IT was the Friday night that put the seal on it for Johnny Magee. Along with friend and former team-mate Pat Burke jr, joint manager Magee had helped guide Kilmacud to a first Dublin title in eight years.
Going into the 2018 Leinster championship, the southsiders were favourites for the Sean McCabe Cup. With a side boasting defensive stalwart Cian O’Sullivan and marquee forward Paul Mannion – both key cogs in Dublin’s relentless All-Ireland dominance – many were quick to designate them challengers-in-chief to a tasty looking Corofin side.
After navigating their way to the provincial decider, Croke’s were as short as 1/14 in places going in against unfancied Longford champions Mullinaghta. Mickey Graham’s minnows had no chance, or so we were told.
What unfolded at Offaly’s O’Connor Park that December day has since become the stuff of legend. Trailing by three with four minutes to go, Mullinaghta looked dead and buried. The plucky underdogs had given plenty but couldn’t last the pace.
That was until they landed 1-2 in the space of five minutes to pull off the most unlikely of comebacks, securing one of the biggest upsets in recent memory. Thus, the miracle of Mullinaghta was born.
Five days later, still in a state of shock, Magee sat down on the couch to watch the Late, Late Show. All week the papers and social media had been full of it. And there, on the screen feet from his face, was Ryan Tubridy offering another unwelcome reminder.
“Every day there was something about Mullinaghta, in the papers or whatever, then the Late, Late that Friday night… I bounced the remote controller off the bleedin’ telly.
“When you’re beaten you want to get into that cocoon and wrap yourself up, you don’t want to read a paper, and I felt really bad for the lads because you couldn’t get away from it.
“It was all-consuming, and I mean I felt sick for the guts of two or three months. I still feel sick about it.”
In the lead up to Saturday’s All-Ireland club decider between Kilmacud and Kilcoo, much of the focus has been on the hurt the Magpies must have stored up from their All-Ireland final defeat to Corofin two years ago. How that can drive them across the line this time.
But Kilcoo don’t have the monopoly on pain. Across his club and county career, Magee has seen all sides – the good, the bad and the ugly. And he knows better than most how one feeds from the other.
When Magee first came into the Croke’s senior panel in 1996, they were reigning All-Ireland club champions. Even though they had played no part, Magee and Ray Cosgrove were brought on the team holiday to Tenerife.
“Two young bucks,” he laughs.
“Pat Duggan, a Croke’s man, was Dublin minor manager at the time, he was on the trip as well - my mother gave instructions to a few of the older lads to make sure an keep an eye out.
“But it was gas. You couldn’t believe you were there.”
Yet any notions Magee and Cosgrove might have had that this was how it would always be ebbed away as the years rolled by. With elder statesmen gradually stepping away from the stage, a new team emerged, of which Magee and Cosgrove would become the standard-bearers.
“Men like Pat Burke sr, Mick Dillon, Niall Clancy, Paddy O’Donoghue, Mick Pender, the late Seamus Morris, John Sweeney, they laid down the law of what was expected to be a senior player for Kilmacud.
“We carried the mantle and we imposed those standards on the likes of my brother Darren, Paul Griffin... they had their own standards as well, but it was a culture passed down.”
It wasn’t until St Patrick’s Day in 2009, though, that they would get back to an All-Ireland final. There had been three Dublin titles in between times, no mean feat in itself, and a Leinster crown in 2005, but that next step always eluded them.
“We went through a fair bit of hurt, similar to what this current group have. There was the Eire Og trilogy in the 1998 Leinster final, in 2006 we lost by a couple of points to Salthill in the All-Ireland semi-final.
“In 2007 we had played Vincent’s in the first round of the championship and beat them. We ended up playing them in the semi-final few weeks later, but even before that we’d met in the league and beat them well again.
“When the semi-final came around, in the warm-up, I knew we weren’t right. Sometimes you get that feeling in your gut. I said to ‘Cossie’ ‘we’re in trouble here’- they came out, were by far the better team on the day, turned us over and went and won Dublin, then Leinster, then the All-Ireland.
“That December, we met in a hotel and had a three hour meeting… there was a divide about the culture of what was expected. There was an issue with drink, and it was either six or eight weeks or nothing. Experienced lads like myself had learnt our lesson the hard way.
“We won the next year’s All-Ireland in that hotel that night. When Paddy’s Day came, I had organised a piss up for us in a city bar. We watched as Vincent’s went and won the thing, and every one of us said ‘that’s us in 12 months’.
“We had experienced the hurt of Salthill, of losing to Vincent’s and them going on to win the lot, the feeling of ‘that should be us’ - we had that big stick to hit ourselves with. At that point you realise ‘right, we have to grow up here’.”
The imposing figure of Crossmaglen stood in their way that St Patrick’s Day, with club captain Magee coming on in the latter stages to help the Croke’s across the line.
And Magee admits he sees some similarities between the former Armagh kingpins and Kilmacud’s opponents on Saturday.
“Thirteen years is a long time, too long in my opinion, for us to competing for an All-Ireland again. You don’t want to be leaving those big gaps.
“Kilcoo are probably slight favourites, Cross were overwhelming favourites against us, but we knew if we got Cross into Croke Park, we were going to exploit them for their pace.
“With both Kilcoo and Cross, you can see it’s club first, and I admire that. To me, it’s no coincidence when you look at Croke’s this year, it’s the first time in a long time we haven’t had two or three lads on the Dublin team.
“Cian O’Sullivan retired last season, Paul Mannion hasn’t been involved, Rory [O’Carroll] pulled away, we have two or three on the panel but there’s nobody actually putting their body on the line week in, week out at county level and then coming back spent.
“Lads are fresh, and you can see that benefit. It was very similar in ’09, there was very little disruption. For us this year it’s been a huge benefit, and you can see how that has stood to the likes of Cross and Kilcoo over the years.
“That’s a big thing when you’re trying to fulfil a dream. To win an All-Ireland title with your club, no-one can ever take that away from you. I dreamt of winning All-Irelands with Croke’s and Dublin, unfortunately it didn’t happen with Dublin but I captained my club to an All-Ireland final – I fulfilled my dream as a footballer. How many other people can say they did that?
“And that’s what the Kilmacud and the Kilcoo boys have in their hands now. At your club, they’re the guys you strive to be like. When I was growing up I wanted to be the next Pat Burke sr or Mick Dillon.
“Somebody like Conor Laverty, there’ll be guys coming up, looking at him, wanting to be like him and wanting to do what he has done for Kilcoo.
“I saw the video of the little kids from Kilcoo at the end of the game against the Barr’s… it was beautiful. You can see where the next generations are coming from, and days like these, they make such an impact.
“When Croke’s won their first county title in ’92, I was 12 or 13, getting on the bus, following them everywhere. I’m 43 now and I remember that day so clearly.
“Those little kids looking on last week, seeing their dad, their uncle, their cousin… that seed is sown and believe me, if we’re lucky enough to still be here in 15 years’ time, that video will come up and we’ll be talking about those boys again.”
Magee stepped away from the Croke’s management set-up at the end of last season, and rather than being on the line was roaring at the TV as they edged out Padraig Pearse’s to book an All-Ireland final return.
Yet, as the Magpies bid to bury memories of Corofin in Croke Park, Magee hopes Kilmacud – now managed by Robbie Brennan - still bear the scars inflicted by the miracle of Mullinaghta when they cross the white line on Saturday.
“Sports psychologists might tell you ‘ah, you can’t be holding onto negativity…’ Listen, most of the success I had as a club player came off the back of learning from the mistakes and the hurt of previous defeats.
“I remember talking to those lads after that Leinster final and saying ‘whatever you do, see the hurt that you’re feeling now? You f**king hold onto that hurt and you use it. It might not be next week or next year, but when it happens, when that day comes, you remember this day and never forget it’.
“Hopefully they will.”
