Mac's View: Wet weekend brought back some bad memories

I was watching the Ulster club semi-final between Newbridge and Scotstown on Sunday and it brought back memories of unplayable pitches in the past. The game was abandoned at half-time due to the condition of the Healy Park pitch in Omagh.

 The first memory that came to mind involved the Derry club, Newbridge, whom we played against with St Joseph’s in 1970. We got the game in Bundoran and Edward Quinn did great work to have it in good shape. But then it started to rain from the Thursday onwards. We were going to go to Ballyshannon but Edward insisted it would be played in Bundoran. Newbridge were a big physical team and we lost and there were questions asked afterwards.

I remember Robbie McShea taking the heat out of the situation by quipping, ‘we’re lucky we weren’t all drowned’.

The thought came to my mind on Sunday when Cavan referee Joe McQuillan made the decision to call off the game that it was a pity another Cavan official, Tommy McDermott, didn’t do the same in Clones in 1993 when the pitch was unplayable for the Ulster final against Derry.

I would have been confident that we could have won that game if it had been put off for a week as we would also have had a number of players back. But I don’t think the referee had the final say that day.

McKENNA CUP

I see that Donegal are paired with Derry and Antrim in the McKenna Cup and it will be good to have that competition back in 2026 in early January. It will be a good help to Jim McGuinness in getting competition for the new recruits to his panel.

I also see that the National League venues have been decided with Kerry and Galway in Fr Tierney Park, Ballyshannon and Mayo game is in O’Donnell Park, Letterkenny. 

We have a good record in Ballyshannon and for whatever reason we don’t have a good record in Letterkenny and it is something that is hard to understand.

At the weekend it was good to see the great Mickey Kearins being inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Ocean FM Sports Awards on Saturday night in the Radisson Hotel. He was a super footballer and he was probably right when he said that winning the Connacht title in 1975 came a little bit too late in his career. The Sligo team of the early 1970s was a very good team and Kearins was Sligo’s first ever All-Star. The 1975 team met a very good young Kerry team in the semi-final and were no match for them.

Still it was nice to see Kearins get rewarded 50 years on from that great achievement of winning Connacht in 1975.

It was nice to hear also this week that PJ Hoey received his Dr McKenna Cup medal from 1975 in the past few weeks. I remember we beat Derry in that final and I was full-forward playing on Tom Quinn. What I don’t remember is the last 10 minutes of the game as I hit my head off the post before the end.

It is nice to hear that PJ got his medal. I remember his father, Paddy, was the first ever chairman of the Donegal Minor Board in 1968 and I was elected minor team manager at that AGM. Paddy was a tailor as far as I can recall. I remember going down to that meeting in a car with the Dodger (John McDermott, Ballyshannon) and he was telling me I was too young to be a minor team manager.

The U-21 final is taking place this weekend in Fr Tierney Park, Ballyshannon and the two best teams are in the final, Four Masters and Naomh Conaill. I would have a slight fancy for Four Masters but Glenties are always hard to beat and they have a big pick. It should be a cracking final and hopefully the weather will be better than for last weekend’s semi-finals, which were played in awful conditions. Still the two finalists came through against Termon and Glenswilly and were worthy winners.

Finally this week, my sympathies to the Carr family, Donegal Town and the Barry family, Bundoran and Tullaghan. The Carr family are mourning the death of Thomas Carr, father of Shane and Joel and Shane’s boys are now the young stars in Four Masters.

The Barry family lost Tom Barry in Dublin and the family would be well-known in the GAA world. His sister, Carmel, is the mother of Tom Parsons, the head of the GPA. My sympathies to all the Carr family, his sisters and brothers Martin, Peter, Pat, Lucy, Breege and Carmel.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha.

Brian McEniff was in conversation with Peter Campbell