmates laughed, painted an image as powerful as it was painful.
As celebrated as his hurling career is, finding the courage to tell that story has become a big part of his legacy.
Just a couple of weeks ago, McNaughton travelled to Galway where he was invited by organisers to speak at a health and wellbeing conference for clubs to remind attendees there is no challenge that can not be overcome once support is in place.
The irony is that when the programme was initially broadcast, regret trumped pride.
‘Initially, I wasn’t overly happy with the programme, not in the sense that I had embarrassed myself but my daughter (Terry) came to me after seeing it,’ says McNaughton.
‘I had never spoken to her about those sort of things and she came into the house that night asking “why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
‘In my generation, we did not talk about our feelings, our problems or anything like that. You put those things away, you never spoke about them and that was the first time I really spoke about it. I never spoke about it, not even with my own kids. It was something you just got on with and said nothing.
‘That bit about my speech impediment lasted for only a few minutes on the programme but it took about two hours to do it.
‘I kept changing the subject, but they kept bringing me back to it.
‘And when I left that day, I just felt like I had embarrassed myself because at one stage I had become very emotional and I still get emotional about it to this day.’
That sense of regret would prove to be a fleeting one.
The response was overwhelming, and he discovered that even in more enlightened times, people are still suffering with the stigma that comes with having a speech impediment.
‘I am so happy I did it now. I got messages from every county in Ireland. There was just a massive reaction. It was unbelievable really. I will always remember a phone call I received from a young lad’s mother in Cork after she had seen the programme.
‘Her son was captain of one of the teams in the club and they were playing in a final but he did not want them to win because if they did, he was going to have to make a speech.
‘I mean, think about how debilitating that is, when a kid is thinking like that?
‘I actually rang up Kieran Kingston who I am friendly with and who was the Cork manager at the time, and we organised for him to go in and train with the Cork hurlers for a night.
‘It was just a lovely feeling to have helped a young fellow down in Cork who I had never met but who I could totally relate to.
‘When you have a moment like that, then you are very thankful for opening up about it because it can
help others. Everyone has got challenges in life but when they see other people who can overcome them, it can be so encouraging.
‘Because I played in an All-Ireland final and won an All-Star, which is a big thing for an Ulster hurler, people might think that everything was rosy but then they realise what I had to go through to achieve what was achieved, I do think that can help.’
Naturally, McNaughton will be in Navan this afternoon as Cushendall take on O’Loughlin Gaels for a place in the All-Ireland final but, like the rest of the club, he is still adjusting to the loss of one of his dearest friends.
Proof that the darkest of clouds can have a silver lining, it was as a consequence of his speech impediment as a child – something he has mastered with time and through hurling – he was segregated from the main body of the class and travelled to school on the ‘Special Needs’ bus.
It was in that way he got to know John
McKillop, and a friendship formed in isolation would blossom and take the pair of them to the very heart of their community. If Sambo became the club hero, his striking image captured on a mural outside Ruairí Óg’s Naomh Mhuire ground, it is the image of John, who was born with Down Syndrome (in the foreground walking off the pitch with the Cushendall hurlers) which decorates the gable of McNaughton’s Lurig Inn pub. John died in July. ‘We grew up together and I never hit a ball for the club that he didn’t see.
‘I could not really communicate when I was a child but I did not have to communicate in that verbal way with John because I just felt very comfortable in his presence.
‘He was the soul of the club. John had a very witty personality, he would always be making fun out of you and do things to wind you up, winding up managers and the crowd constantly when he was there. Every player knew him so well, and boys would be out there stretching on the pitch and he would be around making fun of them.
‘Every single night that was going on and through the generation of players here, everyone loved him.
‘When he passed in August, eve‘The ryone lined the street of the village, the Camogs, all the underage boys and girls, and there were jerseys on older people with sponsorship on the front that I had not seen in 30 years.
‘Everyone was digging jerseys out of the attic just to honour him because as far as this club is concerned, he was Cushendall.’
They have been playing in his memory all winter and they will head out today with something more tangible than hope.
reality is when a team from the north is involved we tend to be the underdogs and we love that,’ says McNaughton.
‘Once you put Kilkenny in brackets after a club and Antrim in brackets after a club, there is always going to be that mindset out there that the Kilkenny club will win easily.
‘But we are very competitive. ‘We believe in ourselves when we get this far and being realistic, there is ever only a puck of a ball in it.’
This afternoon will reveal which way that puck of a ball will go, but the true value of Ruairí Óg Cushendall will never be defined by a scoreline at the end of a game.
Instead, its core value is to be found on how it helped two kids which society sought to place on the margins become the axis of their community.
‘The two of us needed the hurling club a lot more than the club needed us, probably.
‘It was through hurling that I found my confidence and my way. It gave me a purpose in life as it did for John. John’s life would have been a lot different if it was not for the club.’
A truth that also applies in reverse.
‘IN MY GENERATION WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT OUR FEELINGS’