“I just love it and, until I don’t, I’ll stick at it”
Mickey Harte
THE sight of him wearing the Derry colours throws you momentarily but the great man is comfortable in his own skin and in great form.
A broad smile, a warm handshake.
“Good to see you,” says Mickey Harte.
In terms of dealing with the media, he got off to a flier.
Ony two managers showed up at the launch of the Dr McKenna Cup in Armagh just before Christmas and Harte – always a box office draw – is one of them.
He’s glad to be back in Ulster football and Ulster football is much more interesting with him in it. You have to admire his courage for breaking the conventional boundaries because, for years, Mickey Harte was Tyrone. Great players came and went but Harte rolled on and he’d still be there now if the Tyrone County Board hadn’t decided it was time for a change.
Louth snapped him up in a flash and he worked wonders in the ‘Wee County’. If he’d wanted he’d still be there, operating in that low pressure system where almost everything he did was an improvement on what had been there before.
But the lure of taking on this talented Derry side was too strong.
To be the best at anything you’ve got to want to reach the top and if he’d turned down the opportunity to manage genuine All-Ireland contenders wouldn’t that be a signal that he’d lost his hunger for success and his appetite for a challenge?
He couldn’t say ‘no’ and why should he have?
“I spent 30 years with Tyrone and loved every minute of it and I gave my all for them,” he says.
“I always said that if Tyrone didn’t need me, or want me and I was still interested in working at this level of football then I would go to somebody who did want me.
“That’s how I’ve ended up on the other side of the (county) line.”
He says he has paid no attention to what the haters think of his move to Derry. He’d have expected an outcry from some quarters and he’s been round long enough to know that there’ll always be haters, there’ll be people out there hoping to see him fail and their voices will get louder quickly if results are poor.
“I won’t react to anyone in Tyrone or Derry about what they feel or what they don’t feel,” he said.
“I’m reacting to a bunch of players here that I and Gavin and the management team want to be responsible for helping them to move their game forward.
“That’s my total goal and people in the arena can say and be and do what they want – they have every right to feel whatever way they want to feel.
“I just want to be working with players who are very good players in an arena where I love to be. It’s brilliant to be in this scene, I just love it and until I don’t I’ll stick at it.”
Did anyone try to talk him out of managing his native county’s rivals?
“I think people know me well enough that they wouldn’t give me that kind of advice,” he says with a chuckle.
“If I decide I’m doing something, I go after it.”
