Eamonn Fitzmaurice sat down for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with OTB AM this week, less than 72 hours after stepping down from his role as Kerry senior football manager.
You can catch the full podcast here, but here are the main flash points from our extended interview.
Hate mail
This was a subject first raised by Fitzmaurice on Saturday evening in Killarney when he said that he had a box full of letters from anonymous senders who wanted to give the Finuge man a piece of their minds. He told us that said letters have been gathering since the early days of his tenure, but this summer saw the players fall victim to the poison pen.
"Something that changed this Summer was the players, and a player in particular, got a letter. It was more that what was in the letter, that annoyed me. I felt it had gone too far. A player was told in a letter to jump off a cliff, and take two or three other players with him, those players were named in the letter - I felt that was going way too far" Fitzmaurice said.
"When its coming at the manager, and the selectors - and we got a few this Summer. It's no harm for them either to get a touch of it. When it goes to a player; it's gone too far. The lads are amateurs."
Supporters vs. followers
Fitzmaurice also spoke at length about his relationship with the Kerry fan base, its deterioration and the ever-present support from a strong cohort.
“I think in Kerry we have more followers than supporters, that we have the cohort that support the team, that go to all the games that are there through thick and thin. But then we’ve a lot of followers as well” he says.
“I’m a Man United fan myself; I’ve been since I was a kid, maybe not as passionate or as involved as I would have been when I was younger, certainly since Alex Ferguson has left.
“But I would call myself a follower in that I would have known everything that was going on and, you know, you’d follow what was happening and the different rumours and the matches and whatever. But I wouldn’t have classified myself as a supporter because I wasn’t going to games... maybe once a year I’d get to Old Trafford.
“I think it’s the same in Kerry. We’ve an awful lot of people that are absolutely fanatical about the game and they know everything about the team and what’s going on and they watch the games but a lot of the games they watch on TV, I don’t think they actually go to games, so I would say there’s a difference between the supporters and followers because, to me, if you’re supporting the team, you go to matches and you support them through thick and thin.”
The Kerry selection process
Some of Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s selections during his tenure received criticism from both ‘followers’ and ‘supporters’ and, while he accepts the manager takes the blame, he shed some light on the dynamic between him and his management teams:
“I think it was very much a collaborative effort and it has to be” he explains.
“When you’re the boss, the buck stops with you. We’d all very much feed into everything we were doing. We’d debates, we’d plenty of disagreements, plenty of arguments, I would be very open-minded and I would be open to persuasion in certain directions, but at the end of the day, when a call has to be made, if we aren’t unanimous, I’d make that call and we all go with that then and that’s the way we’ve always operated
“There’s been plenty of good ideas from the other lads down the years as well. I’ve had good ideas, I’ve had bad ideas, the lads have had bad ideas and that’s the nature of management”
Who was the most awkward selector he worked with?
“They all have their moments to be honest. When you’re looking at the fellahs that I worked with, they all come across so nice.
“Mikey (Sheehy) knows his mind, Maurice Fitz knows his mind... (Liam Hassett) certainly knows his mind. Diarmuid (Murphy), Cian O’Neill, all of the lads that have been involved. Padraig Corcoran would be very strong-willed as well. But that’s the way a selector has to be, you don’t want someone there who’s just sitting down and agreeing with everything you’re saying. You need people that are going to disagree, debate.”
Referees need help
When it comes to the future of the elite game, Fitzmaurice reckons a second referee needs to be appointed to matches.
"Referees need help. The game has become so quick and there is so much going on off the ball. By the way, I'm not saying we're whiter than white in that regard, we're not. You push the limits to whatever you have to do yourself.
"I think we need a second referee. I know the minute that's mooted the GAA say, 'Oh, we've two linesmen on either side of him' but the linesmen can give a certain amount of help but often times, what's forgotten, is they're rivals of the referee other than on matchday. They want to be inside in the middle themselves.
"If a fella is out in the middle of the field and he's making a bit of a hash of the game. It would be human for the fellas on the side to be saying, 'Jesus, I might have a better chance of getting a big game down the line'.”
Will the kids be alright?
Kerry fans have been salivating at the idea that a dominant period is just around the corner once more. Fitzmaurice knows there’s a lot of talent in the county, but did preach caution:
“I think as a county we’ve probably oversold the minor success a small bit. The minor success is fantastic and, you know, it’s brilliant for those players to win minor All-Irelands. But it doesn’t automatically transfer to senior success and it doesn’t automatically transfer from being a good minor to being a good senior, there’s a lot of development to go on in the meantime.
“It takes time, but there are a lot of very good players, a lot of very good players coming through. They’re great lads, they’re very level-headed, they’re ambitious and they want to play for Kerry and they will.”
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