The last time Monaghan made an All-Ireland semi-final, Joxer had just made his way to Stuttgart, Ben Johnson’s infamy was just about to take off and the world had just been Rick Roll’d for the first time.
Monaghan people got used to the luxury of holidays in August, watching from afar as the best four teams in Ireland would tussle for position on the Hogan Stand steps. This year, there’s surely a distinct lack of the Farney in Fuerteventura because Monaghan will be in that tussle.
The county has seen so many false dawns over the past 30 years that scepticism has possibly become an ingrained feature of any football fan from the county. Even the most ardent followers would have reserved some jubilation until that final whistle in Salthill on Saturday night when it was finally confirmed that Malachy O’Rourke’s regime was going to end that three-decade wait.
So why is it now that the glass ceiling has been shattered? Pat McEnaney was with us on OTB AM this morning to help sum up the feeling in the county and he reckons a number of small things over the past 20 years have led to this large progression.
“Think of fellahs like Sean McCague who was our county board chairman who went on to be president. Paraic Duffy, of course, who was very influential at the early stages of this as well who went on to be the head of the GAA” the former referee said.
“Our county board structures were very good. I think our development in Cloghan that was built under the chairmanship of John Connolly was a massive thing for us as well. It gives us a centre, it gives all the county teams a place to train.”
Allied to the county board, McEnaney also feels there was a significant culture shift in the playing group in the last 15 years:
“I think fellahs like Paul Finlay, Vinny Corey, Owen Lennon, who’s now a current selector, them boys were big players in the early 2000s under my brother Seamus at the time... that era of player realised that it wasn’t good enough to just be training on a Monday and Tuesday night and go drinking on a Friday night, that kind of whole method of playing football back then wasn’t going to succeed at the top table. And I think from that day onwards, people realised, players realised in Monaghan what it actually takes to be a good county player.”
It is Tyrone this Sunday in Croke Park, then, with the Monaghan minors (under Banty’s tutelage) also in action on the same ticket. But does Pat McEnaney think Monaghan can win the All-Ireland?
“I think Dublin are at a different level, I’ve got to be honest and say that... But Monaghan could feel that we can beat anybody else in the country at the moment and it would be a massive opportunity if we could deal with next Sunday.”
The magnitude of the fixture for Monaghan does not take a lot of effort to contextualise. Put this way: the last – and only – time Monaghan reached an All-Ireland final, there was no Ben Johnson or Rick Astley or Irish footballing summers. Instead, we had the first World Cup and a world getting used to the Great Depression. Maybe, just maybe, Monaghan could replicate the boys of 1930 this summer.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
