GOOD THINGS GUM TO THOSE WHO WAIT

Heart problem ended Paddy’s intercounty dream but now he wants one last hurrah

INEVITABLY, the time came when Paddy Gumley couldn’t get away quickly enough.

It wasn’t until he was in his mid-20s and trying to make the breakthrough with Cavan that his issue – “flaking out” as he calls it – finally came to light.

As a youngster, he grew used to a strange sensation coming over him, often when training, and, from there, he reckoned he had a 40-second window to get to a quiet place where he would pass out.

When he’d come to, he’d wait for the pins and needles to go and then carry on as normal.

Remarkably, he managed to keep the issue hidden from everyone, his parents included.

“It happened as a youngster all the time in PE but I quit football when I was 15 until I was 21 so I forgot about it, if that makes sense,” he says.

“I’d go in and lie down and when I came to, if you told me I was there for three weeks I’d believe you. I wouldn’t have a clue.”

When he resumed playing football with his club Redhills in Cavan, he quickly made up for lost time and was duly called into the county set up by Tommy Carr. That’s when his condition was exposed.

“Tommy Carr was talking to us after a drill and I went to leave the room and I didn’t get to the outside of the room.

“I went into a kind of an epileptic seizure. That was the first time anyone witnessed it.

“I got a referral to a specialist in London. He’s well-renowned and he gave me the go ahead [to continue playing] provided I didn’t go overboard with it and wasn’t trying to still run around the field at 35!”

He was diagnosed as having an enlarged heart muscle and s ometimes, aft er phy sical exertion, the lack of blood flow to the brain causes him to pass out. He could still tip away at club level but his inter-county career was over before it had really started.

“That probably was a hindrance to me too, knowing there was more in you. But it would be always in the back of your mind, ‘Will I ease off the throttle here?’. You could never get to a certain fitness level.

“You could still go out and tear into a game but to progress you could never up the ante, say, over six weeks of a training block to get to the next level of fitness.

“I have to be very careful because the fitter I get the more prone I am to flaking out.

“I was going well with Cavan, in the Mckenna Cup and that. It knocked the stuffing out of me for a long time, confidencewise.”

Gumley gave his best years to Redhills after that but living and working in Cork, he threw in his lot with Nemo Rangers two years ago. Training with their fifth team, he had no grand ambitions.

“I started with the Junior Cs in Nemo, then the Bs and the As, then the intermediates and the seniors. It wasn’t any mad masterplan or anything. It just kind of worked out.

“But once you get a taste of something and you get a wee bit here, five minutes there, and it’s, ‘Right, I want 10 minutes, 15 minutes, I want to start’.

“It was a very slow progression. It was the way to do it, not on purpose or anything, but it was the way to break myself into it.”

In the

Munster c lub final against

D r

Crokes he shone at full-forward.

But a calf injur y curtailed his involvement in the All-ireland semi-final win over Slaughtneil and has hindered him since.

It would be cruel luck if it ruled the 35-year-old out Saturday’s final against Corofin, which he admits could be his “last hurrah”, with a big Redhills contingent set to roar him on too.

“There was a load of them down at the Slaughtneil game. It’s very humbling at times, very emotional when you see lads like that there. It sinks in for you, the power of the GAA and what it means for everyone. They never, ever forget you.”