STEFAN CAMPBELL DROPPED to the ground at the sound of the final whistle.
What have I done here?
Armagh were All-Ireland senior football champions.
Euphoria. Ecstasy. Emotion.
He saw his 12-year-old football-mad daughter Ella and girlfriend, Maria, towards the front of the Hogan Stand. He spotted his nephews in Hill 16 as he was interviewed by BBC, and had to turn away as they were crying their eyes out. As the stadium cleared out, he continued to take it all in, and noticed his dad, brothers and niece.
“Someone said to me after the match, ‘Well, would you give the next 12 years for it?’ and I absolutely would,” Campbell says.
It has been some journey for ‘Soupy’. The team one is well documented, but after all, it is a collection of individuals. In recent days, we have heard some of these stories, including that of Niall Grimley. Campbell is also happy to tell his — football and life, warts and all.
The Clan na Gael forward was called into the Armagh senior set-up in the summer of 2011, but had to bide his time. His first appearance didn’t come until the following year’s McKenna Cup, while his first taste of inter-county championship football arrived in 2013.
The Sam Maguire Cup was worlds away back in those days.
An 18-point quarter-final defeat when they were “hockeyed out the gate” by Tyrone in 2017 underlined that. Campbell left the panel afterwards, albeit ultimately due to personal issues, but he knew Armagh were well off.
Few realised the gambling addiction nightmare he was living through.
After the bulk of 10 years gambling — constantly so from 2015 to 2018, involving “scary figures” — Campbell placed his last bet on 17 June 2018.
He tweeted about it for accountability, and was blown away by the response. To this day, he posts on anniversaries and milestones.
6 years later, yet proud as ever! 🙌 https://t.co/xQkUnFzsz3
— Stefan Campbell (@Soup_91) June 17, 2024
1 year, the milestone I've been craving for so long. Drop your ego and have a chat lads 👍 https://t.co/xQkUnFzsz3
— Stefan Campbell (@Soup_91) June 17, 2019
“That was the start of my journey,” he says. “Obviously I was kidding myself five or six years prior to that, living a double life.
“I suppose, someone from the outside might think I was living the dream but it was absolute hell trying to hide everything. I was unrecognisable as a person.
“I finally found the courage in ’18 to open up — I told my family when I was in New York. They were a wee bit worried about me, we were exchanging texts and phone calls and plucked up the courage to come clean. They had a rough idea what I was going through but not to the extent, the numbers, the debt, the credit cards etc. I came home and looked them straight in the eye, and said, ‘I can’t get any lower, I’m going to do it for myself.’ The rest is history, six years later.
“I went to my local bookmaker at the time and went, ‘Look gentleman’s agreement, don’t let me come back in these doors. I’d done all the self-exclusion online and threw the tweet out.
“The support I got off the back of it, the retweets, the comments, the likes from all over the country blew my mind and that gave me the courage in the early stages.
“The journey,” he adds, “I’m proud of what I’ve done, proud of the team, proud of the help I have had but it wouldn’t have been possible without them lads [Armagh team-mates], them role models that I look up to and how they live their life on and off the field…
“They’ll never know how much they mean to me and how much they have helped me and how much my family are forever indebted for the support we all received in those tough times.”
Campbell can’t speak highly enough of his Armagh team-mates, and the man at the top, Kieran McGeeney. He’s “on a different planet to most”, he says of the 2002 All-Ireland winning captain and 2024 manager, in the most admirable sense.
“I never met anyone like him and I don’t think I ever will. He has been beating the All-Ireland drum for 10 years and he knew fine rightly back then it wasn’t possible. He is manipulative in a way, like he will make you believe in something that you don’t believe yourself.”
At that, a story springs to mind. About a decade ago, ‘Geezer’ was presenting Campbell with a Club Player of the Year award at Clan na Gael. “You’re going to be winning me an All-Ireland,” McGeeney said.
“Dead on,” was Campbell’s response, thinking little of the statement.
“He reminded me of it coming off the field [after the final], ‘What did I tell you in the club?”
‘Soupy’ offers several other brilliant yarns — forget the Ulster final or the endless penalty shootout heartbreak, the dressing room after the Division 2 league decider defeat to Donegal in Croke Park was the main turning point. So much so that it was still Campbell’s phone screensaver on Monday, though admittedly needed to be updated.
“We are not going to lose in this place again,” the group vowed.
They stuck to their word.
Campbell was the super sub against Galway, setting up Aaron McKay for his decisive goal with his first involvement off the bench. What a moment, as his championship impact role reaped its reward again.
But will it continue? Will Campbell go out at the top, or go again?
“It’s a tricky subject at the minute! Although I might look a bit younger than I am and my behaviour might suggest otherwise, it had been a long journey, a lot of miles on the clock.
“It’s funny, 2019 was the first time I was used as an impact and there’s guy in the club, a previous county player, told me, ‘You’ve done enough, time to retire, focus on the club!’
“I was 33 last month. Look, Aidan Forker said to me at breakfast, ‘You’re not going to be one of them, one and done’. We’ll see…”
A conversation with his daughter, Ella, may sway him one way or another. Before the All-Ireland final, he asked her what he should do if Armagh win.
“Her response was, ‘I want you to play on. However, it means another year where I won’t see you.’ She probably didn’t mean what she said, the naivety of it, but I left that conversation thinking, ‘It’s a lot.’”
“She told me on the Hogan it was all worth it,” Campbell adds shortly afterwards.
He can vouch for that too.
- With reporting from Declan Bogue.
If you need help with gambling addiction, get in touch with Gamblers Anonymous via one of their regional contacts, Problem Gambling Ireland on 089 241 5401.
