Former Derry player John McGuinness will be at Wembley on Sunday evening hoping to see his son Mark make his debut for the Republic of Ireland. An Ireland and England international at bowls, John’s eldest son Tom is currently playing for England. The Limavady native told his family’s remarkable sporting story to Andy Watters…
THE pride he must have felt when he ran out onto that pitch.
It’s a while ago now, but John McGuinness remembers pulling on the jersey for the first time.
His club was new and the strip was fresh when John and his friends from Limavady took the field for the Wolfhounds’ first U16 game.
Growing up in Limavady, county Derry, Gaelic Football’s hammer-and-tongs physicality and the more gentle pursuit of lawn bowls were the contrasting passions of John’s sporting life and he excelled in both.
The Limavady Wolfhounds club was founded in 1980 and he was part of the first batch of youngsters to come through from underage and represent the club at senior level.
Despite vociferous protests from Loyalist circles and a sustained campaign of anti-GAA vandalism, the Limavady club took root after it moved from it’s early base at St Mary’s school to its current grounds.
“We were just starting out then,” says John.
“We had no changing rooms or anything, we just changed in the car. But we had some really good players.”
In 1985, just five years after their formation, Limavady won the Derry junior league and championship and Neil Carlin Cup treble. By then John’s talent had been spotted by the Derry selectors and he lined out for the Oak Leaf county from minor to senior level.
“I have an Ulster U21 medal,” he says proudly from his home in Slough, near London.
“I was one of the first players from the club to play for Derry. Me and Damian Hasson – we called him ‘Hatchet’ – played minor together under the late, great Eamonn Coleman, what a manager he was.
“I played U21 with the likes of Damian Cassidy and Dermot McNicholl who were instrumental in building that Derry side that went on to win the All-Ireland.”
John played an entire season in the National League with Derry as a teenager, but by the time Henry Downey was lifting the Sam Maguire at Croke Park in 1993 he was settled in England. He’d left for London to study sports science at Brunel University aged 19.
“I did try to play a bit of Gaelic over here in London but I got drawn into playing soccer for the university team,” says John.
As we chat two things happen: His Derry accent gets thicker and you realise how sporting success has followed him throughout his life. It turned out he was pretty handy at soccer too - Brunel won the British Colleges’ Cup three years’ in-a-row with him in the team.
“Och, I guess there’s a little bit of sporting/football background in me but I’ll be honest, I was never really any good,” he says, far too modestly.
He met his Yorkshire-born wife Suzanne at university. Suzanne is also a sports science graduate and, like him, a natural sporting talent. She excelled at hockey and cricket (her father Colin Bainbridge played cricket at first class level) and was also a talented athlete and high jumper.
At six foot, she’s the same height as John and their three sons – Tom, Mark and Sean - inherited their height. And their passion and talent for sport.
MIDDLE son Mark is hoping to make his debut for the Republic of Ireland against England on Sunday evening.
As a youngster Mark was a gifted tennis player and golfer. He was scouted by Arsenal and offered a place at their academy at the age of 10 and since then soccer has been his main focus.
He excelled under the tutelage of Gunners’ legend and Academy head Liam Brady, the former Republic of Ireland midfield star, and then former German international Per Mertesacker.
“Mark played U15 for England,” John explains.
“It was through the Arsenal Academy with England scouts coming in and all the rest and he played a number of games for them.
“He got a pretty nasty injury playing against Turkey and then, sadly, he was kind of overlooked for a while. He wasn’t able to play and other people came in so England took a back seat.
“Mark was highly rated at Arsenal – he still is highly rated of course – and Liam Brady was running the Academy at that time. We got on really well with Liam and still keep in touch with him and he let Republic scout Mark O’Toole know that Mark was eligible to play for Ireland and Mark was instrumental in recruiting Mark into the Republic U19 squad.
“Northern Ireland have made some strong approaches since that time but Mark has played up through all the age groups for the Republic so he has a real loyalty there.
“He likes the people, he was brought up in England and he gets his Irishness through me but he loves the idea of playing for Ireland. He’s passionate about it and since he’s been involved in the youth teams he’s never had any other ambition other than to represent the Republic of Ireland.”
Mark came through the Arsenal youth ranks with the likes of future England internationals Bukaya Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe. At underage level with the Republic his teammates included Evan Ferguson, Nathan Collins and Will Smallbone who have already graduated to senior level with the Boys in Green.
The now Luton Town centre-half’s first senior call-up came in the October international window for the trips to Finland and Greece but an ankle injury meant he had to withdraw from the squad.
“He was gutted,” says John.
“These things happen but he was disappointed at the time. I told him: ‘You’ll get another opportunity’ and it has come pretty quickly.
“He is really chuffed to be picked but he knows he’s there for a reason for that. He’ll bring qualities that should help that squad and he’s really looking forward to that.
“Like anything in life, when you get an opportunity you want to go out and grab it with both hands and go out and deliver. Hopefully he gets that opportunity and even if he doesn’t get on, then being around the squad and training and all of that bodes well for him contributing in the future.”
McGuinness stands a shade over 6′4″ so with his physical strength, good feet, range of passing, reading of the game and potent threat from set pieces he offers plenty to the Republic camp. Manager Heimar Hallgrimmson identified that and included him in his second squad after taking over the Boys in Green from interim boss John O’Shea.
“He has his head screwed on and his feet on the ground,” says John.
“He’s a hard worker, he realises he’s fortunate to be where he is.
“He’s got talent but he works incredibly hard and he has been successful everywhere he has gone because of that work ethic he’s got.
“In sport and football it never is plain-sailing, there’s always setbacks and things that knock you back but Mark has always been able to dust himself down and get up again and reach even higher.”
ALL three of the McGuinness lads play football and the youngest Sean (20), an apprentice surveyor and also a centre-half, scored a hat-trick for his semi-pro team Virginia Water FC in the London leagues last weekend.
Meanwhile Tom, the eldest, is currently making waves in lawn bowls. At present he’s in Hong Kong playing in an international tournament for England.
That means John is in a remarkable position this weekend: One son is playing for England, the other hopes to be playing against England.
You don’t have to do much digging to see where Tom gets his bowling talent from. John played for Ireland from the age of 18 and won a couple of Ireland U25 titles but when he moved to England he gave up the game for 10 years.
“Football and university and everything else got in the way,” he explained.
“Then I was back home in Limavady one Christmas and in the pub having a pint, as you do, and somebody asked about bowls and I thought: ‘Maybe I should start again’.”
He picked up from where he’d left off and took up the sport again in the mid-1990s.
Within five years he had won a national title, had been picked to play for England and continued to play for the country for 20 years including a stint as team captain.
The highlight was a silver medal in the fours competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
“I would have preferred to continue to play for Ireland if I had been given that opportunity but it was never an option,” he explains.
“When I was given the opportunity to play for England I told people: ‘I’m not going to get all patriotic’ but it was a great honour to play international sport and I didn’t need any other motivation other than to play for my own personal pride and my team-mates.
“They have adopted me quite well in England even though I get a bit of stick from time to time.”
His success wasn’t confined to the green either. He became Bowls England’s first ever High Performance Director and at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 the England bowlers achieved their country’s highest-ever medal haul in men’s, women’s and paralympic teams.
Meanwhile, Tom – who works for Premier League football club Brentford (the club he supports) as operations manager - has inherited his talent and is in his third year as an international. He is hoping to be selected for the next Commonwealth Games which is ‘the big one’ in bowling circles.
“All the boys play bowls,” John, who has stepped away from the international level, explains.
“Mark has represented Buckinghamshire U25s in bowls! He was quite handy and he would still go down and have a roll-up on a Friday night or whenever he’s got a bit of time for a bit of relaxation with his mates and Tom’s mates.
“Tom played football as well, he still plays, but he started to play bowls seriously a few years ago. Me and him won some national titles together and we both played for England in a British Isles event.
“We didn’t play with each other but we were in the same team.”
OTHER branches of the remarkable McGuinness family are better known for art and/or music. John’s oldest brother Martin is an acclaimed musician as are his nephews Dominic and Eugene of Eugene + The Lizards fame.
That artistic side has rubbed off on footballer Mark who enjoys playing piano and guitar as a “switch-off” from football.
“When you talk about relaxing and getting my mind off football, music is probably the biggest part of that for me,” says the Luton Town centre-half.
“I think it’s the most important thing to have some sort of a release. Football is very demanding, it’s very full-on. It can be tough, there are ups and downs so to have something to go home to and relax and switch off is probably the most important thing for any player.”
Republic of Ireland manager Hallgrimmson used five substitutes in the 1-0 win against Finland on Thursday night but Mark McGuinness wasn’t among them. He’ll hope to get a game on Sunday evening and where better to make your international debut than against England, at Wembley.
“Representing your country in any sport or anything else is an amazing achievement,” says John.
“The manager is new, he’s getting to know the players and they’re building towards the European Championships on home soil in four years’ time and the next World Cup but hopefully Mark gets a game.
“I don’t know how they’re going to use him but I’d like to think that they give him the little bit of experience that he needs.
“We’re all – everybody at home in Derry and all my wife’s family in Yorkshire – delighted for him and it would be great for him to get a game.”
The pride he’ll feel when he sees his son run out onto that pitch…