Antrim Football Thread

[NAG1]

Can someone post the article?

[aontroim]

Straight Shooter
After a trying few seasons at county level, St Gall's CJ McGourty is relishing the prospect of another All Ireland club final
Ewan MacKenna


Swinging to and fro: CJ McGourty has had his difficulties at county level and admits that St Gall's is where his heart really lies

Stand well back please. As far as you can and as quickly as you can. Give him plenty of room. This is CJ McGourty we're dealing with and he could go off on one at any minute without the slightest sliver of a warning. No -one is safe from his honesty so we won't ask again. Well back please.

We meet in a quiet café on the Andersonstown Road in Belfast, McGourty meandering in the door with hands buried deep into his pockets and a cheeky grin painted across his face like a schoolboy up to some mild form of devilment. But it's easy to get him all wrong and it becomes clear that the outspoken corner-forward is no more than a misunderstood product of his environment. This part of the world doesn't smooth over too many rough edges and he openly talks about Pat Sheehan, the man from St Gall's who went on hunger strike for 55 days, how circumstances forced the club to become a close family and how he's desperate for it to thrive as it starts into its second century of existence this year.

You tell him you've been warned. For a tiny moment he wonders about what but isn't surprised to learn that you've heard he can be as devastating in front of a dictaphone as he has so often been next door in Casement Park. And that's saying something considering he'll play in his second All Ireland club final of the year on Wednesday, having already hit 0-7 in the All Ireland intermediate club hurling decider. And that's not even his preferred code.

"But nothing phases me," he shrugs. "People can say what they want and they can think what they want of me. They can send me abusive texts before games. They can go on HoganStand or GAABoard or whatever. I've read so many times there that I don't have respect for Antrim and I'm not good enough anyway but that's people in work who don't have anything to do. Get a real job and they wouldn't have time for that. They can even come up to me like they did before the Ulster final. I won't let it get me down."

Even so, that's an awful lot for a 21-year-old to carry on his shoulders while spending his time playing ball with a flighty freedom that has drawn comparisons with a young Colm Cooper. Yet despite the ferocious weight of opinions, he's been the scoring force behind St Gall's run to St Patrick's Day, out-shooting Loup by himself in the Ulster final before taking responsibility for a stunning 1-9 against Corofin two weeks ago. Then again he's needed St Gall's as much as they've needed him.

"After everything that happened last year, it was important for me that St Gall's had a run to make up for what I had missed out on and also because if we didn't, people would have been sticking two fingers up at me."

His troubles began back in 2006 when he was dropped by the Antrim minor hurlers for an All Ireland quarter-final having chosen St Gall's over county training sessions too many times. But if that was a mere bumpy landing, last season was a mid-air collision. It may seem fitting in this week of all weeks that a player still puts club before county but that was little consolation as he missed out on Antrim's wild ride.

"You have to understand that I'm playing for the people of St Gall's when I play for Antrim. The people in this club are the people that made me the player I am. I know guys who won't play for their clubs once they make it at county level. They just see the glamour. I don't want that. I will choose Gall's every single time and that was the beginning of it last year. I missed some training sessions to play league games and another because St Mary's had got to the Division Three university hurling final."

And then there was the county under-21s. At face value, it's hard not to have a chuckle at what happened a year ago. After Antrim were beaten by Tyrone in the under-21 championship, the team and some selectors hit the town. Hard. Later that night McGourty found himself half-asleep in the back of a taxi, not knowing a friend in the front had taken his phone. Worse still, the same friend had earlier in the day spotted pictures of both Antrim senior manager Liam Bradley and Robocop in a look-alike section of Gaelic Life.

Next thing, the friend sees Bradley's number and at one in the morning decides to call the manager. 'Hello, is Robocop there?'

'What?'

'I'm looking for Robocop. The lads think you're Robocop.'

'Excuse me?'

'ROBOCOP.'

"I only got my phone back the next day and looked at my call list. I'm sure he picked up it wasn't my voice. But it was strange because we were told not to go to training the following night and when none of the under-21s showed up, we got this call telling us to come to the next weekend's game but not to bring our gear. After that he told me I was gone. Why me though? Was I the only one? I've talked to Baker [Bradley] since and he said I hadn't been training. He even said that when Antrim played Leitrim the day after I had played with St Mary's, he didn't want me there but brought me on because the other selectors made him."

His consolation was a two-game championship with Antrim's hurlers but he never expected to see the footballers lighting up the summer like a firework. Not that he begrudged them it either. Not one little bit. He went to see them stun Donegal in the opener and was there in good time to see the team bus pass him by as he sat outside a bar in Clones on Ulster final day. "People were saying things to me and I was just there having a beer with mates. But I'd have given up Antrim to win the All Ireland with St Gall's and it's great that I now have a chance to make that happen. I just love playing for St Gall's."

Do you love playing for Antrim you ask him?

"Well, I'd say I like playing for Antrim. But club is always first with me. I guess intercounty can be strange. Like what is it about drinking? If I go and have a pint of water there are guys waiting to tell my manager I was falling around the city centre. And so what if I do drink occasionally? Professional soccer players drink every Saturday night. It's the same if you go to the gym for six months and are tired some day and just don't go. There's outrage. Tell you what, as soon as they start paying me, people can complain."

And what of Antrim this year you inquire, knowing he's already been told to take a rest because of a recurring problem with cartilage in the hip?

"I had an operation in 2007 but it's flared up again and I'll need another one. I'll go back two or three weeks after this and we will see. Baker was talking about me going forward with Antrim and where and if I'd fit in. I'd say I'd fit in at some stage. But sometimes the county board don't help. Like news got out that I was injured for this final because the county chairman [Dr John McSparron] went on radio. I don't know how he found out but it was none of his business. Stupid things like that. You'd think they'd want to help Gall's. Anyway, there's not a hope in the world of me missing this final."

With that he's returned to the topic he truly cherishes. His club and this final. Despite only being 21, he's been here gearing up for one before. Four years ago, he left the bench and kicked two points in a dreary one-point defeat to Salthill. His memories of that day? The biting cold as he sat on the bench, seeing the physio sobbing in the corner of the dressing room after the game and sitting beside teammate Seán Kelly as the wing-back broke down as the bus passed Dundalk on the long way home.

"In a way, that day passed us by and we are desperate to make sure that never happens again. We really want this and it's hard to describe. St Gall's are St Gall's. You ask anyone here if we're an Antrim club. We wouldn't say that. It's not cocky, it's confident. We're not an Antrim team, we are just St Gall's and that's the way we like to be known. And it's that affection for the place that means this is the ultimate for me. This is the be-all and end-all. If I win, and everything goes wrong until I retire, I will still look back happy. If we do win, I'll never ever surpass it."

We warned you to stand back. But if you think that's bad, it's nothing compared to the storm predicted to hit Croke Park on Wednesday.

[A Quinn Martin Production]

You ask anyone here if we're an Antrim club. We wouldn't say that. It's not cocky, it's confident. We're not an Antrim team, we are just St Gall's and that's the way we like to be known.

Which county championship do you play in??

[NAG1]

Doesnt do much to dispell the commonly held view about him does it! 

[the colonel]

You ask anyone here if we're an Antrim club. We wouldn't say that. It's not cocky, it's confident. We're not an Antrim team, we are just St Gall's and that's the way we like to be known.

Which county championship do you play in??

Lads always want to take the first big negative out of a story and highlight it rather than the rest. Fair play to the lad, his club comes first and I agree with him. They made him, they put in the hours and there are too many who forsake all those who put in the hours to make them the player they have become before they hit the big time.

[A Quinn Martin Production]

You ask anyone here if we're an Antrim club. We wouldn't say that. It's not cocky, it's confident. We're not an Antrim team, we are just St Gall's and that's the way we like to be known.

Which county championship do you play in??

Lads always want to take the first big negative out of a story and highlight it rather than the rest. Fair play to the lad, his club comes first and I agree with him. They made him, they put in the hours and there are too many who forsake all those who put in the hours to make them the player they have become before they hit the big time.

I don't want to turn this into a pro/anti CJ McGourty thread...but...actually I understand and admire CJ's devotion to his club.  He's right that too many players turn their back on the club once inter county success beckons and without the club there'd be no inter county scene at all.  However as an Antrim man but not a St Galls man, reading this interview (and we have to allow for selective editing etc) and watching the recent TV interview with BBC to discuss his return to the Antrim panel I would have to question if he has the necessary desire at inter county level to be a success.  If he's not that fussed about playing for Antrim I would actually understand and would say fair enough it's an amateur game and for a 21 year old he's already played a hell of a lot of GAA.  But don't take somebody else's place on the panel if you're not going to "buy into" it 100%.

On a more positive note I'll be in Croke Pk on Wed supporting St Galls.  I hope CJ scores a hat full.

[the colonel]

Well thats up for Baker to decide how his commitment compares to those on the panel. A player can only give the maximum he feels he can give. With the amount of players taking breaks because lack of desire these days there it should be up to the manager to decide if he wants talented players who might turn up or less talented players with more effort, drive etc. Let Baker make those calls, he's done it well so far

[BanagusOir]

That interview is the biggest pile of balls I have ever read.

1. He didnt get thrown off for missing training with Antrim, he was drinking every weekend before all the games.
2. Who in Antrim have put county first for the fame and fortunes that come with county football (12 months of co called success, thats all Antrim have had)
3. We arent an Antrim Club? WTF? Does this even make sense?

[gallsman]

That interview is the biggest pile of balls I have ever read.

1. He didnt get thrown off for missing training with Antrim, he was drinking every weekend before all the games.
2. Who in Antrim have put county first for the fame and fortunes that come with county football (12 months of co called success, thats all Antrim have had)
3. We arent an Antrim Club? WTF? Does this even make sense?

Absolute compute and utter bollox.

[saffron sam2]

That interview is the biggest pile of balls I have ever read.

1. He didnt get thrown off for missing training with Antrim, he was drinking every weekend before all the games.
2. Who in Antrim have put county first for the fame and fortunes that come with county football (12 months of co called success, thats all Antrim have had)
3. We arent an Antrim Club? WTF? Does this even make sense?

Absolute compute and utter bollox.

What does that mean?

[gallsman]

Apologies, I'm on a relatively bumpy bus.

[saffron sam2]

No tea made at lunch time today either. Probably playing on a big slide or roundabout or climbing frame.

It was the McSorleys who stole your lunch by the way.

[ONeill]

You have to laugh at the articles on St Gall's which paint a picture that if you're not playing for the club or clubs in that area, you'll be glue-sniffing, joyriding or robbing. Heaney's at it too today. Feckin animals up there in Belfast.

[NAG1]

Yeah the like to roll out the stereotypes around any city club that is doing well all over Ireland.

On a side note any word of St Galls developing as a club and getting new changing rooms etc?

[A Quinn Martin Production]

You have to laugh at the articles on St Gall's which paint a picture that if you're not playing for the club or clubs in that area, you'll be glue-sniffing, joyriding or robbing. Heaney's at it too today. Feckin animals up there in West Belfast.

Fixed that for you there O'Neill.   (Runs for cover)