IF he’d lived to see it, Roddy Gribbin would have celebrated his 100th birthday on October 26.
The legend of Newbridge and Derry, a trailblazer, a history maker, the most famous brother of famous brothers, he won five championships with the ‘Bridge, a National League with Derry and guided them to their first ever All-Ireland final as player-manager in 1958.
When Roddy was interviewed for the club’s 90th anniversary celebrations in 2016, he spelled out what it all meant.
“The club was the centre of our family. I suppose it kept the family together too, maybe. My father would feed the pigs and let us away to play football. The club really, really was… the centre of our life,” he said at the time.
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Just before 5.25pm a day later on October 27, his grandson Ciaran Brooks stood at the Brandywell End of Celtic Park with history in his hands.
No better man.
At some point after the liquid lunchtime of the Monday Club, a wise owl in The Thatch Bar put the game up on the projector screen.
The memories were barely 24 hours old but no harm to put down an early second coat on them.
There might have been some poetic licence in the claim that it was his first ever championship score, but only a sprinkling of it.
The Thatch explodes once more as the ball leaves his right boot.
It straddles the border between Newbridge and Castledawson, two minutes from The Cairns, a laneway that runs along the side of Castledawson’s pitch.
That is where Brooks was born and reared. His mother Marie is Roddy Gribbin’s daughter. With the family heritage, there was no chance he’d ever play for the ‘Dawson.
Ciaran’s cousin is goalkeeper James Gribbin, who was man of the match in the semi-final win over Magherafelt, with another cousin Tom on the panel as well.
While Ciaran lived in the heart of the Broagh, staunch Castledawson territory, there was never any chance he’d be with anyone other than Newbridge.
Whatever reticence might have existed when Marie took him down to the first session washed away within hours.
The inimitable John Mulholland was their manager. There was no leaving then.
If it sounds perfect, that’s because it turned out that way. But like so many stories of triumph, it seriously threatened not to.
Ciaran Brooks has been a mainstay of the Newbridge defence since marking Conleith Gilligan on his championship debut in 2010.
Two summers ago, he’d been forced off after 15 minutes of the semi-final against Glen with an ankle injury.
Last year, a freak clash of heads at the end of a training session in July left him with a fractured cheekbone and eye socket. Year over.
This time, it was tendonitis in his Achilles playing up. It came for him halfway through the group stage but he fought it off and got himself back at it ahead of the quarter-final with Bellaghy.
And then came the news. For the first time in his career, he wasn’t picked to start a championship match when he was injury-free.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t tip-toe around it. My head was mush for a couple of days.
“I couldn’t really process things that night and the next day, obviously trying to get my head around it, but I was just thinking if we progress through the quarter-final it’ll be tough to get my way back in for the semi-final and if we get past that, there’s no chance of getting my way into the final because the guys are gonna have played well enough to have got us into that position.
“Gary [Hetherington] and Kevin [Brady] been great since they’ve come in. There’s no messing about with the two of them, they’ll both tell you how it is.
“They obviously understood and I understood it was a tough decision on their side and they knew I would be gutted, just how much I love the club.”
‘Just how much I love the club.’
Sounds familiar.
But he did get back in. He’d done enough coming off the bench and for the fortnight before the semi-final he just made it so they couldn’t ignore him.
Everyone in Celtic Park had a different view of his winning score. In the stand, they knew the moment it left his boot. On the terrace, where most of the ‘Bridge support was housed, they only knew because the stand knew.
As Mark Doherty dances and wriggles free of Glen’s attempts to turn him over, Ethan Doherty gets drawn to the gaggle. Brooks finds himself free in behind.
20 seconds earlier, he’d be on site as Conleth McGuckian got pinged for a throw-ball. Glen had just equalised through a Ryan Dougan goal and were threatening to steal it away. Brooks starts off in a jog.
Next thing the ball’s in his hands. He’s twelve yards out. You’d say he can’t miss in the circumstances, missing it would be the easiest thing in the world.
“I think it’s something everyone dreams of, even being a corner-back: ‘Jesus, imagine kicking the winner in a county final’. Even a league match, you think, imagine kicking the winner in that!
“Mark Doc somehow managed to squirm his way out of about six tackles and slip it out. You couldn’t have written it.
“It was one of those things, we were pushing and you’ve the likes of CD [Conor Doherty], Callum [McGrogan], Mark Doc and all these guys, Sean Young, unbelievable pace and good carriers of the ball.
“There’s no point me standing taking up space and getting in their way. I just thought I’ll pull myself in, hopefully take a man with me and it’ll hopefully free up a bit of space out around the middle for somebody to make a run and get a score away.
“It just happened that whoever from Glen was on me, they left me to go and make an extra body on Mark Doc to get him turned over. I just happened to be in space, the right space at the right time.”
Out of the devastation of not being picked just as the knockout stages came into view grew a month he’ll never forget.
In trying to absorb what they’ve done, perspective has been easy to find.
Almost all of them were involved three years ago when they lost a relegation playoff out of the blue to Claudy. A restructure of the leagues saved them from dropping into the intermediate league. Who knows where it goes from there?
Of the 15 years since he graduated to the senior panel, the 32-year-old has only really been able to think about winning senior championships for the last three.
“You’d have maybe been chatting with your friends and nearly joking ‘we’ll try and win the JML this year’ and all that. But the majority of my playing career, you’ve been involved in relegation scraps. Your league campaign has nearly been your championship campaign.
“Since that we’ve got these younger lads through and started to push it on. In terms of genuinely thinking we were contenders, probably the last four years I would say, especially with those couple of semi-final losses.
“That year Glen beat us, we were nip and tuck with them but it was one of those games where it felt if they’d wanted to kick on they probably could have. Last year, everyone knows how that went against Magherafelt, which I’m sure a lot of us boys would like to forget.
“But we knew we weren’t a million miles away and if things could just click for us. Thankfully this year they’ve clicked for us.”
Further perspective comes from looking at Michael Bateson and Danny Mulholland.
Newbridge men to their dying breath.
After years of toiling, they both stepped out at just the wrong time last winter. There’s no medal for those two.
But the people of Newbridge, their team-mates, know it wouldn’t have happened without their contribution.
“I was fortunate when I was starting that I’d the likes of big Eamon Burke and Smith [Bateson] and Danny and Kevin Sweeney to look up to, they were leading it and driving it on,” says Brooks.
“Danny and Smith, the two of them were always driving things on, very vocal around training and the two of them would die for it.
“I know it’s a clichéd thing but us lads wouldn’t have won that without the likes of them.
“The slogging Michael Bateson put himself through, playing through injuries, throwing himself on boys’ boots when he’s half a hamstring. If he does something, it’s all in or he doesn’t see the point. It’s the likes of him that has driven things on for us, just being a warrior.
“For us to get to the place we are now, it wouldn’t have been without the likes of Danny and Smith. I’m sure they’re gutted but at the same time, I know the two of them and they’re both Newbridge to the core, their main feeling last week would have been absolute joy.”
When the joy of two weeks ago subsided, Brooks was back in the Thatch on Sunday past for a quieter, more serene celebration of life.
Having gotten married at the start of last December, his wife Nicole gave birth to their first child, Aoife, on October 27.
She turned two months old to the day when her Daddy took Glen’s crown away.
Huddled up in layers at the side of the pitch, avoiding the crush and chaos of the celebrations, the pair of them find his eye in the minutes after the final whistle.
“I was just running around in the madness but I had it in my mind to be fair, I knew Nicole was there with Aoife and they wouldn’t have been running around in the middle, jumping and hugging and in huddles and stuff.
“Of all the stuff Nicole has had to listen to the last couple of years, especially the wean being here now - the night before the game, sleeping in the spare room, not helping with feeds, then Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. She’s had to listen to a bit of earache the last couple of years.”
At different times over the years he’d almost gone as far as to give up on the dream of winning a championship. Then just as they began to climb the ranks, his own injuries began to pile up.
In the last few seasons, he’s found himself confiding in Nicole that “if I can just hang on, let these young lads come through and hang on to their coat tails, let them pull us through, it might happen and I can retire happy at some stage – whether that be in five years’ time.”
He hung on long enough and then when they needed him, Ciaran Brooks pulled Newbridge through the fire.
It’s in the blood.