'Anthony Molloy is still my captain. He always will be' - Jim McGuinness

The first time I ever really ‘saw’ Anthony Molloy was the summer of 1989. Of course, I’d seen him playing many times, but this was the moment when the full force of his personality really took hold. It was a gorgeous evening and I had been in Donegal Town with my father and my brother. We were heading home with the bay caught in the sunlight on our left as we drove along. 

Suddenly, we see this car coming the other way – at a brave rate, it must be said – and it drew my eye. It was a Proton something-or-other, a sports car. And as it came closer to us, I saw the driver was wearing the green and gold jersey of Donegal. It took me a second to recognise him. 

It was about a week out from that year’s Ulster final and flags were everywhere. I figured out that he was rushing to training at Townawilly. 

‘That’s Anthony Molloy!’ I announced to the others. 

I was sixteen-years-old and completely starstruck. I wouldn’t have believed anyone then, if they told me, that I’d be training alongside him just three years later. I came into the Donegal squad over Christmas of 1991. Anthony was immediately welcoming, and he made me believe that I was there on merit. There were no levels with him. 

It was all about Donegal in his eyes. I think that is one of his greatest gifts, that he could make people feel at ease and as if they belonged as soon as he met them. 

He pulled me aside before my very first championship match. It was against Antrim in Ballybofey in 1993. Donegal were All-Ireland champions, so the spotlight felt bright. And he just talked to me about how it would feel to be playing in a match of that intensity, for the first 20 minutes. 

What is often forgotten about that period now is just how primal the first 15 or 20 minutes of championship games were back then. Players were pent up. The exchanges could be very raw. It was knockout and it was no place for the faint-hearted. It is very different now – the tempo quickly settles into a kind of hypnotic pattern. 

So when Anthony Molloy spoke, you listened and he kind of settled me into what lay ahead. 

When I think of Anthony in that environment, the Donegal changing room seemed to revolve around his presence. He had an aura. Obviously, his stature and those big shoulders of his played a part but it was his personality as well. He didn’t have to dominate the conversation, but he was the main man. 

I ended up marking him at training a fair bit – sometimes to make up the numbers. Himself and Brian Murray were the duo in the middle of the park. Barry Cunningham and myself were often pitted against them. It was a brilliant education. He knew his job really well. He knew where he needed to dominate and that was the sky, first and foremost, as well as that connection between the half-back and half-forward line. 

He was synonymous with big catches and big hits. But there was a serious level of intelligence to his play as well. That is why he and Martin McHugh had such a strong link. He was always scanning when he got the ball, to see where McHugh was. And he’d chip in with scores himself also. 

But his first aim was to slip a pass to the ‘Wee Man’. 

And when you think of Anthony then, you think of that big old knee strap. To my mind, it was always there. He was either getting the knee strapped, getting the thing cut off or just getting the knee iced afterwards. 

And that often made me think, This is not forever. 

There were periods in those years when we were training very, very hard. He had many tough seasons under his belt by then. And he had that bad knee. It was in terrible shape. But whether he was able for it or not... he ran. It’s hard to articulate the depth of impression Anthony made on our county at that time. 

He was a superstar. He had that classic, dark Donegal look and he was instantly recognisable. On the bus home after games you’d find him down the back, in the absolute thick of it. And he was a magnet to the other lads. 

Every so often, he’d wind up to sing a song and there was a purer silence because big Molloy was singing. You’d always hear Tony Boyle and Donal Reid bellowing, ‘Good man, Molloy,’ if there was a break in whatever song he was singing. That was because Anthony was centre stage in that moment. And they wanted him at centre stage in that moment ultimately, because they loved him. They loved everything about him. 

There was nobody that didn’t. It’s a rare thing in a group of 30 or so fellas from across the county. But it was true. There wasn’t a single person in that group who didn’t think the world of him. 

Anthony Molloy’s autobiography ‘Life, Glory and Demons’ is published by Hero Books and is available in all good bookstores, and also on Amazon as an ebook (€9.99), paperback (€20) and hardback (€25). You can buy it here

There was steel there too. Winning was the most important thing for him. Midfield was a different sort of position in the 1980s and 90s. If you didn’t win that sector, you didn’t win the game. It was as simple as that. He radiated a sense of command and authority. And because of that, whatever the players thought of him, the public adoration was tenfold. He was the archetype of what a county player should be. And people wanted to speak to him, to know him. He always seemed to have time to stop for people and to chat with them. It seemed like he knew everybody, which added to his mystique in my eyes, a youngster who didn’t know anybody. 

His face and his speech – ‘Sam’s for the Hills’ – are symbolic of 1992. That summer reminds me of the Great Northern Hotel in Bundoran. It felt like we were there every other weekend. Those meetings remain vivid. A lot of the time they were held in a room in the leisure centre on muggy evenings after dinner. 

I’d scan the room and my eyes would always drift to Anthony. And you could see the focus in him. It was evident in his posture and even in how he listened. Every so often, he spoke. But not always. He could control the group with the opposite of a strong fist... it was with a velvet touch. 

That intensity transmitted through the entire squad. He was 30 years old then. That season was so many of the group’s ‘Last Chance Saloon’ and he constantly communicated the message that the opportunity had to be taken. 

Our training was off the charts then,but we were very grounded and purposeful. And when Anthony spoke after Brian McEniff, he laid out what had to be done on the field. For him, much of it came down to winning individual battles. His performances in those culminating games – the Ulster final and the All-Ireland semi-final and final were so, so strong. But there was good fun through it all. He could switch into light-hearted mode very easily and that made it possible to enjoy what we were chasing. 

Teams are funny. When that great side broke up, I went from seeing Anthony twice and three times a week to rarely meeting him. He was the kind of fella you wouldn’t see for 10 years and then when you bumped into him, nothing had changed. He is this big, strong warm open Donegal man. 

Donegal played Armagh back in the championship in early summer of 2022. It was the 30th anniversary of the 1992 season and some of the boys organised an unofficial reunion. I had missed the 25th get-together so I was so excited to see everyone again, in the same room. And what struck me, after those three decades, was that the dynamic was still the same. 

The same groups still gravitated towards one another, the same voices. I was still the ‘young fella’ in the room. And there was a pecking order. Anthony was our leader and Brian McEniff was our manager. All of those established roles came naturally into play over the day. It was strange, but it was very beautiful. I realised that day that Anthony Molloy is still my captain.  He always will be.