Mickey Harte stands down

[dc84]

He was our nemesis in the 00s came across as a nice fellow but his teams had serious steel.

Probably should have stood down a few years ago but he always carried himself well and went through personally i remember being on lewis road clapping the man out in 2012 as a nark of respect for his loss. A true innovator he left some mark on Tyrone football and the gaa at large . They are some boots to fill now!

[Ballyfireside]

Loved to hate him, etc. An innovator sacked because he was old fashioned, the GAA world awaits and Tyrone folk are probably even more split than the rest. And as you could imagine, they changed their minds after each game, each score. I used to think there were taking a hand - maybe they were, maybe they weren't, maybe they didn't know - they'll find out soon.

The new broom should be allowed time but it won't, 'that wouldn't happen if Mickey was here' will be heard the first and each time a point is conceded this day forth.

Fit 'n' fill 'em,
only so few can.
Some too big for their own,
thinking better than....
For there be but,
one of the clan.....

Best wishes, he got nothing easy, 30 years managing county teams - a record?, happiness and heartache 'tis said. I suppose Michaela is now shining down on him, thinking what they'll get up to next. A formidable pair and wasn't it remarkable that only herself and our own Michael O Muircheartaigh were allowed into the dressing room for Mickey's final words before going into battle, and battle they did.

[dano]

Mickey was a great servant to their cause up in Tyrone. Tactics were questionable but it got them their wins and they'd argue that they did what they had to do. I have a feeling that they'll be like a rudderless ship now for a while without him.I wish him well in retirement.

[Mickmack]

Consent

GAA

Harte's place among managerial greats was long since secured

Colm Keys

Tactical imitation by his rivals was the most sincere form of flattery, writes Colm Keys
Mickey Harte
1
Mickey Harte
November 15 2020 02:30 AM



For a long time, it seemed like Mickey Harte rarely got a tactical call wrong. When Down routed them for four goals in the 2003 Ulster final, a game that finished level, Harte pulled one of the first big rabbits from the hat when the late Cormac McAnallen took over at full-back in an effort to restore peace and harmony to a troubled area.

McAnallen had spent most of his career as a midfielder but Harte's instinct was that his future captain would have the nerve and intelligence to quickly adapt to new and demanding surroundings. The move was so covert that even McAnallen's father Brendan knew nothing about it until the day of the game. His instinct proved correct. Four games later, Tyrone were All-Ireland champions.

Tyrone's game was built on high work-rate and counter-attacking but McAnallen was the key pillar of stability in the wins over Down, Fermanagh, Kerry and Armagh.

Harte's capacity to think differently manifested again in the All-Ireland final against Armagh when he reintroduced Peter Canavan for the final 15 minutes, having taken him off at the break to allow for intensive treatment on an ankle ligament injury he had picked up in the All-Ireland semi-final.

Canavan's situation needed to be managed delicately. Having their leader off the field at any stage would have an obvious detrimental effect on Tyrone and an uplifting one on Armagh. The plan had been to take Canavan off after 20 minutes and reintroduce him for the second half, but the game dictated differently and he spent the first 10 minutes of the second half on the treatment table before taking up a deep-lying position to help protect Tyrone's slender advantage.


It was this unconventional approach - Brian McGuigan also went off (with a bug) and came back on again for the second half - that set him apart in those early years. Harte had enjoyed great success with the same core group of players as they won an All-Ireland minor (1997) and two All-Ireland under 21 successes (2000 and 2001).

He took over the senior role in late 2002. By then the preparation revolution in Gaelic games was well underway with much more adherence to science and far greater intensity. But when they swept to league, provincial and All-Ireland success within 10 months, Harte revealed a schedule that was based on one weekly group training session in the earlier part of the year, stepping up to twice weekly with championship in sight. They didn't play challenge games, preferring instead to expose their players more regularly to Tyrone's competitive club league environment. It was a holistic approach that worked, though obviously, the acceleration of the game would demand adjustment as time moved on.

The tactical innovations continued throughout the decade. Harte was never sold on the idea of a 'big' midfielder. Tyrone didn't have much access to that type of player anyway, but you always sensed that a high fielder was not on his list of priorities as he set about cultivating a middle eight, rather than a middle two.

Mobility and flexibility were the key ingredients of his teams. So too was evolution. Their style of play in that first year was much maligned but it developed in the years that followed to the point where it was often difficult to distinguish backs from forwards.

Ryan McMenamin, Philip Jordan, Conor Gormley and Davy Harte became the most adventurous defenders in the game. Between 2005 and 2008 Harte, as a half-back, scored 1-14 from play. When Tyrone beat Wexford in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final their half-back line contributed more than a quarter (six out of 23) of all their scores.


Seán Cavanagh was one of his midfielders in 2003 but by 2008, when they won their third and last All-Ireland, Cavanagh had been converted to full-forward with such success that he finished the season as footballer of the year, his five points in the All-Ireland final against Kerry making the difference in a four-point win.

What other manager would have been brave enough at the time to pluck Joe McMahon from half-forward and detail him, along with his brother, for security duty in that same 2008 All-Ireland final as Kerry's Kieran Donaghy and Tommy Walsh were curtailed? The aggressive approach was met with much disapproval, but Tyrone were never in it to win admirers.

As one decade ended and another began, however, other tactical gunslingers emerged who were equally innovative and daring.

Under Pat Gilroy, Dublin reversed their painful losing sequence to Harte's Tyrone with 2010 and 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final wins of different texture while Jim McGuinness used some similar tactical foundations to establish Donegal as Ulster's primary force. In three successive years, 2011, 2012 and 2013, McGuinness won the provincial sideline battles, yet both he and Gilroy would acknowledge the influence of early Harte philosophy.

In that respect, he could be considered the pioneer of the modern game, certainly the 21st century game that has evolved and isn't so beautiful in the eye of every beholder.


In more recent years, fifth and sixth Ulster titles were added and four All-Ireland semi-finals (one All-Ireland final appearance) in the last six years is a record most managers would be proud of and expect to enjoy continuity on.

Sometimes though, it's too easy to forget just how sharp and innovative he has been. His place among the pantheon of great managers is a long time secured.


Sunday Indo Sport

[Mickmack]

Irish Examiner Logo




SAT, 14 NOV, 2020 - 00:00
DECLAN BOGUE


A sunny wintry day on top of Ballymacilroy hill. The front of Mickey Harte’s house affords a spectacular view of rolling drumlins. Hidden in a fold is St Malachy’s Church, where it all began and where he is still drawn to.

His father Peter came from Pomeroy to be the Sacristan here. Faith and family and football was their credo. His mother Mary washed the jerseys of the local St Ciaran’s club. They raised no fewer than seven boys who kicked football on the quiet meandering roads and polished their skills off a rough gable wall.

Mickey’s daughter Michaela is buried on the grounds, victim of a horrific murder in Mauritius while on honeymoon in January 2011.

Mickey has decided today that he is finished with county football. 30 unbroken seasons as Tyrone manager through minor, under-21, and senior teams comes to an end today.

One of the most successful managers in Gaelic Games. One of the greatest of all time. The man who converted a ravenous hunger for football in a county into All-Ireland titles, thereby turning the pressure on himself for the last decade.

So, what to talk about?

Pundit criticism? Life is too short.

Defensive football? Ah, no.


Have a cut at the county board? He won’t entertain it.

He looks as relaxed as you have ever seen him. It kind of catches you unawares because when he called this morning and invited you up, you felt he might be upset and ready to let off some serious steam.

Instead, he’s serene. The Sacristan’s son who went on a football journey that yielded All-Ireland titles, tragic deaths of players and their family members. High moments of controversy and stinging criticism and outright snobbery that these Ulster upstarts might dare to win playing fair or dirty, they didn’t care.

Now that we are outside the roles of media and manager, he wants to talk about life. We’ll get to that.

DECLAN BOGUE: Mickey, can you clarify what happened this week. You wished for one more year as manager?

MICKEY HARTE: I felt that if you take six months out of any year and you factor in the implications of Covid, it meant that for six months we were absolutely idle.

We never met as a unit. We didn’t have any communication face to face, which was necessary. And we lived that to the letter of the law.

So we came back on the 14th of September and we had that short space of time, that short window to prepare for what is now a knock-out Championship. And it was not what we expected to be dealing with from the start of the year.


You know you are going to have challenges, but the best months of the year you aren’t able to build or improve our team the way we would have liked to have done.

In any other year, we would still be in the Championship. and I think if people would look back at it and say it was because we were in it, but we had the best record, the most success in the qualifiers.

It isn’t something that phased us and we would have relished the challenge again of being in that. Because we knew we were meeting a top team in the first round. And it was a kick of the ball either way. We could have won by a kick of the ball and they did win by a kick of the ball.

So, I did feel since that year was lost and it was my final year…

DB: This was to be your final year? It wasn’t something widely known. There was an assumption you would be reluctant to ever leave.

MH: It was, but I didn’t want to talk about that because it is not good practise to talk about your final year.

You can learn from that situation. I was never going to be shouting about last year or anything else, but ultimately it was going to be my last year and therefore I made the request – I didn’t get to fulfil my last year properly.

And that’s all I wanted. I was now prepared to say openly that this is my last year even though it was ideally, what you want to say, but in the circumstances, I felt it was necessary to say.


DB: And their response?

MH: There was hope maybe that it could be done for one year and that would be seen as not necessary an extension, rather a replacement for something that was lost.

But it appears that somewhere in the annals of minutes of convention, the last time this was addressed it was to be a three-year-term for all management posts. That’s my understanding.

DB: Would you have felt you were the best man to take Tyrone in 2021?

MH: I don’t want to go there. What I am saying is, that’s what I requested and it didn’t happen. And I respect the outcome of these meetings and that’s it’s time to reflect on what happened and leave the present to unfold itself.

DB: Are you in any way upset or sore about it?

MH: No. I always say that I feel privileged ever to have been a manager of any Tyrone team. To get through the minors, the under-21s, and seniors for so long is an absolute privilege and I would never look at it in any other way.

That’s how I leave things, I am privileged to have been given the opportunities I have been given and I did my best every year I was there.

DB: Did coronavirus spoil it? As in, you couldn’t do tactical meetings and get that closeness that Tyrone had been famed for.

MH: Absolutely, there is no doubt about it.

It just changes the landscape and it takes away the way you have of doing things. We never met inside since March. And we tried to have video footage meetings on Zoom and it wasn’t satisfactory, it was sticking and everybody wasn’t getting the right picture. You were trying to describe something you would do with a laser beam on your screen in Garvaghey and you can’t do it.

We are driving to matches in our own cars! Going to training and coming home, no chatting or meeting. There is no social gathering, social distancing has replaced the whole coming together which is an essential part of building team spirit. So absolutely, it has been a major impact on this year.

DB: Take us back to the start. When you were growing up and tell us how the obsession of football grew? Your father, Peter, was the Sacristan in Pomeroy and moved down to here to do the same role in St Malachy’s?

MH: He obviously liked football and he took part in it with the club. And Mammy (Mary) washed the jerseys from whenever I was old enough to stand up.

It wasn’t that you washed one set of jerseys, one set did every team. There was nothing until under-16s anyway, there was no underage. Under-16 was the youngest and it was the same jersey that did the seniors and anybody. One set of jerseys covered all and everybody looked after themselves otherwise.


We played any games, but football was a good game for a deck of lads. The roads were quiet enough and we played many a game up and down the road. Handball up against the gable wall that wasn’t even! You just did it and I did it myself with a football. I would hammer it off the wall and I wouldn’t catch it, I would volley it with my left foot and right foot. I probably picked up the skills of the game myself, banging a ball up against a wall.

My second eldest brother was a good footballer. Peter, he played for Tyrone and Queen’s University. He was a real pioneer of training by yourself even.

I remember back in the day when there was no collective training for Tyrone. Tom McKeagney, Liam McGrath, and Pete would go down to Dunmoyle on a dark night and train.

It wasn’t even going out to play football. There were no lights, no way you could play football. Running around fields in the dark. It was just a pioneering notion of that time. If you wanted to get to a higher level you had to train yourself, almost.

He instilled a love of football in our house, as much as our father facilitated the opportunity to play football, Pete would have been the man who could play ball and we all wanted to play ball because of that.

DB: And yet at the height of your powers, you were involved with the split of Glencull from the Ballygawley club. Do you regret the years you lost out playing in your prime?

MH: I don’t live with regrets, honestly. I do believe that everything happens for a reason. And I do believe that because of that, many things are better.

Yes, I may have missed out on this, that, or the other. Maybe something would have been different within the club. But I believe on reflection that the ultimate outcome has been positive and that to me is good.

Even if at times it was fraught with anxiety and angst between people, I think we have come out the other side better for it and I think the whole community, the whole Errigal Ciarán club is more united than it ever was.

Something used to be in my mind a lot of the time. Back in the day, people used to say in football terms that there was ‘no such thing as a Ballygawley man’. The inference was there was no sense of identity, no sense of purpose. That people didn’t have it just like Carrickmore would have it or Eglish would have it. Talk of a strong community that stood out.

And that ultimately might have been said to jibe, or whatever. But you nearly felt there was an element of truth in it.

Back in those days too, I would have described it as there were ‘footballing families’, people in the houses that played football were the GAA people. And the rest of the parish or community had no connection with that.

There was no ladies football at that time so girls didn’t enter the equation either.

I think now, life has moved on the thing is very much more all-encompassing and there is a greater sense of community and the club is an integral part of the community and vice-versa.

DB: It amuses me, knowing this and seeing you described as an ‘establishment figure’ even though you spent years in the wilderness.

JOY TO MANY: Tyrone manager Mickey Harte with the Sam Maguire after Tyrone’s All-Ireland final victory in 2008. ‘I just enjoyed the fact that this gave so much joy to so many. That to me was better than me having anything to do with it,’ he says. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
JOY TO MANY: Tyrone manager Mickey Harte with the Sam Maguire after Tyrone’s All-Ireland final victory in 2008. ‘I just enjoyed the fact that this gave so much joy to so many. That to me was better than me having anything to do with it,’ he says. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
MH: People talk about stubbornness and describe it in negative terms. And I just say I am principled. There are certain things I believe in and I believe in them, I don’t make a decision about that.

I try to work out a process of logic, that fits why that belief works for me.

DB: You took the minors in '91. And yet you are on record as having said you were grateful for county board officers granting you years in the role to create a culture.

MH: Winning trophies was secondary, really. It was very necessary if you had people ready to shove you on if you weren’t winning trophies, but I am glad that the people in the county board at that time knew that we were instilling good standards into our young people. And that actually proved more important than winning trophies.

Father Gerard (McAleer, his first coaching partner) and myself were of a similar mind. We wanted people to do things well, wanted people to respect everybody and everything.

And that was very simple. That all began with respecting the jersey and taking care of it.

We weren’t thinking that it was any way right that someone could take off the jersey, fire it in the corner and somebody else will lift it after me. It just doesn’t make sense.

So instilling that and the more that you would get young people to understand, ‘this is good practise, this is not someone wanting to have power over you, telling you what to do. We are suggesting to you that this is a good way to do things and this will serve you well. Not only in your sporting life, but your life in general.’

DB: There are not too many minor teams that have quite the level of fame as that group from 1997.

MH: In the middle of it all was the tragedy of Paul McGirr. That bonded that team way beyond what you might expect to happen in a short space of time. That was an uplifting thing in a really dark time, that we had to face this as young people. I wasn’t particularly old myself at the time but as young boys they had to deal with a player who had played on the field with them and was here no longer.

It created a bond among them. It’s one of those things that almost fate would suggest because they made their way through to an All-Ireland final after an epic replay with Kerry in Parnell Park, that they were destined to complete the job, and yet again, we didn’t.

It seemed to be that it would only be right, in the agony these lads went through and the family went through, that they would get their ultimate reward.

And the ultimate reward came in a different form. It came in the building of character of those players so that the next year with so many of them being underage, they had more than their talent. They had character that took a number of years to build – they had that.

DB: For a while it felt like Tyrone’s success was universally welcomed. But the style always drew criticism and it got worse in the last decade.

MH: I think it was overplayed.

We became the bad guys of a style of football that others were playing too. But that was a fact we had to live with.

Anyone discerning would have noticed that. And people who are not discerning, well, it doesn’t really matter.

DB: And the public image of Tyrone was held up against them. Incidents of simulation were highlighted constantly when it might have been brushed over in other counties?

MH: It’s up to everyone to discern if it was really true, or whether it was loaded in one way or another. I just leave that to people’s own devices to decide. Is this real truth, or perception? Because they are not always the same.

And if it is out there, it is out there.

It’s up to everyone observing, particularly those writing about the games to make an observation if they feel it is contrary to reality.

There seems to be a lack of independent thinking now. Maybe that is brought on by the collective interviews that happen and people only getting the same soundbites.

DB: Your dealings with the media evolved poorly. I was called the other day and asked to identify someone who would ‘speak out’ against you for a media outlet. Is that disappointing to hear?

MH: There are always people who have a line to pursue and that happens. In the world of media that we live in now, it is very easy for people to do that. It gets more headlines, more talk around it than doing the normal, natural thing.

But that stuff goes on everywhere.

DB: How do you personally deal with all the criticisms?

MH: I suppose it depends on who says those things.

If people really know their stuff, they are bigger than that. So if you were going to react to what people say who aren’t really deep thinkers, about what they are saying. But they are good at given the currency of the day, that is the easy street thing to say.

I don’t live my life by what other people think of me, I am happy in my own skin and I know that when you are in a position like this there is criticism and praise in equal amounts. Maybe not even equal amounts, maybe one more so than the other.

But it doesn’t bother me. It will not affect me either. I am not particularly endeared to lots of praise because it’s just the currency of that moment.

I don’t see it through that lens. There are ups and downs, highs and lows, challenges and joys, and that’s all part of life and we have to take them as equals and remain as level as we can in the middle of it all. That’s always been my ambition, to remain level.

DB: You lead an exceptionally quiet life outside of football.

MH: And I feel blessed that I have that capacity to do that and I do.

I thank God every morning for the gifts in my life that I have. Because there is no getting away from it, I have been blessed with the family I have been born into. The brothers and sisters I had, the mother and father I had. I was so lucky to have them.

And the wife (Marian) that I found. Our children, I am not just blessed, I think they are great young people.

Michaela is the same. I just adored her. And we had her for 27 years and it was just so good.

She loved me and I loved her in a very special way and even though she wasn’t into playing football or anything like that, it made her so happy and she took so much joy in it.

Michaela was a real lovely people person and she would enjoy even meeting stewards at matches because she would soon let them know who she was and end up real friendly with them.

Occasionally there are challenges and that is a huge challenge in anyone’s life to have to experience. But I still am able to say that I have been given more than I have lost. That’s the point of it. Even now, nine grandchildren, it’s such a gift since Michaela died we have had nine grandchildren.
God’s never indebted to us.

DB: Had you ever the same energy after Michaela died?

MH: On reflection, it might be understandable that I hadn’t the energy I thought I had after Michaela died.

It’s alright talking about it until you live through it and football maybe brings you through it.

It’s sometimes hard in your own mind that you are doing everything how you believed you used to, you had all the energy you once had. But in effect, you probably haven’t.

It’s something I have probably attributed to 2004. Our players played their hearts out and probably felt, and they were doing everything they possibly could, but they were drained too (after Cormac McAnallen’s death).

That’s the fact of the matter. The impact of losing Cormac and how much he meant to them never mind him playing on the field.

Just how much it impacted on them, people have never really understood until they maybe think about it.

I am sure in those years immediately after Michaela died there was so much going on, so much heartache and challenge personally, I still feel blessed I had the opportunity to do that.

But, also the fact of the matter is we had an exceptional bunch of players built up over a very competent group of elder statesmen, being joined by a very competent group of younger statesmen.

So that was a perfect cocktail. The next few years and people would say that Tyrone under-performed. I would say that all those teams gave us the best of themselves and oppositions changed. The game got more complex, more strategic, more professional.

You don’t always have a combination of a generation of players who can be seen as up with the best ever.

You had a number of players over those years who were as good as anyone played football, but it didn’t always happen. And then you have to mould the team that you have, to the way you think they can be the most effective.

DB: Did people, especially in Tyrone, change towards you after you won All-Ireland titles?

MH: It didn’t change me. I loved the fact that people speak to me and say hello and are comfortable doing that. I’d hate to think that someone couldn’t stop you and say hello and have a chat.

But I don’t see it as being anything apart. Far from it. I was just someone who helped co-ordinate it and was lucky enough to be involved at a time in Tyrone when they had the best players in the country as it proved in three different years, and some of the years in between even though we didn’t win.

DB: What were your thoughts in those years when you were bringing Sam Maguire back into the county?

MH: I just enjoyed the fact that this gave so much joy to so many. That to me was better than me having anything to do with it.

What a way to make people feel good! Us doing something we like doing. Everyone in Tyrone now feels, ‘we are All-Ireland winners’. And I think that is a good thing.

When the cup is about, it is not something that has never happened in Tyrone. The children in Tyrone have had the chance to put their hands on the cup and say ‘we have this, this year’. They have that opportunity.

And I would love more children in the future to get that opportunity too and I hope to God they will.

All those people, from 5 to 95 who took so much joy out of this.

People used to say to me at the time, ‘I will die happy now having seen this.’ And I used to say, ‘Why do you want to die happy? Why not live happy?’ Live happy because you have seen this day.
DB: Did the rate of progression of the game in the last decade catch you unawares?

MH: I definitely reflected on that. We have won three All-Irelands and I have worked harder in the last five years.

More time. More energy. More thought put into the last five years than had ever been put into the five years when we won the All-Irelands.

It’s just getting more and more detailed. More awareness of their style of play, who their players are, what do you do when they are doing this and that.

Players need more information, want more information, they want to find out as much as they can, they want to know what their detail is today, what their job is.

You have to be ahead of the game, it is a very intense arena at the minute, at the top level.

DB: What can the present players achieve?

MH: I think they are in touching distance of an All-Ireland. I am like that anyway, I am an optimist, and I would never go into a team that I believe has quality and undersell them. I would always say, ‘this is your goal, this is what you are capable of. I know this can be done, it won’t be easy but you have to keep fighting and keep believing.’ I do believe this is possible with this team. I do believe an All-Ireland is possible in Tyrone in the not-too-distant future.

DB: Were you considering a change of style given you have a different profile of forwards?

Tyrone manager Mickey Harte speaks to his players following the Ulster SFC loss to Donegal at Páirc MacCumhaill in Ballybofey. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Tyrone manager Mickey Harte speaks to his players following the Ulster SFC loss to Donegal at Páirc MacCumhaill in Ballybofey. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
MH: It’s not even a change of style. Play to the players you have. At any given time there is a certain style of player available, a certain competency, and what you want to do is identify that.

Perhaps there was a few years there we had more of those running footballers who could carry the ball at pace.

We weren’t blessed with huge men in the middle of the field, weren’t blessed with the likes of Colm (Cavanagh) who was coming to the latter stages of his career and there was a certain role he could play. An orthodox midfielder would have challenged him greatly.

But being able to do sweeper as he could, that was using him to the best and for the benefit of the team.

Of course with Cathal McShane becoming the star that he is, we lost him after his All-Star year. Conor McKenna is back now and he has only played three games of football.

You have Darragh Canavan coming through, hopefully Cathal McShane coming back. I think now we have more people who would be a serious threat to defences and I do believe the game will evolve that way. Tyrone’s play will go with the personnel they have at their disposal.

But I have no regrets in going the other way, to get the best out of the people we had at our disposal. Sometimes that’s what dictates your style of play.

DB: You are 66 now. What’s next?

MH: Learn how to hit a golf ball with an iron. I am alright with a wood, but I can’t hit it with an iron.

At the minute I have an open mind. I am quite spontaneous. I am here today, I could be anywhere tomorrow. If you ask my wife she would say the same thing. I just let days unfold and whenever things come up, I just go to them. I am flexible like that, not rigid in that. Not programmed.
I don’t know what the future holds, I just know what today holds.

DB: Coronavirus has curtailed everyone’s social life…

MH: It’s a big loss, particularly to Marian, who for many years after Michaela’s death she found life very, very difficult and challenging.

She was beginning to build this socialising again for herself. And it was nice to be able to do that, and bring the grandchildren down with us too when we were minding them on a Thursday.

Liam (his grandson) grew up in upstairs in Marks and Spencers café.

We are at the stage of life where we can make the time to do something like that. And sure we love it and the children love it.

Marian is a very sociable person. That was one of the saddest things about when Michaela died, she found it so difficult because she was so numb. Bit by bit she has grown out of that thanks be to God with plenty of help and plenty of counselling.

Because she is such an outgoing person and a people person that she can’t get living that life. She had to go through so many years to find herself able to do that in any way again, now that she is able to do that, she’s not able to do it.

She meets her friends, garden visits, or Dungannon Park, takes a cup of tea with her and chats from one car window to another.

DB: Did you require counselling?

MH: No, no I didn’t, thanks be to God. I never needed counselling. I am just so blessed. I feel that the grace of God has been given to me along with the challenges, I have been given the grace to deal with it.

I kind of put that down to Michaela as well. That she was so close to me at night times, and I feel she is still close to me.

This is not a thing you can describe, it’s not something tangible, but it’s an innate feeling I have that we are not apart. We are together still.

DB: Would she have wanted you in such a high-pressure role for 18 years?

MH: Well, her words to me after that time we were beaten by Down in Newry, that’s the words that always sit with me. ‘Look, Daddy, it’s all part of God’s bigger plan’. And I still believe that is still the case. It’s all part of God’s bigger plan.

My ideal would have been to get another All-Ireland for Tyrone, particularly for the people I have worked with for the last number of years. Because I have to say they are dedicated athletes. They put so much work and time and energy into what they do, that they truly deserve to be All-Ireland winners. They put so much work into what they are doing.

But in life, you do not always get what you deserve. But those men who have been part of the Tyrone senior set up over the last number of years, I have nothing but time for them.

I do seriously wish them so well in the future.

DB: Did you ever feel out of touch with these players?

MH: I have never, ever felt that we were not wanted here or that we are not good enough now. Or these people don’t trust you anymore. I never felt that, or seen anything like that.

I would maintain it was the opposite. Mattie Donnelly was a serious man as a captain. He has just led this team like no other and he is a real quality man, a quality captain.

He would always feed me back anything that needs attending to or things that happen. He is a really good connector with the players and me, and Gavin (Devlin, selector).

He’s always assured me that everything was good and we would have been very happy to say that he was happy for us to stay on for this final year. And I am sure he would be able to say it as well.

DB: What will stay with you about the journey?

MH: From the start, Arthur Mallon was really a forgotten person in all this. He was in our minor panel in 1993 and got injured the week before we played the semi-final. He got injured in training, hurt his ankle.

He would have been in our squad for that match but because he was injured, he went out and unfortunately was killed in a car crash.

Right through Paul McGirr, Kevin Hughes’ brother and sister, Cormac (McAnallen) obviously and right up to the present time, with Jim Curran and Jonny Curran, Frank Campbell, all people who had been with us. And of course Michaela in the middle of all that.

There’s been a lot of living has happened in that time. A lot of life experiences connected with my thirty years managing in Tyrone football and I want to acknowledge all those people for the impact on our lives. And maybe that is the lesson for life in general. Nobody is put on this world for no purpose. They are put on it for the single purpose they are made for.

I’m happy that I did my best for Tyrone over those 30 years and I did want Tyrone to be successful and still do. I am very proud of Tyrone and where I come from.

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