Football

John Finucane determined that Lámh Dhearg will meet the Ulster Club challenge head on

Lamh Dhearg celebrate their final win over St John's last Sunday
Lamh Dhearg celebrate their final win over St John's last Sunday Lamh Dhearg celebrate their final win over St John's last Sunday

CHAMPIONSHIP-winning captain.

Of all the things that John Finucane is, that’s right up there now.

It has been a long road for the Lámh Dhearg goalkeeper, who guided his team from their final whistle celebrations in the bottom corner to the head of Glenavy’s pitch with semi-impatience.

There’s a trophy sitting glistening as it awaits its new captor, one whose name would only have been found twice on its plinth, and not at all for 46 years.

As he sits in his Castle Street office in the heart of north Belfast two days after the event, he is only just down off the clouds.

Sunday night, it was straight back to the club where he followed in the time-honoured tradition of lighting a beacon, an act that caused more fret than anything he had to do earlier in the day.

“They asked me to stick my hand in and light it, and didn’t tell me there was half a gallon of petrol over the whole thing. I nearly lost the hand,” he smiles.

It’s an emotional night. The players, as is usually the way, let some of it go over their heads. It’s usually the generations that have gone before who feel it the deepest.

“However many people you could fit into the club, there was probably double that.

“No matter where you looked, people were smiling or crying, just absolutely buzzing. We stayed there until maybe 3 or 4 before the last person was kicked out. It was some night.

“It’s still only sinking in a wee bit. We won it in ’92 but there wasn’t a final that year, so we got out of a semi-final and were given the trophy. The last time the club won it was 1971.

“It probably means more to other people in the club than it does the players. The emotion you saw, there’s people crying in the club all Sunday night, I just couldn’t believe my luck that I was able to go and lift the cup.

“I’d say it was easily my greatest GAA memory so far. Hopefully there’s more to come.”

He is 37 now and it’s been a busy summer.

Most days would be hectic enough for the head of a law firm but his office is an oasis of calm that you don’t expect. There looks to be organised chaos in the files at his back and there is little that stands out beyond the framed picture to his right.

‘The Pat Finucane Inquiry’ is the heading and it contains an image of his father along with the list of names of lawyers supporting the appeal for a judicial inquiry into his savage murder 28 years ago.

That is a constant battle that his family fights but it is far from all that John is now. He followed his father into the legal profession and this summer past, he delved deep into politics too.

A surprise nomination by Sinn Féin for the north Belfast seat in the Westminster elections, he almost brought down a trademark unionist stronghold. He increased the party’s vote by almost 8 per cent and came within 2,000 votes of unseating Nigel Dodds.

The night before voters went to the polls, he was back hanging up against the post in Hannahstown, umpiring as he nursed a dodgy shoulder he’d hurt a few weeks previous against Creggan.

The Wednesday night result went his way and while the Thursday one didn’t quite, it’s another part of who he is now, for he is sure that he’ll revisit the idea next time around.

It’s a serious business, just as his football is, but they’re still at opposite ends of the spectrum. And football keeps life in perspective just as much as the other way around.

“You’re coming out of a serious trial or a police station, you’re running to training and you just wouldn’t get away with talking about anything serious like that in our changing room. You’d be absolutely cut to pieces.

“There’s something in the water at that club. They’re not wise. The craic’s unbelievable.

“I don’t think I could function without it. I dread to think what I’ll be like when I do have to hang them up eventually.

“Why would you want to be doing anything else when you have days like Sunday, or still training in October for an Ulster championship?

“Football’s there to be taken seriously if you want to win championships, but you can also become obsessed with it that you can take the enjoyment out of it. It has to be enjoyed.

“I’ve been in finals where they pass you by and you forget you’re going out to enjoy the game. The last thing we were told before we went out on the pitch on Sunday was to enjoy it.”

It looked a couple of years ago when he drew the curtains on inter-county football. He had not only been in a battle with Chris Kerr for the number one shirt, but he’d been fighting his own body as well.

Knee and hip injuries eventually took their toll and when championship time came around, he was again sidelined.

His inter-county career was one of frustration, both at trying to budge the door down on Sean McGreevy and those injuries that prevented him from properly emulating the man he registered as his childhood GAA hero.

He had been an Antrim minor back in 1997 and ’98 but they ran into Tyrone in consecutive Ulster finals, a Red Hand side whose starting midfield was Kevin Hughes and Cormac McAnallen. Fifteen years on, he’d had enough.

His club future looked in jeopardy too but the work of Paul McCormack helped rehabilitate him, and winter training around the corner with former professional boxer Damien Denny was enough to keep him in sufficient trim.

“You’re 37, you can’t let that slack. You need a degree of fitness before pre-season or you’re just playing catch-up for the rest of the season.”

That was emboldened again this year with the introduction of Mike McGurn to the Lámh Dhearg setup.

Finucane was one of those who had five times been repelled in county finals prior to the two-point win over west Belfast rivals St John’s. A sixth loss might have been one too many.

“If we hadn’t won on Sunday, I don’t know if I’d have went back. It would have been devastating.

“In the older group, Brendan McComb, Paddy [Cunningham], Micko [Herron], Christopher Nolan, there’s boys there who are setting standards for the young ones.

“Whether it’s the way you conduct yourself, your standards at training, the way you look after yourself, the way you approach league football and championship football.

“It’s something that has been hammered home to us, you’re lucky enough to wear that jersey now but you have to leave it in a better position than when you found it.”

That mountain has been scaled but there’s always a bigger one on the far side. A visit to Breffni Park to face the re-coronated Cavan Gaels is the first step on a very open looking road.

On that side of the draw, the combined wait for county titles prior to two weeks ago was 99 years. Kilcar and Armagh Harps have had long waits of their own.

To reach an Ulster final could be a battle of mindsets as much as anything.

And John Finucane is determined that Lámh Dhearg will meet the challenge head on.

“We enjoyed Sunday and we had boys out on Monday but for me, that’s the end of it.

“For a club that’s come out of their county after a long time, there’s a trap you can fall into where we’re just happy to be here.

“I don’t want to be a team of tourists going down to Breffni and taking selfies. It’s a championship match and I want to approach it the way we did St Paul’s, St Gall’s, Creggan and St John’s. I want to be going and winning.”

A winner. That’s what John Finucane is.