FOOTBALL was forgotten amid the heartbreaking tragedy that enveloped the Crossmolina club earlier this month.
The Mayo and Connacht champions were plunged into grief after the death of Roisin Cryan – fiancée of midfielder Conor Loftus – just a few days before the All-Ireland intermediate football final was due to be played.
Football may be a brief distraction for the grieving families involved and the postponed final against Derry’s Ballinderry Shamrocks will take place at Croke Park on Sunday.
After news of the tragedy in Mayo broke, the Ballinderry club came together to mourn the untimely death that so devastated their GAA brethren and also to empathise with them as they reflect on their own losses over the years.
“We met as a group when we first heard the news,” explained manager Jarlath Bell.
“The game was cancelled so we had to acknowledge that and also we wanted to talk about the context of the situation and the tragedy that it was.
“Situations like this prove that when you take on a group of young fellas, it’s so much more than going through tactics and throwing out a few cones on the pitch.
“We spoke about mental health and the fragility of it and the need, particularly for young men, to have that line of communication open. We spoke about how important it is that, if things are ever getting on top of them, they have that go-to person that they can lift the phone to.
“It gave us an opportunity to speak about those issues and to empathise with the Crossmolina community and what they are going through. Our club secretary has been in constant contact with them throughout.”
Like so many clubs, Ballinderry have experienced their share of tragedy and loss. It’s almost 10 years ago now since Aaron Devlin - who would surely have been a key part of this Shamrocks side - passed away. The 23-year-old Derry forward died in hospital after contracting meningitis just two days after playing a challenge game for his club.
“We took the opportunity to draw a parallel between the things that we’ve been through in the past as a club,” Jarlath explained.
“Sadly, we’ve lost young people in tragic circumstances too, people like Aaron. We took a bit of time to speak about him because he was part of this group. It’ll be 10 years in July since he passed away after that short battle with meningitis and we have five or six lads in the group who would have been very friendly with him.
“Aaron was a superb footballer. We won the U21 championship back in 2012 and he was just a character. When he was in the changingroom with his peers you would just stand back and listen to him speak. The way he was able to talk… He was such a leader and his passing had a devastating effect on that group.
“We took the opportunity to speak about him and try and put things in context. Myself and Davy Harte spoke about personal tragedies as well, Davy spoke about the tragedy of Michaela and how that affected his family and his club.
“We sympathised with Crossmolina and we empathised with them because we have lost people like Aaron and Brian McIver who passed away 19 years ago now, Patricia Bateson, another person from a great family in the club, who was killed tragically in a car accident in her early 20s. Niall McCusker’s brother Conor was killed tragically…
“We have so many stories unfortunately and this gave us that opportunity to come together.
“We mentioned the term ‘a cross to bear’ because we know that Conor Loftus and Roisin’s family and the wider community down there have a cross to bear now. I think that’s where the GAA community kicks in really well in terms of the umbrella of support that they put around people.
“I know after the tragedies in our club that the family are left to deal with it front-and-centre but the club rallies around and offers what support they can.
“We were trying to build that picture in our heads of what Crossmolina would be going through at this stage.”
IN the shadow of such tragedy, how do players on either side approach Sunday’s game? In these circumstances, winning and losing – even an All-Ireland final - plays a distant second fiddle to the loss of a loved one. At the same time, the match has to be played and going through the motions isn’t appropriate. The only way is for both sides to go out and play with honesty, effort and dignity, says Bell.
“We’re in a situation now where, given what’s happened, the entire country will be willing Crossmolina to win and understandably so,” he added.
“I didn’t want the lads to be going down to Croke Park feeling any sense of guilt because they want to win the game and I know that the Crossmolina club and the Loftus and Cryan families don’t want us to go down feeling like that.
“They want us to contest this the same way as we were always going to contest it. You can’t get away from the fact that there is so much poignancy about it but both teams will go at it and give their best and, at the end, whoever wins the game, we’ll shake hands and get a chance reflect on what’s been a very difficult number of weeks.
“I rang Brian Benson (Crossmolina manager) after what happened and I said: ‘Football is secondary’. He agreed it was but then he spoke about the value of the club and how they were all out supporting Conor. That’s an example of a club rallying around an individual and a family to support them.
“The GAA is a powerful thing and I think it stands alone when things like this happen. Now there is a game to play and we have to go and try and win it.”
