ONE OF THE things that managers scarcely talk about is just how the gig can weigh so heavily on them.
Maybe it’s a reluctance to admit to finding it tough, or maybe for a great deal it just washes off them.
But Enda McGinley, newly minted Tyrone championship winning manager after his Errigal Ciaran beat Trillick in Friday night’s final, is a worrier.
He worried when he was in charge of Derry club Swatragh. And then when he was over Antrim for a couple of seasons.
But once he took over his own club Errigal Ciaran, he became intimately familiar with his bedroom ceiling and sleepless nights as insecurities wrestled with problems, only to be overtaken with a brainwave or idea that wouldn’t stand up to the cold light of morning scrutiny.
Twelve years ago, he stood on the balcony of the main stand in Healy Park and raised the O’Neill Cup as the captain of Errigal Ciaran.
On Friday night, he managed his club to the same title, becoming the first to manage that double feat.
So how did he find the pressure of his first year?
“Eh, to date I have found it a thoroughly unpleasant experience!” he says.
“To be absolutely truthful, you feel that huge level of responsibility to the people of the club because you know how much it means to them, and plenty of others.
“People handle it different ways. I have found it tough enough, to be honest. And you have to keep remembering that it is very little to do with what you are bringing to it. But you still feel that level of responsibility.”
Being Errigal Ciaran manager is not for the faint hearted.
When Malachy O’Rourke did it in 2006, he barely entered the town of Ballygawley and kept his profile lower than a Limbo dancer.
To add to the pressure, McGinley’s brother Emmett is the current club chairman, with Peter Canavan vice-chairman.
It was and is, as he says, inescapable.
“But it’s also how much it means to you and you know all of the lads personally,” he explains.
“I had a bench full of players there that have been putting in fantastic effort and all would have been capable of playing and yet you are disappointing them.
“So you are feeling all of that, but that’s a manager’s role. It’s just the responsibility you have to try and lead the team to perform at the level they are capable of.
“Sometimes the secret of it is that if you have a good team, and a team that has been well coached, is trying to stay out of their way.
“I know fine rightly I talk too much and went into far too much depth and maybe hurt them because of that. But we got the balance right today.”
Anything other than taking the championship in any year, is seen as failure in Errigal Ciaran. That’s tough.
“There’s just a pressure on you right from the start of the year that if you don’t do this, well then, you’ve failed. And that’s a high bar,” says McGinley.
“There are several teams in Tyrone that are in a similar position. But certainly for our club that’s the way it is. You know that when you say yes to the job.
“Equally, you know the boys we have in your squad have been trained exceptionally well for several years before you. They have been doing their S and C, doing all their conditioning that all the top teams in Tyrone do. It’s has been multiple years of punching at this level.
“So when you are coming in at the start of the year, you are only really going to nudge a thing or two and take as much of the previous stuff with you.
“To be honest for most of this year we never reached the levels that they managed last year. But thankfully, championships are just about getting over the line.
“So, delighted for the boys. They were hurt last year. They put their heads down and worked hard to get back and got their reward today.”
When he agreed to take the job, he compiled a management team of Errigal clubmen that he grew up with or played alongside, such as his long-term coaching collaborator Stevie Quinn, along with various selectors. Of the eight in the backroom team, all are Errigal Ciaran club people, with Meabh Canavan as physio.
“When you have the boys in the dressing room you have, and they are putting in the work, you have to make sure you are dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s as a manager,” he said.
“Thankfully we have managed to get over the line. The coaching team of Stevie Quinn, Paul Horisk, the boys I have with me are exceptional men and I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Within the county, there is an often advanced theory that Errigal Ciaran teams have a soft centre. That they can be ‘got at.’ The concession of goals from high balls in by the opposition in earlier rounds seemed to reinforce this.
But the manner of this win, with them fighting on their backs at various stages, was a reminder of the steel fist within the velvet glove.
Hunger – that elusive quality – was there in abundance.
“And that’s the entire truth about Gaelic football. Always has been,” said McGinley.
“And we can dress it all up with tactics and systems and we get very caught up in that nowadays and there is a percentage down to that. But unless you come with those core ingredients that you talk of, you do not have a mission.
“Obviously, we are very proud of our championship in Tyrone, but this is absolutely about that.
“I suppose it’s my hobby horse, I spoke about this earlier in the year. The tradition thing, a lot of clubs in Tyrone are known to have great championship tradition.
“Strangely somehow, Errigal rarely get on those lists, but I think there’s this perception that we simply believe we deserve to win championships; we don’t. We look at the amount of teams in Tyrone, seven or eight top teams in Tyrone that have valid reasons to win a championship.
“But we are proud of our own championship tradition. We will go out every year and fight proudly for that.”
