THE LATE SEPTEMBER light threw a warm fuzzy glow over O’Neill Park, the home of Dungannon Clarkes on Sunday night.
From halfway through the curtain-raiser, the Dessie Slater Stand was wedged.
More than wedged. Twenty yards either side, there was no room to spare. Stewards at the ground were jovially guiding arrivals to make their way across to a gravel bank opposite where they could enjoy an uninterrupted view.
Among those spotted walking the banks were county footballers from three different Ulster counties; some of the committee of reigning All Ireland champions Glen, Maghera; and Peter Donnelly, the former Tyrone player and coach, currently with Ireland’s rugby 7s team.
The place was teeming with children, boys and girls. The burger stalls had queues three deep. A considered estimation put the overall crowd at the 4,000 mark. Add in your streaming services, broadcast in pubs and homes, to thousands more.
Let’s step back a bit and consider this.
Ballygawley is a small town. Clonoe is a small village. The Moy is a medium-sized town, and The Rock is not much more than a few buildings gathered around a disused water pump.
And they attract a crowd like that.
On Friday night, Carrickmore, a medium-sized town by rural Ireland standards, met Killyclogher, an area with its own identity, which many would identify as the hinterland of Omagh, running as far as Mountfield. They brought over 4,500 through the Healy Park gates.
What creates this demand?
Unquestionably, the purity of the contest.
Tyrone’s football championship is a straight knockout format. It was always this way. It used to be that all championships were run this way. But everyone moved on, updated, modernised, spoiled it. Whatever. Tyrone didn’t.
Occasionally, some well-meaning club delegate will suggest that this stance might be reviewed at a county board meeting. If only for discussion’s sake. They never get too far.
While every other county has gone another way — to ‘Champions League’ formats, to backdoors, to sidedoors and graded by league position — Tyrone people prefer their football climbing up a rope with a knife between their teeth.
This makes the football fairly frantic. There is no sign of a team finding their way in, or of just doing enough in the early stages. It’s ravenous. It’s eyeballs out, from post to pillar, because it has to be.
Take the intermediate game between The Rock and The Moy.
Tyrone’s leading scorer of all time, Sean Cavanagh, has been tempted out of retirement once more for The Moy. He is now 41.
With the game almost up, The Rock sent a shot wide. Moy had one final gamble. Cavanagh took the short kickout and carried it for 30 metres before offloading.
The ball arrived in the arms of Colm Cavanagh, the two-time All-Star. He had only returned to training in the past week or so. But he swung over a risky shot for the winning score.
There wasn’t time for a final attack. The Rock were out. Their players lay on the turf devastated, having come so close to the county semi-final.
For The Moy, it was another wonderful sunny Sunday. Plenty of these players have nothing to prove; they have already won an All-Ireland at intermediate level a few years back. Sean Cavanagh’s body is ravaged with injury. Colm isn’t too bad, but he took dozens of bangs and wallops.
And they were there, because the Tyrone championships are strong tack.
Straight knockout. No sugar-coating anything. Rock players lay devastated at the finish but were being asked to get up now please, as Errigal Ciaran and Clonoe are beginning their warm-ups.
By the time the ball went in for the main event, the stand side was now entirely full. The bank opposite was half-full, and there were around 100 behind each goal, a mixture of children and football nerds studying the kickout press inflicted on goalkeepers Darragh McAnenly and Mickey O’Neill.
Over the past decade or so, the level of passion for county football in the county has dipped.
Going back to the early ‘90s with the U21 team that Peter Canavan captained to an All-Ireland, through Mickey Harte’s journey with that later generation through minors, U21 and then seniors, it was fervent. The hunt for the Holy Grail picked many up along the way.
By 2010, it had evaporated. They won an Ulster title that year. Just two fans went onto the pitch to celebrate at the final whistle.
Perhaps it is the endless glut of games with varying levels of significance, but Tyrone county teams do not enjoy the same devotion now. The two recent All-Ireland winning U20 teams were supported by friends and family of the players, but not much else.
When Tyrone went out of the All-Ireland championship this summer to Roscommon, there were fewer than 6,000 present. A sizeable proportion were from Roscommon.
Sunday’s main event in Dungannon was a wild ride. Errigal Ciaran are fancied for the county title every year, and there were flashes of play especially in Darragh Canavan’s pass and Odhran Robinson’s carry and finish to the net that shows just how awesome they can be.
But opposition teams don’t so much fear them, as relish playing them. The accusation is that Errigal can be got at. That they live in terror of high balls.
That ploy was enough to put them in mortal danger against Pomeroy in an earlier round, and Clonoe loaded up two massive McClures to terrorise them the same way here. Errigal are damn lucky to still be in the championship today.
Best of all is how they have to do it all over again, with the replay set for Saturday evening, while Carrickmore and Killyclogher’s replay is fixed for Thursday evening.
There are many reasons counties tinker with their format. Some of it is driven by players wanting more than one guaranteed game a year and player development, but the cynic in us believes that many have convoluted systems in order to get more paying punters through the gates.
There’s enough people in Tyrone willing to pay for the hard stuff. They don’t have to water down the liquor in their saloon.
