The honour of being with the team, managerial friction, highlights and dark days

Interview

The games. For Liam McCabe, that’s what it was all about. Meetings, briefings, travelling – it was all part of the job and there was a certain amount of enjoyment in it but attending matches, being in the thick of it, those are the days he remembers most vividly.

The Belturbet Rory O’Moores clubman got into administration as a teenager with his home club and advanced up the ladder. The world of GAA officialdom he joined is unrecognisable from the one he has just left but we’ll get to that – the finish, the lessons learned along the way - later.

For now, the start.

Redhills and Belturbet were amalgamated as Annagh – winning the big prize 50 years ago this year - and when they went their separate ways, the Rorys needed a secretary. For a 17-year-old working in Cavan Post Office, it didn’t seem out of the way to take it on.

“There was no big deal about it at the time, that’s the way it was those times. There was nothing really with clubs back then only fixtures, that’s all you had to worry about really,” McCabe recalls.

At the time, he was custodian on the local team, who had been waiting decades for a breakthrough.

“I played in goals for Belturbet for a long number of years. We lost four county finals, I don’t know if I was to blame for them all but I can definitely take the blame for one of them anyway, I have no problem saying that. We lost three junior and one intermediate but I was lucky enough to be captain when we won the Division 3 title which was our first title since 1937, believe it or not.

“I have fond memories of that. We had a reunion 10 years ago and it was really great to see all the lads again. Great old fun. It wasn’t as serious then as it is now but it was a tremendous victory for Belturbet because we had won something.”

Within a few years, the Rorys were senior, with a young, talented squad.

“We had a group of players came together under Mark (Lawlor) in ’94, ’95, ’96. Won the junior and intermediate and got to the senior semi-final. My great disappointment as a Belturbet person is that we never actually got to a senior final. I’m not saying we’d have won one but we definitely had a couple of great chances to get to one.

“We had great lads playing at the time. We had five fellas on the All-Ireland U21 team. Sometimes a crowd of lads just come together and you mightn’t have that again for another 20 years. I think all clubs go that way.”

While he was still playing, McCabe trained underage teams and having attended “a couple of Youth Board meetings”, he got asked by Youth Board secretary Martin Cahill to consider joining the committee. That led to him taking the position of Assistant Secretary of the Youth Board, then Assistant Secretary of the county board. (Incidentally, 30 years on, Cahill has now replaced McCabe.)

At the time, the popular Gerry Soden was county secretary.

“I was Assistant Secretary and I was dealing with referees and pitches. I remember being away with the team in Tullamore and I spent, I’d say, six or seven hours trying to get a referee for some game on Sunday morning.

“I literally was staying in the room ringing, ringing, ringing. I said to myself that it wasn’t worth the hassle, my head was fried at this. I said to Gerry then in October, ‘Gerry, I’m going for your job because I’m not staying at this one any longer. If I get it well and good and if I don’t, I don’t.’”

So, the convention came around and McCabe won the contest against his friend.

“It was a job I wanted. I got nominated and then I went after people to give me a vote. I always felt I had a bit of an edge over Gerry at the time because I was dealing with clubs a lot more than he was because I was fixtures and obviously with fixtures you’re dealing with clubs day in, day out. I suppose that was a help that a lot of people knew me.

“Gerry and I have remained good friends since and always will be, there was never any animosity between us. There wasn’t a bad word said in the contest, it was very fair and clean and I’m still very friendly with Gerry.”

At first, he did the job in a volunteer capacity while still working for An Post but soon enough, it was announced that the role would become full-time.

“Ulster Council had an initiative where they would have County Administrative Managers who would be full-time employees. At that time, luckily for me, they were giving severance packages in An Post for anyone who wanted one.

“I went for the job and I was lucky enough to get it. At the time I was still volunteer county secretary. Obviously when I got the job I left An Post. Then, county secretary became a full-time position and I went for that job and thankfully got it.”

McCabe and his counterparts around the province were thrown in at the deep end. There was no manual; each CAM (as they were known) was left to their own devices for the most part.

“One of the faults of the HR department in Croke Park was they pitch-forked a number of people into jobs and there was really no template, nothing, no training. We were really just into the unknown, we obviously knew a bit because we were secretaries anyway but… we did get trained then over the years but it was a case of putting the cart before the horse.

“But sure look, we got through it anyway. We got on with it.”

Projects

Quickly, the job became a busy one. This was the Celtic Tiger era; the association found itself awash with money for probably the first time ever. Infrastructural projects were springing up around the island.

“When I went in first, there weren’t that many projects being done. Then we became one of the first counties in Ulster to get floodlights so that took up a lot of time, there were people on site and you were dealing with Ulster Council.

“We were about to put down a grass pitch where the 3G is now and I’d say two days before we were about to start, we got word that the soccer and rugby money (from the opening of Croke Park) was coming down and that was supposed to go towards 3G pitches in Ulster.

“So I made a phone call to Danny Murphy, Lord have mercy on him, and I asked him would there be any chance we would be first because we were ready to go. And after a week or two the UC gave us the go-ahead. So rather than having a grass pitch there, we now have a 3G pitch there.

“Some people say that’s good, some people say it’s not. I would definitely say that only for it we would still be playing 2018 fixtures at this stage, especially at underage (laughs).

“That was another project that took up a lot of time., It was gradually getting busier and busier.”

In time, his working week settled into a pattern. There were roughly 11 county board meetings, usually on a Monday night, and 11 meetings of the board’s management committee.

There were Ulster secretaries’ meetings around once a month, the odd jaunt to Croke Park and, early in the year usually, a lot of training days. And, on top of that, the matches.

Then around January and February especially, there would be training days. Matches, though, were the highlight of the week.

“The most enjoyable part was being with the team, even through bad times. It’s a great honour to be along the sideline with the team, even though it’s not a great view for matches. But that’s what it’s about, isn’t it, the Cavan teams? I have great memories, minors, 20s, 21s, seniors. And some bad days as well, mind you.

“If you can’t be there, you can’t be there, you try to get somebody to deputise (but) I only missed two matches in my 17 years and that was after I had Covid, I missed the Kildare and Roscommon matches.

“If it was a home match it was your job to ensure everything was in order, the pitch was lined, there was enough diesel in the generators, stewards were in place, all that sort of thing. You had the teamsheets and you had to go up to the referee. And after that, just make sure you don’t put on too many subs.

“The Liaison Officer with the county team would do a lot of the work for the away games, arranging buses and so on.

“The team has to be released on a Wednesday night to Croke Park for the programme. I’d sign the team sheet. I’m going to miss that as well because a few of us go out every Wednesday night for a few pints and there would always be discussion about the team.

“The team would come to me on a Wednesday night late, they would be discussing it and of course I couldn’t say anything. I’m going to miss that.”

The Ulster Senior Championship victory in November 2020 was the high water mark in McCabe’s time in the role.

“The one in Armagh stands out. It’s nice to be able to say I was secretary when we won the Ulster Championship. It was great and the four U21s and minor were great and the All-Ireland junior championship we won, I have to say, was great as well.

“We travelled to Scotland for the All-Ireland quarter-final and it was an unbelievable trip. For them to go on and win the junior was a great achievement because some of those Kerry lads went on to play a lot of senior football.

“There were some dark days. The lowest point I would always say was the day Waterford beat us in Kingspan Breffni. I was walking down the hall and I got a phone call from a colleague who was in Australia at the time. I had to hold the phone away from my ear because of the abuse I was getting! He’s a good friend of mine but… Yeah, that was the worst.

“And it was worse then when yer man Kiely (Waterford manager) came into the dressing-room and said ‘lads, keep at it’. It was just one of those days. Even a draw would have done, we missed a 45 near the end…

“I remember a fella from Louth ringing me and he said ‘is that true?’ and I said ‘unfortunately it is’.

“I was very low after losing the Tailteann Cup final, that was really a sickener to be honest. When I saw the scenes from Mullingar, I said that could have been us.

“I was very disappointed when we lost the Lory Meagher as well, although it was a first time and the lads were a bit over-awed by Croke Park.”

As an employee of and an ambassador for the county board, he was one of the public faces of Cavan football. Did that make him a magnet for supporters with something to get off their chests?

“There was not that much lambasting. I don’t recall that many people saying’ what are yiz at’ or whatever.

“I remember one incident. There was a Senior Championship match between West Cavan and I think it was Bailieboro and Knockbride had a team at the end. It was on a Sunday evening and it was shocking.

“The next morning the phone rang and this gentleman started to lambast me about the state of Cavan football. ‘To be honest’, he said, ‘it was that bad, I left at half-time’.

“I said ‘you were lucky, I was doing the PA and I had to stay till it was over.’

“He laughed and then the whole anger went out of him and we had a 15-minute conversation about Cavan football. Things like that… That’s part and parcel of it.

“There is something unique about Cavan supporters. Great pride and great passion and mad hungry for success… If the team was going well, we’d have a huge support. On the field after those U21 finals, it was really great. Emotional nights. Imagine what the scenes would have been liked when we won the senior and everything was normal…”

Apathy

And yet, often that passion is not evident at county board meetings, which he feels “need a bit of a shake-up”.

“There’s not enough interactions between clubs and county board at those meetings. I think we should have a look at it, maybe have a subject tonight and discuss that as a topic rather than just going in and reading reports, reports, reports.

“We were dealing with over 2 million euros this year and not one person asked a question. Nobody said well done or what are you doing? And at times, yeah, it is frustrating that people won't ask questions because that’s what we’re there for – we’re there to answer questions. Nobody should be afraid to ask a question.

“I remember one night in Virginia there was a convention, very, very quiet. We came down and a certain gentleman in the bar started talking about, ‘oh, this should be done…’. I said, ‘Hold on a minute, we’re after being two hours up there, that’s the place where that should be raised, not down here’.”

Part of the secretary’s job is dealing with county team managers. In McCabe’s time, Cavan were guided by Mattie Kerrigan, Val Andrews, Terry Hyland, Donal Keogan, Martin McElkennon, Tommy Carr, Mattie McGleenan and Mickey Graham and, he says, he liked and respected them all. Mostly, they scrubbed along well. Mostly…

“There was a bit of friction with Tommy Carr to be fair. Not necessarily caused by him. More caused by a certain journalist from the west.

“We had a county management meeting. Word was coming through that there was going to be a vote of confidence in Tommy Carr and we felt that it probably wasn’t going to happen, he wasn’t going to get the vote of confidence.

“So the chairman and myself went over and met him in Mullingar and we told him this, we said ‘Look, there’s a county board meeting on Monday night and there’s a possibility…’

“But he stuck to his guns and fair play to him, he won the vote and that’s fine. But at the time, it was written that I had orchestrated a campaign to get rid of him. It was written in the Western People. He was a former manager of different places as well.

“So, typical of me, I just lifted the phone and I rang him. I said ‘what are you saying here? You said I’ve orchestrated a campaign, name me one person that I rang’.

“‘Oh well I didn’t say that’. I said, ‘it’s quite clear what you said, I have it here in front of me’.

“‘Oh well, I’ll have to check my notes when I go home and I’ll ring you back’. I’m still waiting on the call (laughs).

“Then when Tommy came back, I met him and I said ‘look, Tommy, there’s no issues as far as I’m concerned, what’s done is done and away we go, best of luck’. I meet Tommy Carr at matches now and we have a handshake and ‘how are you doing?’ and everything is fine.”

“At the time, we had changed the number of delegates going to county board meetings from two per club to one per vote. Management still had 19 votes so he survived basically because all of the management voted for him to stay.

“We gave ourselves more power as such but that wasn’t what it was really about. We felt 80 people going to a county board meeting was too many. We felt that if it was one per club, there would be more interaction. That didn’t work out so we went back to the other way.

“All the managers were different and had different ways of going on.”

The association is healthy, he feels, but too often tries to be ‘all things to all men’.

“The biggest change is there is an awful lot more going on within clubs. At a club meeting now, you’d nearly need about 20 people to fill all the positions. When I started first, you had the chairman, secretary and treasurer. It’s really expanding, there are so many different roles and now there’s integration, that’s going to bring in ladies and camogie and it’s a huge challenge going forward.

“People are sometimes reluctant to take jobs. The title might frighten them. This last year, there have been a number of clubs struggling to get a chairman or get a secretary – when I came in first there was none of that. There would be contests for a lot of those positions.

“Now, you’re struggling to get even a chairman of a club. That’s going on for the last number of years.

“People don’t have as much time to give or don’t want to give as much time. Again, some of the stuff that they have to do is probably frightening them a bit. There is all sorts of stuff going on that wouldn’t have been prevalent in my day.

“These things have to be done, they’re law, but I wouldn’t like to see much more going on to be honest. The GAA seems to be for everything, everything that goes on, the GAA has to be part of it – and I’m not that sure that they have (to be).

“It’s a lot more difficult these days, with health and safety, children’s officers and so on. There’s an awful lot more and to be honest, if you ask my opinion, I think we have diverged a little bit too much from it. I know everything we do is for a good cause and everything else but at times I think we are getting away from our core values which are Gaelic football and hurling.

“There was one stage where we had a Live To Play campaign and I was given the job of organising five or six meetings around the place. It was to do with young fellas speeding and young fellas getting killed driving cars, a very worthy cause. I rang this particular gentleman and I said to him ‘we’re going to your club next Friday night, will you talk to all your young fellas and all that.

“And he said no, that’s not my job. He says, that’s another body’s job, outside the GAA. At the time I wasn’t very happy with him but as time went on, I say to this day now, he was 100pc correct. That was putting more pressure on him to do something that the GAA really shouldn’t have been doing.

“Support it, fine. But organising and all that, no. And I think he was right.”

Rock on

Away from football, he took a keen interest in hurling, including finding the right man to manage the Cavan senior team.

“I took on the job of getting a manager. Hurling is not overly popular in Cavan, we have to be honest. I would have a good interest in hurling, I played hurling with Woodford Gaels and we had some great times, we had great fun at it. It was never that serious.

“I remember we used to play on a Monday night, you might have played football on Sunday. So I always had an interest.

“When we did away with the team for a couple of years, I felt that when we came back we needed some big name to come in and take it over, give the whole thing a lift.

“I rang numerous fellas. There was no point in thinking about it – get an answer, yes or no. Last year, I rang Conal Keaney from Dublin. I put it to him jokingly but serious too that he could be player-manager of Cavan because his mother, I think, is from Cootehill so he would have qualified.

“I had a long chat with him. I met Davy Fitzgerald and had a great conversation with him. He didn’t turn me down straight away either, he listened to me. You could imagine the huge turn-out he would attract to training and things.

“To be fair to Ollie Bellew, he has done a great job, him and Tomás Mannion, and they’re back now again.”

Regrets? None, really, he says, only matches Cavan lost, “and there’s nothing I can do about that now”.

He never considered going for a chairman’s position or down the provincial route. Secretary was a role he enjoyed.

“When I became secretary of Belturbet, I wasn’t going to be chairman because a good friend of mine, Seamus Minogue, was chairman. To be honest, I never had any interest in being a chairman. Even in the post office, I was secretary of the union, I was never chairman of the union.

“So I was probably always a secretary. I could have been chairman of Belturbet on a couple of occasions but it doesn’t float my boat, being chairman.”

Retirement has been coming down the tracks for a while. When the Celt caught up with him, he was still adjusting. Away from football, his passion is music (he is an avid attendee of rock concerts) and he likes to watch sport on TV. His two grandchildren, too, keep him busy.

“I don’t really know as yet, I’m kind of taking it day by day. The only thing I’m looking forward to is just going to matches and having no worries, just sitting in the stand and being a critic like everybody else.

“I’m really looking forward to that, for 17 years standing along the sideline, and in the second half especially when you’re running up and down with substitutions, you don’t really see what’s going on. So I’m looking forward to putting the feet up and just enjoying things now.”