FORMER MAYO FOOTBALLER John Casey had a difficult weekly commute during his days as a student in IT Tralee.
A native of Charlestown, he would return to his home town after league matches with the county team before venturing further south for another week at college. On one occasion, he travelled from Antrim to the Kingdom, taking only a brief recess in Charlestown to pack up his car and resume the mammoth journey.
The trip to Tralee, then known as Tralee Regional Technical College, always included a stop off in Tuam to pick up one of his housemates. And he was Casey’s saviour for the rest of the journey, staving off the perils of driving while tired.
“I used to collect Pádraic Joyce at the Garda station every Sunday,” Casey begins, rolling back the years to 1996 when he met Joyce after accepting a football scholarship in the Kerry-based college.
“And trust me when I tell you, he did not stop talking until we got to Tralee. I didn’t have to say a word.
“And if I found my eyes dragging in Newcastlewest or Patrickswell on the way down, sure Joyce would give me the elbow.”
The pair lived in a house that was owned by a judge and dominated by footballers. There was the Cloherty brothers Séamus and Michael from Galway, along with fellow Tribesman Joyce who was yet to make his breakthrough as an inter-county forward.
Casey was studying in Letterkenny IT but Val Andrews invited him down to Tralee. He pitched the idea on the premise that he was building a Sigerson Cup team that would threaten the stranglehold of the top universities on the competition. Kerry defender Séamus Moynihan was on board, as was Mark O’Reilly from Meath. Casey was shortlisted as another recruit for the project.
There was some concern about the move though. Casey’s girlfriend, now wife, Rita was from Donegal, leading him to worry about the strain the distance would put on their relationship. In the end, he agreed.
“Everyone was saying, ‘If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,’” says Casey.
There was another plus drawing Casey in. Andrews told him that a player from Galway by the name of Pádraic Boyce would also be living in the judge’s football house. Casey knew him as an underage footballer and felt at ease knowing someone he was somewhat familiar with would help him settle into the move.
However, he misheard Andrews and was stunned when Joyce was in the kitchen upon his arrival.
“That was the when the bould PJ leaned over the table for the handshake and he spoke at 100 miles per hour,” he recalls.
The Boyce/Joyce mixup was worsened by the fact that he had just lost the 1996 All-Ireland final after a replay against Meath.
“The psychological damage of losing that All-Ireland final, you can’t really quantify it. I was in a bad spot after losing that game, and I think a lot of Mayo people were. Going down there, I think people made a big deal about myself and Mark O’Reilly meeting face to face. There was the big scrap and all that came with it.
“And then my girlfriend was in Letterkenny so I was thinking, ‘Jesus Christ above, have I done the right thing here?’ I remember feeling terrible at the time and thinking I’m not going to get around this but Val quickly sent Séamus Moynihan and a few of the Kerry boys around to throw the arm around me.”
Living with his teammates allowed for more discussion about the game. The house was often the setting for “mini team meetings” where other members of the team would call over to talk things through. There was a vibrant social scene locally too. As is the case with most college athletes, treading the line between fun and focus was a delicate practice. Joyce seemed to manage it quite well by Casey’s memory.
“The thing in Tralee that was new at the time was that we trained two mornings a week at 7am. That, for me, was brutal. At least we had four fellas in our house getting up to do the same training. I remember Joyce coming home from the Brandon nightclub and going straight to training. However he managed it, I don’t know. I’d be going, ‘You bastard.’
“And he wouldn’t even struggle at training, and I’d be going, ‘Ah fuck this, am I doing things wrong here?’ I’m sacrificing everything and not a bother on this buck. If we were late when I was driving Joyce to training and we were going to miss the warm-up, he’d go, ‘Ah tell them we had the heat on in the car and we’ll be sound.’”
Casey, Joyce and company realised Val Andrews’ vision by capturing the Sigerson Cup. And as Casey left after completing a year of his Business Information Technology course, more rising stars of that decade continued to pour in. Then Kerry forward Mike Frank Russell was among the newcomers as was Donegal’s Jim McGuinness and Michael Donnellan of Galway. More joined the cast in 1998 as Tralee swept the Sigerson Cup for a three-in-a-row success.
“I jokingly tell people they had to bring down Michael Donnellan and McGuinness to replace me,” says Casey.
Although he didn’t get the chance to play with McGuinness during IT Tralee’s period of dominance, Casey did cross paths with the man who would go on to become an All-Ireland-winning manager with Donegal.
“When I was back in the family business in Charlestown, which is basically the route from Donegal down south I used to regularly see McGuinness stopping outside our shop on the bus. I used to think, ‘He has some commute ahead of him.’ And he had a big wave for me out the bus window with the long hair and beard on him. He was like something from a rock band.”
With regards to Joyce, what Casey recalls most vividly is the confidence he exuded on the pitch. He remembers one game against UCD in Belfield where he kicked 10 points. His absence on the Galway team up to that point baffled many, including his IT Tralee teammate Moynihan, who said as much in an interview alongside Casey.
“I hit Moynihan an elbow thinking, ‘Will you shut the fuck up and leave him where he is? Don’t go giving him any ideas,’ he says laughing as he thinks back. “I didn’t want him playing for Galway because he was going to get in our way.
“As long as he was kept away from Galway, the better for Mayo.”
The impending reunion between McGuinness and Joyce quickly became a discussion point after the conclusion of the All-Ireland quarter-finals. They remain close from their college days, with McGuinness coming along to run a training session with Galway in 2020. He also said recently that if his Donegal side can’t lift Sam Maguire in his second stint as their manager, he would like to see his old friend guide the Connacht champions to All-Ireland success for the first time since 2001.
Casey is still close with Joyce too. They would be in contact most weeks. In one of their most recent exchanges, Joyce revealed that he received a message from his former manager John O’Mahony before his sad passing. O’Mahony, who coached Galway to All-Ireland glory in 1998 as well as ’01, told Joyce that Galway would beat Dublin, a prediction that proved to be correct.
Their friendship continues to endure. IT Tralee isn’t the name of the college they once attended, and has ben renamed MTU Kerry. Almost three decades on, Joyce still reminds him of those long and happy car journeys from Tuam to Tralee.
“He says, ‘I’m forever grateful for all the times you brought me down. And you never charged me a penny.’ And I said, ‘Sure how could I? You kept me awake.’
“If you were to go back to what McGuinness and Joyce were like [back then], that either of them could have envisaged what’s happening this weekend, you couldn’t make it up really. Two really good buddies going up against each other.”
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