Why have Cavan fans turned their back on the team?

The media have been commenting on it for a while now. The Donegal Democrat noted how muted the Cavan support was during the 2024 National League, while the Irish Independent remarked on the sparse travelling support which witnessed the win over Mayo in 2025. It is no longer something that can be dismissed as an isolated observation; it is a trend – Cavan now have a very small core support.

Now that’s different, let’s be clear, than a bandwagon, which were originally large wagons which carried musicians in circus parades in 19th-century America. Politicians later adopted the idea; successful candidates rode in parades with bands playing and, as momentum built behind them, supporters would literally climb aboard to associate themselves with the winner.

Every county has their own bandwagon which can be mobilised quite quickly. When Westmeath played Longford in the opening round of this year’s Leinster Championship, only around 1,000 spectators attended. Yet last week, in a slightly comic twist, some Westmeath supporters were online pleading for tickets for their clash with Cavan, further evidence that success creates demand, as does even the hope of success – people just want to be part of something.

Cavan, however, find themselves in a slightly different situation than Westmeath because this is a county whose supporters were once recognised nationally as the most loyal in Ireland.

We’ve all experienced the madness of it all, when football grips us. In 1997, a newly married couple famously travelled from their wedding reception to Croke Park aboard Sean Quinn’s helicopter for the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry. Supporters of a certain vintage still talk about the traffic jam on the road to Longford for the 1988 All-Ireland U21 final, so severe that many supporters missed the first half altogether. The examples are endless.

Those stories have become part of local folklore because they represented something deeper than football. Following Cavan was simply what people did but it no longer is - lest we forget, a crowd of 625 turned up for the league match against Offaly this year.

Perhaps, in a strange way, 1997 – the highpoint of the last 55 years in terms of the football hysteria engendered in this county - lowered the bar. Cavan had been starved of success for so long that the breakthrough instantly carried almost mythical significance. Where once Cavan contested and won All-Irelands, now it was confirmed: winning an Ulster title was enough to immortalise players forever.

Yet the underlying anxiety about the county’s football future, which had built up over the previous decades, never really disappeared. The ugly truth is that in footballing terms, Cavan has spent more than half a century in varying degrees of panic mode, always scrambling to recover something that has been lost.

The county’s identity as a football powerhouse first came under serious pressure in the 1960s when we failed to reach an All-Ireland final for the first time since the 1910s. “Devastation,” was how Garret O’Reilly, who played on two of the Ulster-winning teams, described his father TP’s feelings at the end of that decade. TP was county chairman and an All-Ireland winner himself.

It got worse. The 1970s brought no Ulster title, something that would once have been considered unimaginable. The 1980s saw just one Ulster final appearance and then came seven years without a championship victory at all from 1988 onwards.

For a county whose sense of itself was built around football, it must have felt as though the world was spinning off its axis. But then, from nowhere, there was hope.

In 1995, Cavan defeated Antrim and Monaghan to reach an Ulster final. They lost to Tyrone but momentum was building. The following year, the U21s won Ulster and reached the All-Ireland final.

Around that time, The Anglo-Celt attended a training session ahead of a championship opener against Antrim in Casement Park. Manager Martin McHugh, a master at shaping narratives, spoke openly about the supporters.

“Appreciating that Cavan will have much bigger support at the game than Antrim, Martin voiced his appreciation and said the support from the Cavan fans has been great,” the report noted.

“Since I came to Cavan,” McHugh said, “it has been very enthusiastic as people say they are the best supporters in the country. Hopefully, if we do go behind at some stage, the support we have will lift the players.”

As it turned out, 8,000 paid in in Belfast, although “the bulk came from Cavan” according to this paper. Euro ‘96, in England, was in full flow and was reckoned to have affected the attendance. By the next round against Down, however, more than 25,000 were present.

And then came ‘97, dropping from heaven like a gift. The delirium which followed is difficult to explain to younger supporters. Some players became almost deity-like figures, men who had delivered their people to the Promised Land after decades of waiting - but the panic still didn’t subside.

There were bright spots, of course. We all remember those Wednesday nights, many of them in Brewster Park, when Cavan’s U21 side conquered Ulster year after year. Between the 2010 Ulster final and the heartbreaking last-minute defeat to Donegal in Ballybofey in 2015, Cavan did not lose a single match in the province at U21 level.

Yet while the fingerprints of those players were all over many good days, overall, the promise was not fulfilled.

Since then, underage success has largely dried up. The U20s reached an Ulster final in 2022 and lost by a point to Tyrone, who went on to become All-Ireland champions. Aside from that, Cavan have rarely looked like genuine contenders at underage level despite the efforts that have gone into it.

Recently, a friend offered a familiar reassurance. “Cavan will be alright. There will always be footballers in Cavan,” he said.

And there is logic to that argument. Gaelic football remains the dominant sporting and social pursuit in the county and there is no immediate threat to that position - but footballers alone are not enough.

The right culture is needed to develop them and the right structures are needed to maximise them. Most importantly, there must be an honest recognition of where the county actually stands.

A strategic plan covering 2025-30 set ambitious targets, including winning Ulster titles at minor, U20 and senior level within five years as well as a Lory Meagher Cup. Two years have now passed. Does anyone genuinely believe those targets are on course to be achieved?

Cavan increasingly resembles the sick patient who insists there is nothing wrong, refuses to visit the doctor and becomes angry at anyone who points out the symptoms.

How else can it be explained that across senior, U20, minor and club football, as well as hurling, counties of similar size such as Monaghan and Roscommon consistently outperform Cavan?

Supporters see these things - and perhaps that is where the attendance issue begins. In addition, there are more distractions than ever before and people now need to believe in something before they invest their time and money into it.

Dermot McCabe touched on this after the defeat to Westmeath in an interview with Off The Ball. He noted that Cavan supporters were out-numbered 10 to one but that the team gave them something to shout about. It was an important observation because it acknowledged a reality that many have been reluctant to confront which is that support cannot be demanded, it has to be earned.

When supporters see progress and sense momentum, they respond. It becomes a movement and the support itself actually sustains the journey, team and fans feeding off each other. At present, that feeling is entirely absent, although maybe the home draw against a vulnerable Dublin will change that.

McCabe, always articulate in interviews, sounded a surprisingly contented note after Saturday’s defeat, perhaps because the eventual margin was not as severe as it might have been or maybe he saw improvement. Paddy Lynch, in his interview, called for an end to criticism of the manager, another remark that said plenty without saying everything.

Because if losing both McKenna Cup matches, five of seven league games and both championship fixtures, largely against teams Cavan had been beating in recent years, cannot prompt honest examination, then what can?

Everyone involved in Cavan football wants the same outcome, which is for the county to succeed, but accountability is not negativity and demanding standards is not disloyalty. The opposite is the case, in fact.

The gut feeling is the supporters are still there but the connection has been broken, long before this team or this manager or this county board were in place. The question now is whether the team can give them a reason to flock to the terraces again.

Let’s be realistic - Cavan are never going to dominate Ulster football again but the cup must be refilled or eventually it runs dry. Right now, Cavan’s is perilously low.

To win back the fans, Cavan must win matches. And, as last Saturday showed, that’s not easy at all.