Whoever these people are they have no place in the club. As Aghdavoyle says every club has it's shower of morons and our own is no different. I have been the subject of abuse down through the years and in fairness, it is water off a ducks back and I would say that I speak for most players in that regard. The lads on the field in any game will generally get on with it, shake hands and forget about it. I don't sit up losing sleep over the mentor from a club who told the man marking me, and I quote "break the big useless fcukers legs" when we were going for the ball. It is not nice, is unacceptable but after the event is forgotten about. Supporters have every right to be disgusted as generally this is being shouted in the vicinity of younger kids and that should not happen.
All I can say about the people who shouted it is that they should not be associated with the club and I wish they were not.
As for the game, I wasn't there as the drive might have been a wee bit
I got the in depth analysis from the mudder yesterday and she basically echoed what has been said here. Dromintee had their chances but Cross just seemed to have that wee bit extra. A lot of that extra has to do with the confidence within the club and the tradition of Cross generally not losing finals.
Looking at it now form the outside a few things occur to me. Many club structures must be very weak once they get to senior level. As has been observed by a few here, until recent years we have not been overly successful at underage. Not blowing my trumpet but it wasn't until the underage team that I played on came around that we started to dominate. I was blessed with playing on a superb underage team which was the genesis of the current dominance. We were, however, no more dominant in our age groups than say, Pearse Ogs were. We won the 1989 and the 1993 minors. Ogs won 4-5 in a row at minors during the mid 90's. The 1989 team had Califf, Colm O'Neill, Joe Fitz, Gary McShane, Frank Shields who went on to the senior squad and the rest of the senior sqaud apart from a 2-3 old heads was made of the 1993 team. We did not have the continued success that the Ogs had and they fell apart. The Harps had similar success and haven't made the breakthrough. It is very difficult to put a reason on this. While we may have greater pick than say t Dromintee, we do not have the same potenial numbers that the city clubs have or the Lurgan teams.
Also the whole success breeds success is a bit of a cop out in my view. It certainly breeds confidence but it doesn't breed ability and a will to stick at it. It may be easier for us to keep kids interested, but in 1995 whenever Mullaghbawn beat us it would have been very easy for a lot of the younger ones to say well f**k this we haven't won since 1985 we'll never win and we could just go on the drink or head off to Australia or whatever. We didn't. We had just been humiliated on television. Some of you may remember the documentary done with the Down team of 1994. We were humiliated on national television and it would have been easy to hide. We had no success to fall back on, we had no senior medals(apart from Jim and Jarlath McConville), we had a manager being ripped apart within the club because of the way he been looking after the team. We didn't hide and got on with it. We may have been lucky but we made our own luck instead of excuses and we reaped the rewards.
Congratulations to all involved, I hope it helps build on the other successes. We may not win 20 in a row but we could give it a good rattle all things being equal.
Man in Black, Aghdavoyle spoke of empty vessels, it seems they were not just at the u-21 game
All I can say about the people who shouted it is that they should not be associated with the club and I wish they were not.
As for the game, I wasn't there as the drive might have been a wee bit
I got the in depth analysis from the mudder yesterday and she basically echoed what has been said here. Dromintee had their chances but Cross just seemed to have that wee bit extra. A lot of that extra has to do with the confidence within the club and the tradition of Cross generally not losing finals. Looking at it now form the outside a few things occur to me. Many club structures must be very weak once they get to senior level. As has been observed by a few here, until recent years we have not been overly successful at underage. Not blowing my trumpet but it wasn't until the underage team that I played on came around that we started to dominate. I was blessed with playing on a superb underage team which was the genesis of the current dominance. We were, however, no more dominant in our age groups than say, Pearse Ogs were. We won the 1989 and the 1993 minors. Ogs won 4-5 in a row at minors during the mid 90's. The 1989 team had Califf, Colm O'Neill, Joe Fitz, Gary McShane, Frank Shields who went on to the senior squad and the rest of the senior sqaud apart from a 2-3 old heads was made of the 1993 team. We did not have the continued success that the Ogs had and they fell apart. The Harps had similar success and haven't made the breakthrough. It is very difficult to put a reason on this. While we may have greater pick than say t Dromintee, we do not have the same potenial numbers that the city clubs have or the Lurgan teams.
Also the whole success breeds success is a bit of a cop out in my view. It certainly breeds confidence but it doesn't breed ability and a will to stick at it. It may be easier for us to keep kids interested, but in 1995 whenever Mullaghbawn beat us it would have been very easy for a lot of the younger ones to say well f**k this we haven't won since 1985 we'll never win and we could just go on the drink or head off to Australia or whatever. We didn't. We had just been humiliated on television. Some of you may remember the documentary done with the Down team of 1994. We were humiliated on national television and it would have been easy to hide. We had no success to fall back on, we had no senior medals(apart from Jim and Jarlath McConville), we had a manager being ripped apart within the club because of the way he been looking after the team. We didn't hide and got on with it. We may have been lucky but we made our own luck instead of excuses and we reaped the rewards.
Congratulations to all involved, I hope it helps build on the other successes. We may not win 20 in a row but we could give it a good rattle all things being equal.
Man in Black, Aghdavoyle spoke of empty vessels, it seems they were not just at the u-21 game
