THERE was no better feeling than letting your feet sink into the sponge-like grass of Maginn Park on a sunny afternoon in summer.
Its surface was like no other. The square, wooden goalposts were another memorable feature of the pitch.
In the mind’s eye, the grass, the posts and the open-planned changing rooms remain as vivid all these years later.
Organiser Willie O’Donnell always offered a warm, jovial welcome to the Belfast teams who’d made the long journey to play in the Buncrana Cup – if only to compensate for the slightly cooler reception they got from match officials on any given Sunday.
This was the mid-80s, when summer football competitions and the great outdoors were the whole rage.
Irish League players were always banned by their clubs from playing in the Buncrana Cup – but they paid no heed.
My father’s summer team was called Oldpark Celtic – a mixture of Ashton Gate and Cromac Albion players and a few notable guests.
In 1986, they finally got their hands on the coveted trophy and the £1000 prize money.
After beating Strabane Celtic 2-1 in the final, the pubs in the main street of the town never had it so good.
Those summer Sundays up in Inishowen were the start of it for me.
As a kid, there was nothing better to do with your time than stand on the edges of Maginn Park and watch your father’s team win more than they lost.
To play in the Buncrana Cup was the highest sporting honour.
I was 17 when I got to play on Maginn Park, a couple of years before the summer competition ran out of steam and closed its doors.
Built like a jockey’s whip, I did okay before being subbed off after about an hour. We wore an all-white kit with short sleeves and red numbered jerseys.
We lost the match, but it was still an exhilarating experience – one I’ll never forget.
If you’re brought to games as a kid, it’s there the first inklings of a sporting passion are formed.
It’s even better if your family is involved in the team.
My childhood memories are littered with moments and sounds from the football field.
Standing behind the goal under the fading light and the sound of the ball hitting the net up on the Glen Road in 1985 – from Sean O’Kane’s fateful left boot – the ensuing moment of silence before the crowd realised Cromac Albion had scored and duly erupted.
Behind one of the goals up in Cross & Passion school, there was a steep hill. It would take forever to retrieve the ball – so my father would send me round there with a couple of balls if his team were trailing.
It meant their opponents couldn’t waste time as I’d throw a ball on and retrieve the other that was rolling down the hill at a rate of knots.
As a kid, I felt I was contributing to the team’s effort.
To this day, I could still find the exact spot where I stood the night Cromac Albion won their first-ever Amateur League Division 1A title.
With time running out, I can see ‘Mousey’ Irvine jumping like a salmon at the back post and heading the ball across goal.
At the time I thought the ball was running out of play, but O’Kane was so sharp and hammered the ball into the roof of the net from about six yards out.
Maybe a child’s emotions are exaggerated - but that night, that memory, that feeling, and sense of achievement will never be eclipsed.
When I was old enough, I had just about enough talent to play for Cromac Albion, to play with my heroes.
Because that’s exactly what they were to me. Giants of men.
When Cromac Albion folded in 1991, I still had a vast canyon of my playing career in front of me.
I played for numerous teams for the next dozen years or more - but I never felt the umbilical pull that Ashton Gate or Cromac Albion conjured in me. My father’s teams.
All these emotions were running through my head when I was at pitch-side at a floodlit Croke Park last Sunday evening, seeing the beaming smiles and tears of joy among so many Cullyhanna people following their first-ever All-Ireland intermediate triumph.
This is what the Promised Land looks like on a cold January day.
And there was Stephen Reel, the Cullyhanna manager, fetching his five children who were at the foot of the Hogan stand. Living and sharing the moment.
In the lead-up to last Sunday’s final, I sat with Reel and Ciaran McKeever for a couple of hours in the clubrooms.
Asked what this season would do for the south Armagh club, McKeever said: “You’re hoping that it’ll give the younger ones belief, that Cullyhanna can win.
“That’s the big thing. We can appreciate now what ‘Cross have done all those years and how they sustained that. And how they sustained it was they kept winning.
“Their younger players coming through believe: ‘We are Cross’, and have been brought up on that winning culture, and we’re hoping that seeps through to our youth at the present minute.”
There is no purer prism to gaze through than a child’s eyes.
What the players and management of Cullyhanna did last Sunday - and indeed throughout this season’s unforgettable journey - was light the fire among their youth.
Watching from the awesome surroundings of Hogan stand, they’ll forever remember how they felt when Aidan Nugent hammered the ball into the roof of Cill na Martra’s net in the first half.
They’ll forever remember Shea Hoey’s shot on the run and him turning to the stand to share the moment with them.
They’ll forever remember the look on Pearse Casey’s face when he lifted the cup.
From that day on, they will want to emulate their heroes. Because that’s exactly what they are to Cullyhanna’s next generation.
And as they grow, they will all understand the umbilical pull of the club.
Nothing in this world compares to it. Absolutely nothing…
