Sport

Kenny Archer: Don't stop believing: When the drought ends there can come a flood

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Kilcoo players celebrate their Down senior final win over Warrenpoint on Sunday 13 Oct 2019 at Newry. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.
Kilcoo players celebrate their Down senior final win over Warrenpoint on Sunday 13 Oct 2019 at Newry. Picture by Cliff Donaldson. Kilcoo players celebrate their Down senior final win over Warrenpoint on Sunday 13 Oct 2019 at Newry. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.

AS we play the waiting game of waiting for a game, methods of passing the time become more important than passing a ball.

The comic exercise of being sent off for a long weight has long worn off.

History is all we have at the moment, and the record books can put into perspective our current waits of weeks and months, at least in terms of waiting for silverware.

For all the vaunted competitiveness of Ulster football, more than half the province’s counties haven’t won the Anglo-Celt Cup in more than 20 years.

Fermanagh folk are still waiting for their first, although at least they did reach the final as recently as 2018.

Antrim are getting on for 70 years since they were provincial football champions, with their last triumph coming in 1951. That was the same year when Mayo last lifted ‘Sam’, although at least the westerners have had plenty of provincial success and All-Ireland Final appearances.

A force in Ulster in the early part of the 20th century, the Saffrons also had to wait 33 years for provincial titles between 1913 and 1946. There’s little doubt that the traumas and troubles prompted by politics and division have adversely affected Antrim’s ability to make the most of Belfast’s potential playing population.

Down and Cavan, Ulster’s joint most successful counties on the All-Ireland stage with five apiece, haven’t even been the best in the province since 1994 and 1997 respectively.

Derry, despite the undoubted talent abounding on their club front, last won the Anglo-Celt way back in 1998.

The lesson is that nothing should be taken for granted, certainly not success.

On the club football front, many of those at or near the top of their particular tree have been hanging around waiting to get back onto the winners’ podium.

Two-thirds of the footballing top dogs in the Ulster counties have gone at least 15 years since their last county crown.

Coincidentally, three famous clubs all won their last county football titles in 2005, namely Bellaghy (Derry), Carrickmore (Tyrone), and Teemore (Fermanagh).

The Shamrocks had bridged a 22-year gap in the Erne County for that last win, with 10 of their 21 titles actually coming before the end of the First World War, so the droughts for Bellaghy and Carrickmore are much more remarkable.

Bellaghy are also on 21 titles, but although their last came after a five-year gap it also came after a ‘hat-trick’ completed in 2000, which was also the fourth in five seasons.

Carrickmore made it back-to-back titles in 2005, following on from wins in 1995, 1996, 1999, and 2001, so the present absence of senior success is surely something of a surprise. Then again, older heads may recall the 16-year gap after the win in 1979.

Success can come in cycles, and the generation game may bring the big prizes rolling around again to proud clubs such as Bellaghy and Carrickmore. It may be some consolation to Bellaghy that their nearest rivals on the Oak Leaf county roll of honour, Ballinderry, are ‘only’ on 13, with five of those won since the Tone’s last rang out the tunes of glory.

Castleblayney could be a place where the wait hurts the most, even though they still have more Monaghan SFC titles than the next two clubs (Scotstown and Clontibret) put together.

Yet it’s almost 17 years since the Faughs won their 37th title, which had them on top not only in their own county but overall in Ulster. While their fellow north Monaghan clubs took over, another nearby outfit bypassed them on that provincial roll of honour, namely Crossmaglen Rangers. The men in black and amber have added 13 more Armagh titles since that 2003 season, taking their tally to an amazing 45.

The early kings of Ulster, at least in an unofficial capacity, St John’s of Belfast are still the leaders of Antrim football, but their 24th title came in the previous millennium, back in 1998. St Gall’s, who appeared unstoppable for a time, with 13 titles since then, are still waiting to move onto number 20.

Cavan’s club scene ‘boasts’ the longest wait.

Cornafean are still well clear on 20 titles, above the 14 of Cavan Gaels, despite not triumphing since 1956. That was the same year as the last of the 10 titles won by Dungannon Clarke’s in Tyrone; even now, only Carrickmore are above them, with near neighbours Coalisland on level pegging.

In Antrim hurling, Ballycastle are another town team to have suffered the fate of the wait, with their last win back in 1986; they’ve since been overtaken at the top by Loughgiel over the last decade.

The wait since 2011 for Kevin Lynch’s, Dungiven in Derry is a mere blink of the eye in comparison.

Only in Down hurling is three years regarded as a long stretch.

For all those clubs dreaming wistfully of ‘When we were kings’, though: consider Kilcoo.

When the drought ends there can come a flood.

The Magpies dominated Down football in the Twenties and Thirties, so much so that they’d won nine titles by 1937, more than Bryansford, Burren, Castlewellan, Clonduff, Mayobridge put together by that time.

Then…nothing.

For decade upon decade.

Seventy-two years in fact.

Yet a decade after they ended their long wait (in 2009), Kilcoo became Ulster Champions, having won seven more Down crowns in this decade, including six in a row, to take them back to the top of the tree above the mighty Burren.

Don’t stop believing.

The internet tells me that William Butler Yeats wrote these words:

‘Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.’

In other, less poetic words: Keep hammering away.

* Oh, and keep your distance and keep washing your hands.