A friendly, bitter rivalry renewed

Cavanman's Diary

The first-ever Ulster final took place in 1888 between Iniskeen Grattans and Maghera MacFinns. God knows what Jim Gavin and the FRC – football’s NPHET, as one Scrooge unkindly described them to me over the festive period – would have made of the fare on show as the teams drew, 0-2 apiece.

For the replay, the Bishops of Kilmore and Clogher made their feelings known; this sinful regression – to quote the Saw Doctors – would not stand. The game was banished from their respective dioceses but Bishop Nulty of Meath, a more enlightened sort, welcomed it and it was fixed for Bryanstown, near Drogheda.

Lo and behold, the Inniskeen boys were delayed en route to the replay. The Cavanmen, we presume, figured they weren’t going to show up and someone released a carrier pigeon, sending the word home that Cavan were champions of Ulster. The bird took flight before Inniskeen arrived; they subsequently won and the raucous celebrations which started in Breffni when someone hit send on the tweet were all in vain.

That was the first of them; on Saturday last, we had the most recent Cavan v Monaghan football clash. The Baltic weather affected the crowd – in number and humour – but just over 2,000 hardy souls turned out.

Short of Taylor Swift making her first trip to the border counties, it’s hard to think of anything else that would attract a couple of thousand people to leave the warmth of their homes, travel on icy roads and sit, absolutely freezing, through a glorified challenge match – and pay for the privilege, too (easy on the Cavanman jokes at this point, Farney readers).

Then again, the Drumlin Clasico – if this column gives the world one thing, let it be that phrase! – is not exactly a new enterprise, dreamt up by some marketing guru. In 1920, a headline over a preview of the fixture on this newspaper said it all: “The Old Rivals”.

“All the old traditions, all the old memories of the many famous battles between Cavan and Monaghan on the football field are being revived,” the piece gushed, “by the meeting of these great rivals at Clones tomorrow in the Ulster Championship.”

While Cavan can, and do, always brag about the five All-Irelands, the reality is that they could learn a lot from their neighbours. In almost every grade of football – minor, U20, senior, even club, Monaghan have out-performed Cavan over the last 10 years.

And yet, within that, Cavan have won the last three championship meetings between the teams, most recently two years ago in St Tiarnach’s Park. Generally, the games are tight and the football drab; the suffocating tension usually leads to a drop in performance. But they’re all memorable in their own way and the craic is always good.

Space constraints means I will spare you the greatest hits collection on this occasion but here’s a memory. My first introduction to the rivalry was when the teams met in ’95; I was attending St Enda’s NS in Scotshouse where the brilliant principal, Danny McCarney, let the handful of Cavan pupils know they were behind enemy lines – and the man resident in Cootehill!

We hung out a home-made banner along the road that Sunday morning saying, “Monaghan for mushrooms, Cavan for football”. The Cavan cars all beeped their horns and the occupants cheered.

A wizened neighbour (sample quote: “If Cavan were playing Russia, I’d cheer for Russia”) stopped and told us kids a joke. “What do you call a Cavanman with an All-Ireland medal? An antique dealer.”

We didn’t get it – although, at this remove, I kind of wish we had because studies show that early intervention is crucial...

“If there was any team Cavan would have preferred to beat on their way towards a crack at the Ulster SFC title and the Anglo-Celt Cup, it was Monaghan,” wrote Eamonn Gaffney on these pages that week.

“The age-old rivalry is intense in sport and politics and this encounter was no exception.”

The intensity sometimes spills over on the pitch but rarely with the supporters, who I think recognise each other as kindred spirits. There is an element of masochism involved in signing up to follow either county, it must be said, but that’s all part of it and makes the good days great. It would be nice to be born in Kerry, sure, and know for certain that you will, at some stage and probably many times, witness your team lifting the Sam Maguire. But the novelty of big wins, especially silencing the neighbours, out-weighs that for me. Give me a life of penury, with the hope of a windfall, over gaudy riches any day…

The slagging, though, is vicious. In 2016, I was on the panel for an Up For The Match style event in a pub in Virginia before Cavan played Tyrone. One Monaghan native – a Scotstown man is all I will reveal – put his hand up when it came to asking questions and wondered if it was the first time there had ever been a pre-match chat night ahead of a Division 2 League final. And he was right, it must be said.

One Monaghan-born and bred national journalist of my acquaintance, a Celtic fan whom I won’t name either for fear of Kingspan-clad vigilantes accosting him in some D4 watering hole, refers to Breffni Park as “Ibrox”. It’s all good.

By some minor miracle, though, the tradition pertains. On Saturday evening, there was a Maghera man on the field for Cavan, now playing his club football with Cuchulainns and a tremendous prospect he is. There were numerous Inniskeen lads on show, too. The rivalry remains unbroken, through half a dozen generations, or more.

On the weekend of April 18-19, they’ll meet again, with a lot more on the line, a seventh championship clash in 14 years. Does familiarity breed contempt? Absolutely – but they wouldn’t be without each other either.