The ‘nearly men’ are nearly there.
Armagh are back in an All-Ireland Senior Football Final again – at last.
What once appeared a strong possibility every season in the first decade of this century had turned into a seemingly impossible dream.
Having dominated the Ulster senior scene from 1999 to 2008, collecting the Anglo-Celt Cup seven times, Armagh haven’t been provincial kingpins since then.
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They could, perhaps should, have won the last two Ulster Senior Finals, but lost both on penalties, first to Derry then to Donegal.
Even with the ‘back door’ route available, it became 19 years since the Orangemen even appeared in an All-Ireland SFC semi-final.
Again, they have missed out by the narrowest of margins, losing All-Ireland quarter-finals on penalty shoot-outs in both 2022 and 2023, to Galway then Monaghan.
It’s not just on the senior stage that the Orchard County has fallen short. After they lost this year’s Ulster Minor Final it was noted that the defeat took the county to 15 years without a provincial Minor title, 16 years without an Ulster Senior crown, and 17 years since success at U20/21 level.
Minor manager Aidan O’Rourke, who played on Armagh’s All-Ireland Senior winning side of 2002, struck a note of defiant optimism after that latest Ulster Minor Final loss, saying:
“You don’t have to be winning provincial and All-Ireland titles to produce a senior team, as Armagh have demonstrated over the past 10 years or so, but it certainly helps. It certainly helps when players come out of the system confident and knowing they can compete, that they’re as good as anybody else.”
The Dromintee man was bullishly confident that his young charges could bounce back and progress in the All-Ireland series. He was right, with Armagh seeing off Leinster winners Longford in the quarter-final, then Connacht champs Mayo in the last four – before falling narrowly again to Derry in the All-Ireland decider, a repeat of that Ulster Final.
Armagh’s senior men obviously hope to go one better against Galway.
The fact they have the chance to do so is a tribute to their power of perseverance and self-belief, qualities instilled in them by their manager Kieran McGeeney.
Armagh already has its own great county song, ‘The Boys from the County Armagh’ – but supporters surely have become a little sick of singing about ‘memories so glorious and grand’.
For the current senior side, a more appropriate anthem might well be ‘Tubthumping’ by Chumbawamba, with its singalong chorus:
I get knocked down But I get up again
You’re never gonna kick me down
I get knocked down But I get up again
You’re never going to keep me down
Geezer has kept banging the drum for Armagh. Raising money, raising standards, raising hopes.
I’ve long held the belief that the thin line between success and failure in sport is often brutally thick too.
Sure, there can only be one winner – but that doesn’t make everyone else useless and of no consequence.
McGeeney has advanced that argument as well, and repeated it on Saturday night in the Croke Park media room:
“I remember saying it in here before about 15 or 20 journalists and saying ‘Who is number one? Who hasn’t won a prize? Does that mean the rest of youse are s**t?’
“We all have a spectrum we exist on. And sometimes what success looks like in one county is not what success will look like in another.”
With a wife from Kerry, ‘Geezer’ knows that difference all too well.
In stark contrast to the Kingdom’s sparkling collection of silverware, McGeeney pointed out that “one All Ireland in 140 years, whether people like it or not, is what we have. We have had one national title in the National League.
“We have 14 Ulster titles, half of which was won by one team, and the other seven were won by two teams. So it’s not an illustrious thing. You are trying to get people to understand that.”
With that in mind, one line in ‘Tubthumping’ would have echoed harshly in Armagh ears:
“Don’t cry for me Next door neighbour...”
Stuck in the middle between Tyrone and Down, Armagh supporters have had to listen to a lot of slagging.
Their neighbours to the east in the Mourne County famously have five All-Irelands.
Armagh did lift the Sam Maguire Cup before Tyrone, but those Red Hands then took it off them the next year in the final and went on to collect the trophy three more times, including as recently as 2021.
McGeeney’s message clearly got through to his players, though. Earlier this year Rian O’Neill pointed out that Armagh had rarely been beaten inside 70 minutes since the end of last year’s National Football League.
Only Tyrone had done so in last year’s Championship – a match in which O’Neill was harshly sent off.
Only Donegal did so in this year’s Division Two Final – and only by a point.
My gut feeling on Saturday was that Armagh would need to learn from an All-Ireland semi-final loss before making that final step onto the biggest stage, as was the case even with that great team captained by McGeeney.
These Orchardmen refused to accept that narrative though.
Despite the absence of silverware, Armagh and McGeeney have still carried the burden of heavy expectation over the past decade.
Their heroic efforts mean that for Armagh supporters the dream is no longer impossible, the dream is that they’ll finish the season as ‘Tubthumping’ starts:
We’ll be singing
When we’re winning
We’ll be singing
