Football

They were the days of Peter and Pascal, dead legs and fighting hearts, Mickey Harte as manager, double Houdini acts against the mighty Crossmaglen Rangers, beating the reigning All-Ireland champions... Just to get to the final

Mark Harte recalls Errigal Ciaran glory in 2002 as Tyrone champions prepare for battle with Down’s Kilcoo

Errigal Ciaran players including Mark Harte (left) celebrate after victory over Enniskillen in the Ulster Club final at Clones in December 2002. Picture credit; Damien Eagers / SPORTSFILE
Errigal Ciaran players including Mark Harte (left) celebrate after victory over Enniskillen in the Ulster Club final at Clones in December 2002. Picture credit; Damien Eagers / SPORTSFILE

THE ins-and-outs of many a season fade as time marches on, but the memories of Errigal Ciaran’s Ulster Championship campaign 22 years ago remain as vivid as ever for Mark Harte.

Growing up in a staunch GAA home, he wished for nothing more than to represent his club and community against the best and in five games over five hectic weekends between late October and early December 2002 he lived out his dream.

They were the days of Peter and Pascal, dead legs and fighting hearts, Mickey Harte as manager, double Houdini acts against the mighty Rangers, beating the reigning All-Ireland champions… And that was just to make it to the Ulster final, a height Errigal hadn’t reached again until this year.

“It’s hard to believe it when you put a number on it,” he says.

“It seems like a blink but the memories are so strong so they last the test of time.”

Join the Irish News Whatsapp channel

The Errigal Ciaran club we know now was founded in 1990 and the newcomers quickly announced themselves as the contenders they’ve been ever since with their first Tyrone senior championship in 1993.

A youngster then, Harte grew up on a diet of watching the Canavan brothers, his neighbours from up the road, work their magic in the white jersey with the blue and yellow trim.

“1993 was an historic one for the club and they ended up in the dizzy heights of an Ulster club title which, at that stage in the club’s history, was just incredible,” he recalls.

“I was in my early teens then and at that stage where you just enjoy the football and you think: ‘This is how it’s going to be every year’. When you grow up you learn it’s not always like that.

“But those days of the early and mid-90s definitely left an impression on a lot of us who were playing underage for the club. You realised that in Errigal that sort of success was achievable and realistic and it gave us heroes who broke new ground for the club and we were lucky to follow in their footsteps a decade later.

“It was great for young players coming through to know that this was a club and community that produced champions who could go and do themselves justice in Tyrone and further afield.”

Along with a batch of talented footballers including Enda and Cormac McGinley, John Devine, Barry and Adrian O’Donnell, Davey Harte and Damian Neill, he bedded into the Errigal team from the late ‘90s on.

By the time they reached their early 20s those players were able to add legs to the experience and knowhow of the Canavan brothers and Eoin Gormley, “the guiding lights” who had been there and done it back in 1993.

Errigal conquered Tyrone in 2000 but, despite Harte’s goal, they lost the Ulster final to Derry’s Bellaghy. As is the way in Tyrone, they were dethroned by Carrickmore the following year but won the O’Neill Cup back in 2002 by beating Killyclogher.

Celebrations were tempered by the fact that they’d been thrown in at the deep end in Ulster against a Crossmaglen side that had been crowned All-Ireland champions just two years’ previously.

“There was massive delight in the club for lifting the Tyrone title,” says Harte.

“We had lost the 2001 final so to come back and win was massive but Crossmaglen was the worst draw we could have got in Ulster.”

Back then the Rangers were the most feared club side in the land. They had three Ulster titles and three All-Irelands tucked away and their star-studded team included a clutch of the players who had won the Sam Maguire with Armagh a month previously in Oisin McConville, Francie Bellew, the McEntees (Tony and John), Paul Hearty and John Donaldson.

They met at Healy Park and the South Armagh men picked Errigal apart from the throw-in. Th Tyrone champions couldn’t live with their movement and finishing power and it seemed all hope had gone when they found themselves eight points down with 15 minutes left, playing into the wind.

“I have friends from other clubs and one of them was honest enough to tell me that he had gone home,” says Harte.

“He thought the game was over.”

That he left was understandable because Errigal were also without their talisman Peter Canavan who’d been forced off with a dead leg. It seemed Errigal’s hopes left the field with him but somehow the loss of their leader galvanised the team.

“You’re left looking at each other and you realise it’s time for you to stand up in Peter’s absence,” says Harte.

“That’s what happened – the younger players stood up and we took our example, as we always did, from the likes of Pascal Canavan and Eoin Gormley.”

Gormley’s goal swung the momentum Errigal’s way and when Harte found the net with five minutes left an astonishing comeback win was suddenly on the cards. The sight of Canavan standing on the line preparing to come back on roused his team-mates for a final charge.

“We managed to get a foothold in the game through nothing more than a bit of courage,” says Mark.

“When you’re a young player, you don’t think about it, you just go for it and I think we had a lot of young players who went for it. When we got ourselves back on Crossmaglen’s coattails and we looked to the sideline and, Peter being Peter, between himself and my father who was the manager that year (Mickey’s only year in charge of the Errigal seniors) they decided he was able to come back on.

“Dead leg or no dead leg, he returned to the pitch and steadied us enough to get us back level and get us another chance the following week.”

It was Canavan who played the assist for Eoin Gormley’s equaliser and Errigal almost pulled off their Houdini Act but Harte’s thumping drive on the hour was superbly parried by Paul Hearty and Pascal Canavan’s follow-up hit the bar and he missed the target from the rebound.

Still, the draw felt like a massive victory for Errigal and vice-versa for Crossmaglen.

“When you see somebody going through the pain barrier like Peter you row-in and follow that example,” says Harte.

“We were lucky to have him as an influence in the club. A lot of people admire Peter’s skill and quality and rightly so but when you see him up close his steel and his sheer will to win are the traits I remember best.

“As a young player if you weren’t doing it he wasn’t long letting you know, but there was nothing he would ask of you that he wouldn’t do himself.

“He was a leader by example and he would have fired himself into tackles and into situations and inevitably he came out with the ball, or came out with something. When you see somebody like that prepared to go to the well time and time again for the club… It sticks with you and we all benefitted from having Peter.

“Peter and Pascal and these boys were our heroes and when you’re watching them from outside the fence you dream about the day when you could pull on that jersey alongside them. When that happened Peter didn’t need to say anything to any of us.”

Errigal Ciaran's Peter Canavan tries to get past Ballinderry's Paul Wilson during the Ulster Club Championship match at Casement Park, Belfast on November 26 2006. Picture by Jonathan Porter 
The brilliant Peter Canavan in action for Errigal Ciaran against Ballinderry in the Ulster Club Championship

ON to the replay and 10,000 fans turned out to watch at Crossmaglen’s Oliver Plunkett Park. Errigal supporters probably thought their team couldn’t start as poorly again. But they did. This time they fell nine points behind. It was 1-8 to 0-2 to Cross at half-time but Errigal clung to the hope that with the wind at their backs for the second half they could turn it around again. And they did.

The sending off of midfielder Anthony Cunningham (Errigal’s Adrian O’Donnell was also dismissed) was a blow to Crossmaglen’s confidence and Oliver Short’s team managed just one point in the second half.

“Not many teams come back from nine points down against Crossmaglen in Crossmaglen,” says Harte, who posted three points in the game.

With Peter Loughran outstanding in midfield, Errigal scored 1-6 without replay and, as the wind howled and the rain lashed down, Canavan’s late free forced extra-time.

Errigal edged ahead (Canavan again) but Tony McEntee’s point forced another draw and so they gathered again at Clones for the third meeting in three Sundays.

On the Thursday night before the game, another pinch of seasoning was added to the mix as Mickey Harte was named successor to Art McRory and Eugene McKenna as Tyrone manager.

He had no time to dwell on his appointment because the action at club level continued at fever pitch.

In the trilogy encounter, Cross again burst out of the traps. James Hughes hit an early goal but the pace had caught up with them and this time Errigal refused to let them break away. By half-time they were in command and this time forced Cross to make a comeback. They did so but John Devine’s save from Michael McNamee broke the black and amber wave and it was Errigal who progressed to the semi-final.

“Those battles against Cross left us well prepared and we knew we were good enough in the company we were keeping,” says Harte.

It will be a family affair for Enda McGinley when his Errigal Ciaran side comes up against Cargin on Sunday. Picture by Oliver McVeigh
Enda McGinley an Ulster champion in 2002 has guided Errigal to the provincial final this year. Picture by Oliver McVeigh

ERRIGAL had run themselves into the ground and next up was, on paper at least, an even more demanding challenge against Derry’s Ballinderry Shamrocks, the reigning Ulster and All-Ireland champions.

Backboned by household names including Conleith Gilligan, Enda Muldoon, Adrian McGuckin junior and Declan Bateson, Brian McIver’s side had been watching from the sidelines for four weeks since they had beaten Down’s Mayobridge in their quarter-final.

“They had a wonderful season the year before but we hadn’t had time to think about them because Crossmaglen was a massive hurdle to overcome and it took us three goes to get over it,” says Harte.

“We were lucky we didn’t pick up any serious injuries against Crossmaglen and we were full of confidence going into the Ballinderry game.

“When you’re in that type of company, playing against Crossmaglen and Ballinderry, it’s exactly where you want to be as a player and you want to pit yourself against the best. We knew we had enough to cause Ballinderry trouble but the question mark was our fitness – where we going to be able to go to the well again?

“Thankfully, the Crossmaglen games had left us confident and battle-hardened. People ask: Are you better resting or playing matches? Ballinderry had been watching us and Cross battle it out. We went into the game against Ballinderry and they went 2-0 up and I remember thinking on the pitch: ‘Where are we at today? Is it in the legs? Is it in us here?’”

He needn’t have worried because those two early points were all Ballinderry got in the first half. They managed only two more in the second as the battle-hardened Tyrone men swept past them into the final.

Four points from Peter Canavan led the way and there were six other scorers as Errigal progressed to an Ulster final against Fermanagh’s Enniskillen Gaels. After their heroic efforts against ‘big dogs’ Crossmaglen and Ballinderry there was a feeling outside the Errigal camp that the hard work had been done.

But the Gaels were a classic banana skin.

“It was a tough game,” says Harte.

“It was poor conditions, it was low-scoring… They had been dominant in Fermanagh for years and they had the Brewsters and Neil Cox and Michael Lilly and these players so they were good enough to win an Ulster title.

“People might have seen us as likely winners but it was a nervy game and they had a big goal chance towards the end. Rory Judge flicked the ball over his head and thought for a moment it had flown into the back of the net but it went just past the post. We managed to get a couple of scores and we got over the line.

“We were delighted with that because performance-wise it wasn’t our best but in terms of grit and sheer will to win we had to dig very deep in that game.”

Michaela Harte with her father Mickey during Tyrone's halcyon days
Michaela Harte with her father Mickey during Tyrone's halcyon days

A LOT of water has gone under the bridge since that unforgettable Ulster campaign. Mark was part of Tyrone’s success under his father’s management the following year as the Red Hands won their first-ever

And there has been immense sadness for the family too with the loss of Mark’s sister Michaela who, so tragically, was murdered while on honeymoon in 2011.

“There’s a uniqueness with clubs and counties in the GAA in that we’re made up of families and families are precious to us in the GAA and to us in Errigal,” says Mark.

“My family is no different to anyone else’s I suppose in terms of how we had all gone to games together over the years and after every year that goes past the sad reality is that there will be somebody who won’t by at next year’s game.

“You’ve got to count your blessing that the club is in the Ulster Club final and we get the chance to go and watch our club do us proud. For everyone who’s there, we’re lucky to be there and for everyone who’s not with us physically, they’re with us in spirit.”

Errigal Ciaran captain Darragh Canavan solos away from Cargin's David Johnston with Peter Og Mc Cartan in support at Corrigan Park.
Errigal Ciaran captain Darragh Canavan solos away from Cargin's David Johnston with Peter Og McCartan in support at Corrigan Park. Picture: Seamus Loughran (seamus loughran)

MARK Harte guided Errigal to the county title in 2022 – the club’s first for a decade – and back into the Ulster Championship. Having worked with and nurtured so many of the players, he has helped to foster the determination they’ve shown to overcome the challenges they have met throughout this campaign with stars of the 2002 campaign Paul Horisk and Enda McGinley now at the helm.

“They’ve had a memorable year and we’re proud of their efforts,” says Harte.

“People know about their talent in the team but what a lot of people don’t know about is the steel and determination to succeed. They’ve had their fair share of knockbacks and disappointments over the years and they’ve had memorable days too.

“They’ve all put a lot of work in this year and they’ve been a match for the teams they’ve faced so far but I think we’d all appreciate that the biggest challenge will come against Kilcoo.

“If you’re looking at a team that is there year-in, year-out and has climbed to the pinnacle of Ulster and All-Ireland club football, Kilcoo are the yardstick. The energy they play with, the togetherness… People felt the game (Ulster semi-final) with Scotstown was a 50-50 and for the majority of the first half it was but whenever the goal opportunities came Kilcoo were absolutely ruthless.

“I would be a big admirer of how they go about their business and they’d be a particularly tough nut to crack but I’ve got confidence in our boys’ ability and determination as well. It has the makings of a superb final and we’re going to have to be at our best to win it.

“We were hungry for success in 2002 and you really have to grab these Ulster club opportunities with both hands. Enda and the management team and our players will be fully aware that this is a precious opportunity and we’re going to go for it with everything we have.”

Yes, his own glory days still seem like yesterday and he hopes for more of the same for his club tomorrow…