MICKEY Darragh’s still misses his days of playing for club, college and county.

Darragh broke onto the Antrim county senior team in 1975, which began a career when he would enjoy playing at the highest level at his club St John’s, college with the Trench House and county level with the Saffrons.

“I loved those days. It was great to play against good players and good teams. They were great times.

“It was a pleasure. I wish I could have played till I was 40, but the body wouldn’t allow it. The enjoyment of playing and representing club and county was special. Not everyone gets that. Everyone should take it. I represented my county for 14 years, and I loved every minute.”

He played with and against some of the very best in Ireland, at club, colleges and at county level.

He loved everything about playing the game, the competition, the craic, and the pursuit of greatness.

Yet it’s important to point out that the county game was very different in those days. It was a more rugged game.

“I was over the moon to become part of the county team in 1975. But it was survival of the fittest.

“There were hard men still about. The off-the-ball incidents were still about and there was nothing being done about it. Intimidation was rife. You had to be quicker and faster to get to the ball or you were going to get hurt. Most teams would have had enforcers who were going out to do damage. Towards the end of the ‘70s, that all started to go. But when I first started it was a very physical game.

“I knew who the enforcers were on our team, and I knew who the enforcers were on the teams we played against. You knew that you had to be on your toes. That was the way the game was played, you accepted that.

“The vast majority of county footballers were good, honest players and they played the shirt off their backs.”

In the 1980s the referees got more power and they gradually removed that physical side of things.

Darragh’s experience of stepping up to county football coincided with him taking up a place at Trench House, the teaching college in west Belfast which would become St Mary’s University.

“At that time college football was the creme-de-la-creme. At that time anyone who was anyone in the GAA was playing college football, whether that was with universities or teacher training.

“But college football was uncompromising as well. Some of the Sigersons that I watched, before I even went to the college, weren’t for the faint hearted.

“It prepared you for county football, and the four years I had at Trench House were the best years I had football-wise. I was playing with and against some of the best footballers in Ireland.”

At the Ranch there was Fermanagh’s Peter McGinnity, Dessie McKenna and Willie McKenna from Tyrone and Peter Trainer fromArmagh. There were a lot of Antrim men too, Liam Jennings and Joe McGuinness for example. Kevin McFerran was at Queen’s. Then of the teams beyond Ulster he was playing against the likes of Pat Spillane, Brian Talty, and Richie Bell.

“There was a combined colleges team that played against combined universities and you had all those boys, and boys from the Ranch, playing against the likes of Ogie Moran John O’Keefe, Brian Mullins, Fran Ryder. It was a who’s who of great players. Jimmy Deenihan was playing.

“It was a pleasure to play with and against them.”

St Mary’s also exposed Darragh to one of the finest coaches that Ulster has ever seen in Jim McKeever.

“He was a fantastic man, and he would have worked with the forwards. He would worked on things like finding space, getting away from men, beating the tackle, scoring and creating scores. He was a great coach and a great man.

“He had a huge influence, and he wasn’t just there for a few years. He did a huge job, and influenced so many coaches and so many players. His way of playing was always the clean way, always the good way. He never ever encouraged foul play, or taking men out, or anything like that.

“The way he worked was excellent. He never raised his voice. You never heard him shouting. He would have talked to you quietly and had a yarn. His teams went out to play football the way you should have played football. It was pure football.”

The period when Darragh started to play was a time for change. The departure of the enforcer style of play was one change. Then there was also Jim McKeever’s influence upon Ulster football. Darragh thinks that McKeever was one of a wider group of coaches who wanted to make a difference.

“I am sure they went around and talked about how the game should be played. There was a boy down at Thomond called David Weldrick. He was a huge influence down there. He was one of the first panellists on The Sunday Game. He had a huge influence on the way the game was played. He was very much about total football, the same as Jim McKeever.”

At the same time as Darragh was playing for Trench House, he was also experiencing a quality level of football with his club. St John’s were a dominant team in the county. They won six county titles from 1970 to 1978.

“They were very strong and were winning Ulster Club titles. They got to the All-Ireland final in 1977/1978. A lot of the players that I played with at the Ranch were also playing at St John’s, the likes of Liam Jennings and Kevin Gough.

“I was playing with good players at St John’s and the county. It wasn’t just the Ranch.”

So Darragh was getting the best football at all sides. He also puts a lot of weight in the playing of tournament football. Darragh says that in the ‘70s the football came thick and fast, and he was playing all the time.

“Tournaments were huge. We used to be away every Sunday night playing in tournaments when I first came onto the St John’s team. We would be away in Glenravel or in Ardboe, or Rostrevor, or Warrenpoint, or somewhere. You would have played league matches that afternoon and then you would have been away playing in a tournament that evening.

“It was a different era. They talk about professionalism now, and the amount of hours they spend. But when we were at the Ranch, you trained Monday night physical session at Trench House, you had a physical session with St John’s on Tuesday night, you trained Wednesday afternoon with the Ranch skills. You trained Wednesday night with the county, you trained Thursday night with St John’s in a skills session, and then Friday you had a day off. Saturday you were with Ranch, St John’s or the county, and then you had league matches on Saturday or Sunday.

“That was week in and week out, and I played hurling as well so there were no weeks off.”

It seems like an awful lot for an amateur sport. But Darragh was happy with the experience.

“I loved those days. Absolutely loved them. I wouldn’t have done it any different. It wouldn’t be like that now. They were the best days of my life. It was great to go out and play against good players and good teams.”

This is the nub of the reason why Mickey Darragh played for such a long time. He was playing with and against the best players in the country for much of his career, whether that was club or county.

“When you were playing in tournaments you weren’t playing against bad teams. Some of those tournaments were great events. Then therewas the social events, there was a few pints afterwards.

“You could have knocked nine bells out of each other but as soon as it was over then it was in to the club and there was a bit of craic. Even when we were playing county football, county teams would have came into Casement Park and players would have had a few pints before heading home.

“I don’t think that happens now. I think they all arrive on a bus and leave on a bus and no-one meets anyone. Not only were players mixing with each other, but they were mixing with the fans. You knew everyone, and you knew characters. It was great craic. When you went down to play in Coalisland you would go in and there would be the same characters. That was the way it was, but we have sort of lost that way. We seem to be a bit more elitist. Everyone knew everyone.”

The strategy of the game was changing in those days. The traditional catch and kick was being phased out.

The change in approach to the game was heralded in by Dublin and Kerry. Those two teams were very strong in the mid ‘70s. The way they played the game inspired teams to play a different way. Dublin were a tough, hard team of enforcers. Kerry on the other hand were artists with the ball. The two counties battled at the top level for a few  years. In the end, Kerry’s brand of football won outright.

In those days, Darragh noticed how the game was changing in Ulster too.

“I remember the first man to use the kick-out tactically was Brian McAlinden of Armagh. He was the original Stephen Cluxton. He was the first goalkeeper I ever saw hitting spaces. He was hitting the ball to areas where players were running on to it. That was club and county level. He was the first to kick to space. He was magnificent. When we were playing the ball was kicked to four men in the middle of the field and if they couldn’t catch it, he would have broke it. He took that out of the game.

“He broke our hearts more times than enough. I could see what Brian was doing but I couldn’t combat it.”

Darragh felt that with the likes of kick-outs, and with Kerry’s use of the hand-pass, those skills were gradually adapted by teams all across the country.

St John’s were one of the teams that emulated Kerry’s style to great success, and they won the county championship four years in-a-row, from 1975 to 1978, and won it back in 1980.

Darragh’s career with John’s was very successful. He won nine championships, the last was in 1988.

Yet while teams were emulating county teams, Darragh said that he did not have any particular style that he modelled himself on.

“At no time did anyone tell me a way to play. They just said to get out there and get on with it and do what you are doing at club level and colleges level.

“On one occasion, Brother Ennis and Phil Stewart were looking after the Antrim team and they had me as a half-back, I didn’t enjoy it. I told them at the end of the year. I said ‘this is not for me.’”

Pace was Darragh’s greatest strength.

“I was fast over the first 10 metres. I was able to get out quick and get the ball. I could take a goal and a point. If you are given enough chances you get better. A lot of the players I played with knew the way that I liked to get the ball. They drove it in low, and hard and into space so that I could get it. I could see fellas who I was playing with, when they got the ball I knew where it was going. Gerry McHugh, Joe McGuinness, Donal Laverty. Alec McQuillan in later years, when they got the ball I knew where it was going. Working with people over years you just learned to read it.”

It’s easy to see why any player would enjoy that sort of telepathy.

The years that stood out as being most enjoyable at college level for Darragh were 1977 and 1978. St John’s won the Ulster Club and got to the All-Ireland final. The Ranch won all the key titles, the Ryan Cup and the Trench Cup.

“That period was great, I remember those years very well. I was playing against the biggest and best players in Ireland.”

A game that stood out was the Hodge Figgis final, which they lost to UCD. The winners of the Sigerson played the winners of the Trench Cup.

“The beat us after extra-time by a point. I think there were six who ended up in hospital with broken shoulders, arms and legs. It was a hard, tough game. It was an outstanding match. It was a hard, hard game.

“Beating Queen’s in the Ryan Cup at Casement was big. I scored the winning goal which made it great. Queen’s and the Ranch were big rivals. There was a lot of rivalry then.”

It is hard for Darragh to remember a lot of games because they all rolled in to each other. One day he was playing for his club, the next day he could be with the county. The schedule was relentless.

“There was no dropping off panels, You just played away. You didn’t leave the college or county to play with your club.”

He’s not sure if that was a good thing.

“I probably did St John’s no service. If we had have been fresher we might have did better. But everyone was doing it. I remember playing against Sligo  Regional College and there were  two Scotstown lads playing for Sligo and they were playing against us the next day. So all the clubs had to put up with it.”

The  Antrim team that Darragh joined when he started playing county football was a very good side. They had a good number of the team that won the 1969 All-Ireland U-21 title. The likes of Andy McCallin and Gerry McCann were there.

There were players there that won the Ulster U-21 title in 1975. John McKiernan was there, as was Gerry McHugh, John P O’Kane, Liam Jennings, Keving Gough and Joe McGuinness.

“Antrim were in a fairly good place when I got involved and probably should have gone on and done better,” Darragh said.

There are a few reasons why they didn’t.

Coaching might have been an issue, as the players then did not recieve the treatment that they do nowadays.

“I started playing county football in 1975 and it was much more amateur. Today it is far more professional. Just look at the set ups,physios, doctors, trainers, dietician, In our day you had a manger, a couple of selectors, and if  you were lucky you might have had a separate trainer. Often we didn’t have a trainer. The manager would have done it. Often times Gerry McHugh, who was playing, would have taken the training. The approach is totally different.”

The period when Darragh played coincided with the Troubles as well, in the late ‘60s through the 1970s and 1980s. He points out that Antrim had success at that time, in 1969 and the early 1970s. But said that there was an effect.

“Players were arrested. Players were interned. Players had to emigrate. Players left the county and moved down south and played down south. There is no doubt it had an effect.

“Coming home from matches you would have been stopped. You were always very weary coming home late at night. There were many times we would have been taken into barracks at night and questioned. It was part and parcel. You expected it and just got on with it.

“We lost seven or eight players and Antrim couldn’t really afford to.”

Yet despite the challenges, the Antrim team’s that Darragh played on did very well.

In his first year, in 1975, they won the Division Two title.

“I think we went through Division Two unbeaten. We got into Division One in the National League. Look where Antrim are now, Division Four. Antrim were up in Division One at that time so they were fairly strong.”

In his second year, a stand-out moment was when Tyrone came to Casement with Frank McGuigan and Antrim beat them.

“That was a fantastic game. There was a big crowd. Tyrone had Frank McGuigan, Pat King, Turbett in goals, Mickey Hughes. It was a great Tyrone team and we beat them, but we had to beat them to stay up. It was a great game.

“Frank was their main man. They got the ball to Frank and then we were in trouble. Our job was to keep the ball from him. But he was a class act, right foot, left foot, he was superb. He was a treat to watch.

“Pat King was marking me that day. I was playing right half-forward. Pat was a fantastic player.

“I remember after the game everyone was in the club, there were Tyrone supporters in, there were Antrim supporters in. Everyone was in the club even fans. The craic was great afterwards. That was the way it was.”

However, a reason why they didn’t push on came down with wranglings between county board and management.

“Jimmy Ward fell out with the county board. It is a long story. He was the manager – a super manager – in 1975 and 1976. He stepped away over an argument about a match, it was a McKenna Cup match that he wanted cancelled because St John’s were playing in the UCD sevens. The county had given St John’s players permission to go and play in the UCD sevens. He said: ‘Well if the St John’s players are allowed to play, and I have 10 St John’s players on my panel, I want the McKenna Cup game called off’. The county board said ‘This is Antrim, it’s not St John’s, you have plenty of other players’.

“He said ‘if the match goes ahead, I will resign’. The match went ahead and he resigned.

“Losing him was a big loss because everyone had great respect for him.

“It is a shame, but it is typical. These sort of things happen all the time.”

Darragh said that it is frustrating because that change over of manager would be a regular feature during his time on the county. From the day he started till the day he finished up, from 1975 to 1989, he had eight different managers.

“All of them had their strengths and their weaknesses. There was no continuity though. It wasn’t like they would have in Tyrone with Mickey Harte.”

Darragh said that managements would come in for one or two years, then depart. It was only Eamon Grieve who got any length of time to develop a team.

“He came in and upped the professionalism, upped the training, and brought a good back room team in. He sort of upped it all. We didn’t win anything, but we competed. We went from Division Three up to Division One again. That was my last year.

“When they were in Division One they beat Mayo and they beat Meath. Meath were kingpins at the time. They were playing at a really high standard. But in Ulster it was the one off games when you would get beat and that would be beat.”

Darragh was retired when Antrim played in Division One and watched on as they took on the Royals, who had Mick Lyons and Robbie O’Malley in their number in 1989/1990 at Casement Park.

Unsurprisingly, Darragh is disappointed at the state that Casement Park is currently in.

“It was one of the best surfaces in Ireland. Travelling around some of the county pitches in the ‘70s was rough enough. There was no heat in some of them, no showers in some of them. But Casement was always a pleasure to play in. Everyone who came to play on it it said the same.”

Casement Park is very special to Darragh. He was brought up in the Owenvarragh Park.

“We loved the big match days. I grew up next to Casement Park, and we loved seeing them come to Casement Park with their flags for Ulster finals. We loved it. It was the highlight of our year. We loved meeting the players and getting autographs. We loved that.”

The issue of Casement Park and its development has been controversial. The Ulster GAA handling has received bad press, and the process has not followed a straightforward path. For Darragh, the issue is simple. He wants to see the ground developed.

“For the people who live near Casement Park, it is not a hardship. A few people want to make it a hardship, but it isn’t.

“Casement was built by the Antrim supporters and the county board. It was a huge community effort. You have to remember that that was in 1953. Back then Casement Park was out in the country. A lot of people complained, why are they building a pitch out here. The Trolley buses as they were then only went out as far as Andersonstown barracks and they had to walk the rest of the way up to this new stadium.

“Times have changed.”

Those stories were passed on to Darragh by his father. Born in 1956, Darragh regarded Casement as his playground, him and all the lads from St John’s.

“We got chased off it every day. The caretakers would be running around trying to catch us. We would have been kicking points and play with hurls all day.”

So for a man who loved playing so much, the decision to step away was a difficult one

When he turned 33 he realised that time was against him. He stopped playing for the county, and focused on St John’s for six more years.

“At that stage the commitment was increasing. I realised that at 33 my best days were ver. I asked myself did I really want to stay on, put in the hard work and not get a kick. I just decided to get out while I was playing alright.

“Stopping playing is the worst decision you ever have to come to.”

He played for the club and then went into management.

“Management is no substitution. Playing is the be all and end all

“I went to every home game for Antrim and I missed stripping out, I missed going into the changing rooms, I missed going out onto the field. I missed every part of it. But you have to retire at some stage. I was captain in 1989. I played in a National League quarter-final against Kerry in Croke Park. I just thought that this was it. We got beat by Monaghan and while they were Ulster champions we should have done better, I said that was it.”

He still misses it. But how could you not miss a career playing with against some of the very best and even getting to have the craic afterwards.