Joe Brolly has launched another foul-mouthed attack following the appointment of Mickey Harte as Derry GAA manager.
The controversial GAA pundit has described the Derry County Board as a "caravan of fools" as he criticised its decision to select Harte as the new boss.
It comes just weeks after he said Harte's appointment was “the worst thing to happen to Derry since the famine" and vowed not to attend games.
Harte stepped down as Louth senior football manager last month and was soon unveiled as the new Derry boss.
For almost two decades, Harte had managed Derry's rivals Tyrone and guided the county to three All-Ireland titles.
But in his latest verbal attack during his no-holds barred podcast Free State alongside Dion Fanning, Brolly said Harte is "a stranger to us, and he shouldn't be near us".
Speaking to former Dublin manager Pat Gilroy about the idea of loyalty in the GAA, Brolly launched into his own reasoning about why the ex-Tyrone boss should not take over the helm in Derry.
Read more:
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- Kenny Archer: Mickey Harte crossing the Rubicon from Tyrone to Derry
- Louth chairman Fitzpatrick 'heartbroken' by departure of Mickey Harte
- Joe Brolly back with a new podcast
"The Derry board is squandering all our inheritance, all our Derryness, all our Bellaghy-ness, our Dungiven-ness, our Slaughtneil-ness...all the things that we laboured for for our community," he told the podcast.
"He's a stranger to us, and he shouldn't be near us.
"The Derry board is a caravan of fools. F*** them and f*** Mickey Harte."
During an often emotional speech, Brolly looked back on the county's past, including the devastation following the deaths of manager Eamonn Coleman and wing-back Colm McGurk.
Brolly, a member of Derry's one and only All-Ireland winning team, also spoke about why he believed an outside manager could not understand the grief experienced in the county.
"I'm 54 now, I look back at my life and it's not about the winning or the losing," he said.
"The core of it all is loyalty, was loyalty.
"I think of shouldering Eamonn Coleman's coffin, tears running down my face.
"I think of sitting freezing in Navan watching Derry playing Meath in a league game, with Eamonn, when his life was ebbing away and he was very frail.
"Wearing his wee woolie hat. Savouring that time we were having together.
"Or our beloved comrade Collie McGurk. Lavey, Derry to the core.
A very personal & special episode of Free State this Tuesday, where I remember our fallen comrades Eamonn Coleman & Colm McGurk, & the night Colm had Seamus Heaney laughing his head off at Lavey Dungiven stories. Free State: Mickey Harte & the caravan of fools. Out Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/P6K90OgTqA
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) October 2, 2023
"I was coming away from a Derry match in Croke Park whenever Johnny [McGurk] rang me to say - I can still feel my heart sinking - 'Collie's not going to make it'.
"I couldn't believe it. What do you mean he's not going to make it?
"All of us there at Collie's wake, and at his funeral, the guard of honour, all wearing our Derry blazers.
"I think of Séamus Heaney laughing his head off, Collie telling him stories about Dungiven and Lavey's great battles...the great Derry poet giggling as Collie showed him his four broken fingers that he got hurling against Dungiven.
"We've had to suffer... All the ups and downs of life together. It's all about the deep heart's core."
