Derry Club Football & Hurling original

[toby47]

Cahir O'Kane tweet -

'Rory Gallagher is set to be put forward for ratification this evening by Derry county board, but the clubs may take the unprecedented step of blocking it. Story and a column lifting the lid on the process so far in today's Irish News'

[Will it ever end]

Has Gallagher been offered the County job? Is the County Board waiting to hear from him or whats the craic? . No harm but it was no way to treat genuine Derry men like McGoldrick and McBride to go behind their backs and meet directly with Gallagher. How come Derry always seem to get the basic things wrong? The Chairman and Vice Chairman and all the rest don't seem to be in control. Its long overdue that Derry appointed top quality people to the County Board but we always seem to end up with people who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery.

The club championship is a two horse race - Coleraine or Slaughtneil - no one else even comes close and by the look of it Slaughtneil want their title back!

I assume you'll be putting yourself forward for a role within the Derry County Board over the coming years or will standing shouting on the sidelines suffice?

[toby47]

Cahir O'Kane tweet -

'Rory Gallagher is set to be put forward for ratification this evening by Derry county board, but the clubs may take the unprecedented step of blocking it. Story and a column lifting the lid on the process so far in today's Irish News'

BY 9pm this evening, Derry will either have installed Rory Gallagher as the county's new football manager, or the clubs will have taken an unprecedented step to block his appointment.

The first thing to be clear on is that this isn't about Rory Gallagher. Sure, there are small pockets of dissent that exist based on the fear that Derry will end up playing the style of football that Fermanagh did under his command, but that's not the clubs' gripe.

If Rory Gallagher had come into an interview process and a selection committee had decided that he was the best man for the job, then tonight's meeting in Owenbeg would simply be a coronation.

Gallagher would have stood on his own two feet in such a process. Of the four candidates, he would have been the most high-profile and the one with the most recent, relevant experience to inter-county football.

That would have been a fairly strong hand, but not necessarily a winning hand either.

Despite Mickey Donnelly's position as the current under-20 boss, it was Johnny McBride who emerged as the most likely figure to take charge.

His status as a Derry legend would have helped him, but so too would the fact that he had Paddy Bradley coming along with him.

The county board and players were known to be keen on Ciaran Meenagh returning after impressing this year, and it seemed probable that he would have joined up with McBride's possible setup had they been given the job.

It was a decent team and one that would have been popular with supporters.




That's not to say McBride - whose managerial experience amounts to one year with the Loup, one year with Galbally and one year working under Malachy O'Rourke in Fermanagh - would have been given the job.

There were some in the camp that felt Mickey Donnelly, who claimed in an interview with the County Derry Post back at the start of the process that he had received a "gentleman's agreement" that he would step up from the U20s when Damian McErlain left the senior job, could be the man.

Circumstance certainly weakened his hand, given that McErlain left a year earlier than most expected, and that Donnelly was then coming in having seen the U20s well beaten by Tyrone in an Ulster final for which they were shorn a number of key players, but were still facing a side that Derry had beaten well at minor level.

Peter Doherty, a former Tyrone U21 manager with a wealth of club experience, and long-serving Eoghan Rua boss Sean McGoldrick were the other ticket that went together as a partnership.

Again, some felt their experience and steady hand might have been useful to a young squad, though they were the outside bet.

But none of those three potential management teams ever made it as far as an interview. They all pulled out in the 48 hours after the nominations window was closed, when it was confirmed that Rory Gallagher was in the hat. He had met with director of football Brian McIver the week previous.

Speaking of Malachy O'Rourke, they approached him too. But if you want to talk a man like Malachy O'Rourke out of a gap year and into what could be a potentially attractive job, you don't go about it in the uncoordinated manner that Derry did.

And then the tin hat on it was when an approach was made to Johnny McBride to see if he would join Rory Gallagher's potential backroom team.

Asking a man who was involved in the process and who had assembled his own backroom team to go and act as the assistant to another was the final nail in the coffin in terms of the way the county board was handling the selection.

It was clear from that approach that Gallagher was the man they wanted.

Yet all of this was done against the backdrop of the clubs having insisted on a meeting with the county board in order to ensure that, in the early part of the process, their issues were properly addressed.

The first meeting was spiky, with clubs demanding answers on a variety of topics from top to bottom, around governance, finance and football.

The recruitment of a new manager was the top priority and a way forward was plotted at the meeting, including the formation of a new five-man interview panel to pick the next manager.

The window for nominations would stay open to allow clubs more time to throw names into the mix.

It's always been the county board's right to speak to others, and it's only right that if they felt someone was out there that hadn't been nominated but might be capable, they should bring them in for interview.

Head-hunting is not an unusual part of any appointment process, in any walk of life. And again, it's not the fact that Rory Gallagher was head-hunted that was the issue.

If the county board had wanted to approach him, ascertain his interest and ask him to attend an interview in front of a neutral committee with relative independence, that's fine. That could have been done by a phone call. But why the need for a meeting?

Or if they wanted to go and hand-pick their own man, then why not just tell the clubs that's what they want to do? Instead, the interview process had to effectively be abandoned because the other three candidates had all pulled out.

The clubs have been ridden roughshod over. They had two meetings with the county board in which they were promised that events would be handled differently.

And so tonight, the clubs will hold a meeting of their own in Owenbeg before the county board joins them to put Gallagher's name forward for ratification.

For a proposed new manager not to be ratified by the clubs in any county is practically unheard of. Yet in Derry, they're considering pushing the nuclear button.

And in a county where there have long been divisions between club and county, the last thing that any new manager could have afforded was for that alienation to embed itself further.

They may blame the media – with one county board official referring to journalists as "parasites" in that original meeting with the clubs – but this is at their own door.

At a time when Derry county board needed to build bridges, they've taken a sledgehammer out instead.

If Rory Gallagher gets ratified tonight, he starts on the back foot through no fault of his own.

If he doesn't get ratified, having embarrassed the other candidates with their process, where does Derry county board go then?

[tbrick18]

Has Gallagher been offered the County job? Is the County Board waiting to hear from him or whats the craic? . No harm but it was no way to treat genuine Derry men like McGoldrick and McBride to go behind their backs and meet directly with Gallagher. How come Derry always seem to get the basic things wrong? The Chairman and Vice Chairman and all the rest don't seem to be in control. Its long overdue that Derry appointed top quality people to the County Board but we always seem to end up with people who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery.

The club championship is a two horse race - Coleraine or Slaughtneil - no one else even comes close and by the look of it Slaughtneil want their title back!

Irish News has it today that the management committee are meant to meet tonight, with club delegates invited and at that meeting the formalities of ratifying the manager are meant to take place.
However, it seems the clubs are going to meet before that to decide if they will give their backing to Gallagher. It says that Gallagher wasn't one of the original nominees and after assurances from county board to clubs, he was approached by CB officials and subsequently became a nominee. The article also says McBride was approached and asked to drop his bid for the job to become part of Gallagher's team (it seems Paddy Bradley was part of McBrides team). After this, all nominees dropped out.
It seems the formality of ratifying the manager could be turned on its head as clubs could decide not to back it.
It also seems, he is now being linked with the potential vacancy in Galway.

CB have also published a statement in the paper that says the correct procedures have been followed and at no point did McIver meet with any of the nominees in the absence of management committee members.

In Cahair O'Kane's article he says McIver met with Gallagher the week before nominations were to close. And that he also met with Malachy O'Rourke, to quote:
"Speaking of Malachy O'Rourke, they approached him too. But if you want to talk a man like Malachy O'Rourke out of a gap year and into what could be a potentially attractive job, you don't go about it in the uncoordinated manner Derry did.

Sounds like McIver made a mess of discussions with O'Rourke too.

O'Kane's article lays the blame for the mess squarely at the CB's door saying they made promises to clubs then ignored them.

What a sh*tshow. Gallagher has done nothing wrong here, if he gets the job he's probably going to be up against it now as a result of CB and McIver making a complete hash again and increasing the animosity between some clubs and CB.
And we wonder why we don't have top class managers wanting the job.

In the current political climate with talk of elections and no-confidence votes, how do we get a vote of no confidence against the CB?

[toby47]

Would be surprised if Gallagher even wanted the job at this stage

[tonesfirstandlast]

Everybody talking about Johnny McBride about not getting manager but not one complaint about Barry not getting the replay.

[tbrick18]

Everybody talking about Johnny McBride about not getting manager but not one complaint about Barry not getting the replay.

Good man TFAL.
Do you think there should be?
Also no-one has mentioned anything about Paddy Bradley being on Johnny McBride's management team.

[Glenman93]

Can somebody remind us all what the different candidates have won so far as managers of teams?

[Wildweasel74]

All these clubs complaining about the county manager, are these the same clubs who tell their players not to go to county training to be a sub? Derry should been head hunting managers over the past 10-15yrs, if anybody was any good within the county, they made it at County level with other teams and the only men who reached that level was moran and Mcivor. There was a time there were 7+ ex County men managing in Tyrone and weren't interested in the Derry job as there was little money in it. The clubs in general are more worried about club football and have little interest in the county team

[Wildweasel74]

More to the point what's O'Kane sprouting this all in the papers and not let it be dealt internally between the County board and the clubs at the meeting. Good to know the pound signs for the paper come before been a Derry Supporter.

[Will it ever end]

More to the point what's O'Kane sprouting this all in the papers and not let it be dealt internally between the County board and the clubs at the meeting. Good to know the pound signs for the paper come before been a Derry Supporter.

I'd ordinarily agree with you on the O Kane element Wildweasel but I do feel he's justified in calling a lot of this out & is obviously being asked to or fed information from Kieran McKeever or others who are frustrated. 

The statement by the county board released to the Irish news was very pointed

I do wonder like a poster above what would Gallagher get involved with all this nonsense for - the money can't be that significant compared to a good club job with far less politics.

[Will it ever end]

Scratch that - looks like he's been ratified 🙈🙈🙈

[tbrick18]

More to the point what's O'Kane sprouting this all in the papers and not let it be dealt internally between the County board and the clubs at the meeting. Good to know the pound signs for the paper come before been a Derry Supporter.

I'd ordinarily agree with you on the O Kane element Wildweasel but I do feel he's justified in calling a lot of this out & is obviously being asked to or fed information from Kieran McKeever or others who are frustrated. 

The statement by the county board released to the Irish news was very pointed

I do wonder like a poster above what would Gallagher get involved with all this nonsense for - the money can't be that significant compared to a good club job with far less politics.

In terms of money, does a package usually cover all backroom staff in the management team or is it manager only? I heard the amount and its not a pittance.
Wonder how we finance it.....

Generally happy with the appointment, best of what was on offer in my opinion.
The whole process, however, was a sham.
CB needs to be more open and honest with clubs. They'd get a lot more respect if they had said from the outset to the clubs they have a preferred candidate but we're also seeking nominationa to ensure they got the best option. Then enter into the selection process with a panel as already discussed with no pre determined choice.

Good luck to the new management team.
Good luck to CB in regaining the trust of clubs.

[restorepride]

More to the point what's O'Kane sprouting this all in the papers and not let it be dealt internally between the County board and the clubs at the meeting. Good to know the pound signs for the paper come before been a Derry Supporter.

+ 10. Think his latest contribution will not even sit well with more mature journalists or with Irish News. Trying too hard. Getting too personal.

[theticklemister]

More to the point what's O'Kane sprouting this all in the papers and not let it be dealt internally between the County board and the clubs at the meeting. Good to know the pound signs for the paper come before been a Derry Supporter.

+ 10. Think his latest contribution will not even sit well with more mature journalists or with Irish News. Trying too hard. Getting too personal.

Je lads he's got you talking.... if he didn't write that, we wouldn't have a fecking clue what was going on.