As is the way of embarrassing episodes, they have a habit of coming out in the wash.
t was in late July 2009 when Cavan PRO Mark Gillick dropped the bomb during an interview with the Northern Sound radio station; a number of Cavan players had been at the Oxegen music festival the night before a qualifier game against Wicklow – one they lost 1-12 to 0-8.
Naturally, the players hadn’t relayed their appointment to then-manager Tommy Carr. But there was widespread panic at how things had got so bad. Cavan had barely survived in Division Three and were beaten in the Championship by two Division Four teams, Antrim and now Wicklow.
And lads were running around Punchestown watching Blur and Snow Patrol the night before a game? What would Mick Higgins or Hughie Reilly make of it all?
Carr survived a vote of no confidence at a county board meeting but it was only delaying the inevitable. The following year Fermanagh knocked them out of Ulster at the first hurdle, and in round two Cork horsed them out of the All-Ireland by 18 points.
Exit Tommy Carr. In his place came another Dub, Val Andrews, in partnership with Terry Hyland. And within 18 months that experiment was in tatters, an unhappy arranged marriage coming to a miserable end, with Andrews stepping down five weeks before they faced Donegal in the Championship.
It’s tempting to say now and it would provide neat symmetry a decade on, but there’s a case to be made that Cavan football was in its very lowest place 10 years ago.
Finbar O’Reilly was floating around the panel a number of those years and, looking back now, the Oxegen episode summed the whole thing up.
“That was symptomatic of the culture that was in existence at that time. It wasn’t a winning culture, not a winning dressing room, and the results back that up in that you could have a good win and go out in a fortnight’s time and lose,” he explained.
“There was no consistency, no form whatsoever. Players were coming and going, managers were coming and going; it was a dark time, it really was.”
In all that dark, there was still the chink that let the light in. On the evening the news of Andrews’ departure broke, the Cavan Under-21s were in Brewster Park, beating Tyrone 1-10 to 0-10 in the Ulster final.
Hyland was their manager, and joint manager of the seniors. Knowing that a raft of young talent was on its way gave him the backing to make changes.
“It’s difficult to pinpoint who was to blame,” said O’Reilly of that time.
“Was it a collective thing? It can be easy to just blame a manager.
“Maybe the manager wasn’t strong enough or imposing a strong enough culture or dressing room discipline throughout the squad.
“The only way to change that is in the dressing room and on the training field and setting high standards. And at that time, it wasn’t present.”
While Mickey Graham’s prime playing years were spent collecting Cavan senior Championships with Cavan Gaels, he was also hungry for titles on the sidelines.
When in his mid-20s, he managed neighbouring Butlersbridge to a junior Championship. A couple of years after that, he brought Drumalee to an intermediate crown.
He was at Clonguish in Longford for two different spells, and when the second term ended, a man in Mullinalaghta was intrigued.
John Keegan was the club chairman at the time and as a member of Cavan Golf Club had heard many good things. He went after him.
Drawing their players from half a parish of just 400 souls, Mullinalaghta hadn’t won a Longford title since 1950. But that wasn’t even Graham’s target when he took over.
“He was able to get into fellas’ heads and make them believe that we were good enough to win a Championship and, more than that, we were good enough to win a Leinster,” said Keegan.
“I’ll be honest with you now, quietly we would have laughed at the idea when he started.
“I suppose it was an aspiration. But he believed it could happen with a favourable wind.”
And on the second Sunday in December 2018, that wind blew just right. Mullinalaghta shocked Dublin champions Kilmacud Crokes in the Leinster club football final, scoring 1-2 in the last five minutes to snatch the game.
“Before, we would have been expecting to come up second best. He would have changed that. It was his biggest attribute,” Keegan stated.
Graham’s first year with Cavan was rough; a relegation from Division One followed by a crushing Ulster final loss and a heavy qualifiers defeat to Tyrone.
The trajectory looked even worse when they fell through the Division Two trapdoor this year and found themselves seven points down to Monaghan in the Ulster preliminary round.
But that was before one of the most unlikely Championships ever.
They laughed at him when he suggested Mullinalaghta could beat the cream of Dublin. Ahead of facing the Dubs in the All-Ireland semi, nobody is laughing.
dublin v cavan
Croke Park, Today, 5.30pm
