APRIL 10, 1998. The signing of the Good Friday Agreement means the Troubles are over and the promise of a peaceful future floods into the world.
Adrian McGuckin had his own troubles to contend with. As reports of decommissioning dominated the TV, he tried to come to terms with the personal bombshell he’d received that day.
He was 19 years old. He’d won an Ulster minor with Derry in 1995, an All-Ireland U21 in 1997, a Derry senior title with Ballinderry in 1997. He was studying at Jordanstown, he was on Sigerson panel, he was in the Derry senior panel.
He’d achieved so much yet he was just getting started but…
Every time he played there was pain. Every time he turned up for training something was sore: shoulders, neck, knees, ankles, wrists…
“I think Brian Mullins (Derry manager) thought my head was cut,” says Adrian.
“To be honest, I thought my head was cut! Every night I went to training there was something else wrong with me.”
Derry team doctor Brian Glancy suspected something serious was at work and he sent him for tests. The results confirmed Adrian’s worst fears: He was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that causes inflammation of the joints which explained all the pain.
At first the diagnosis was a validation that soothed a troubled mind.
“When I heard it, I was nearly relieved,” he says.
“I could say: ‘See, I told yiz there was something wrong with me’.”
But as the initial shock began to fade, the reality set in.
The rheumatoid arthritis that had come upon him out of the clear blue sky (there is no history of it in his family) was there to stay and that meant his football career – the focus of this teenager’s life – was under serious threat.
For a year he didn’t kick a ball and he missed out on Derry winning the Ulster title in 1998. Would he ever make it back?
He is a determined so-and-so and with his equally determined dad, Adrian senior (the former Derry assistant-manager, Ulster University manager and all-round GAA guru) by his side he visited doctors, specialists and faith healers in search of a solution.
“It just came at me all of a sudden,” he says.
“Life was great and then BANG it came out of nowhere
“My father tried everything. He drove me round the country... Whatever was going, he had me there to try and get me fit. When I look back now at the effort he made for me…”
He put himself through the ringer and was able to take the field for his club (even his county later) again.
When Damien Barton came to manage Ballinderry in 1999 Adrian was fit to play a part and Barton had handed over the baton to Brian McIver and Ballinderry had lost back-to-back finals to Bellaghy by the time 2001 rolled around.
“I was never 100 per cent after the arthritis started,” says Adrian.
“I was always playing around 70-80 per cent. I played the match on the Sunday, then I wasn’t fit to train on the Tuesday, I did light training on the Thursday and then played on the Sunday again.
“That seemed to go on for a few years but I got a few years out of.”
They were great years.
MARCH 18, 2002. The skirl of the pipes broke out on Ballinderry Bridge. Adrian McGuckin walked across with the Andy Merrigan Cup, his club were All-Ireland champions.
Both sides of the road were lined with supporters. Old men cried, youngsters watched their heroes’ every move, hoping that one day it would be their turn.
“You never could put words to this here,” said Adrian senior with tears in his eyes on the brilliant, grainy YouTube video that captured the momentous occasion.
“You never could imagine things like this here…”
His son might have been at “70-80 per cent” but that was enough for him to be a force at full-forward in that campaign.
Ballinderry eyes were focussed on Bellaghy when the season started. They were going for four in-a-row in Derry but Ballinderry eventually beat them in the 2001 final and beating a side of that class gave the Shamrocks belief that they had the tools to have a real say in their Ulster Championship.
Growing in confidence with every game, they beat St Gall’s after a replay, then won their semi-final against Cavan Gaels in Clones and came out on top in a no-holds-barred duel with Mayobridge in the final.
Ballinderry and the ‘Bridge had become familiar foes but the Derry men came out on the right side of an intense battle to win their first Ulster crown.
On to the All-Ireland series…
McGuckin hit 1-2 when Ballinderry beat Tir Chonaill Gaels in London in the All-Ireland quarter-final and the team had six weeks to prepare for their semi against Wicklow’s Rathnew who had beaten Dublin favourites Na Fianna in the Leinster decider.
“Looking back, they were the best days,” he says.
“We loved it, we were training away. It was poor conditions, but we made fantastic memories.”
They overcame Rathnew in a shuck down in Longford and then went to the All-Ireland final, their first, as massive underdogs against a Nemo Rangers team that, coincidently, had lost to Mayo’s Crossmolina (Ballinderry’s opponents on Sunday) the previous year.
The game at Thurles (Croke Park was closed because the new Hogan Stand was being built) was nip-and-tuck until McGuckin played a simple pass to Gerard Cassidy who whacked the ball into the Nemo net.
It was never in doubt after that and the Derry men kicked on to by seven points at the finish.
“Fantastic times,” says Adrian.
“Our club had never been there before. It was all new to us. The whole of Ballinderry seemed to be at the banquet in Thurles that night (legend has it the bar ran out of drink) and we travelled home the next day.
“There’s a tradition in Ballinderry. When you win a championship you walk over Ballinderry Bridge with the cup. The crowd that came down to watch us that night was… Ah, it was amazing.”
APRIL 21, 2002. THE doctors would have been scratching their heads.
Adrian McGuckin defied medical science when he ran out at Breffni Park for Derry to play Galway in a friendly.
“I never got a proper run at Derry but after we won the All-Ireland club, Eamonn Coleman had taken over and I said to myself: ‘Right, I’m giving this year everything for Derry, I’m going to give it everything,” says Adrian.
Again the fickle finger of fate intervened.
Twenty minutes into the game he went down and didn’t get back up. He had broken his leg. He laughs as he tells the tale. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
“It was rotten bad luck,” he says.
Again he battled back and got himself on the field but by the end of 2003, aged 24, he had to accept that his time was up.
“When I look back now at the effort my da made for me to get me fit again it was incredible,” says Adrian, who is now able to manage his condition around occasional “flare-ups”.
“I’m sure he would have been delighted to see me captain the team in 2002 after all he’d done to get me back there but then when the second wave came at me I knew there was no coming back.
“I was too sore - I couldn’t get out of bed.
“I knew it was never going to happen for me. It was what it was but at least I can look back now that I won an All-Ireland and I got to the top of the pile in club football.
“At the same time, I’d have liked another 10 years’ at it, particularly with the Ballinderry team that was coming. I was 24 when we won the All-Ireland and I knew it was a great team, a young team and there was more young players coming through. It was a disaster because I missed out being involved in a real good team and winning a few more championships.
“The first year after I stopped (2005) I was involved in the management and, looking back, that was probably a mistake because I was too young.
“I stepped back and took underage teams every year. I never missed a senior game, I was always there because it was still my best friends’ playing and I was always delighted, of course I was, to see them doing well.
“At the same time there was always a tinge of ‘what if’ because some of the boys – the likes of Conleith Gilligan, Kevin McGuckin, Enda Muldoon - went on and won eight championship medals.
“I would have been part of that but, here, it is what it is. I had great days following that team and watching them win another Ulster club. I’d have been as happy as anybody in Ballinderry watching them do that.”
JANUARY 26, 2025. Ballinderry were 4/1 underdogs going into their All-Ireland semi-final against an Austin Stacks side that had won the Munster final by 26 points.
But after realising that the Kerry men weren’t the monsters the bookies’ made them out to be, the Shamrocks – managed by Adrian’s former team-mate Jarlath Bell - cut them to shreds in the second half.
A series of brilliant scores has powered the club to their second All-Ireland decider in its history – the Shamrocks take on Mayo’s Crossmolina (All-Ireland senior champions in 2001) at Croke Park on Sunday.
The game has been postponed from January 12 because of the tragic death of Roisin Cryan, a young woman who seemed to have everything to live for. Sport was forgotten while the Crossmolina community united behind their midfield talisman Conor Loftus, Roisin’s fiancé.
What is a game of football worth in these circumstances? There is value and comfort in the GAA family and the Crossmolina club and the Cryan and Loftus families want the final to be played. Winning and losing is not what it’s about, but they want Ballinderry to give an honest account of themselves and to play with spirit and honour the fixture in every sense.
The Derry men will do that.
Bell’s side is made up of players Adrian helped to nurture and bring through the ranks.
Men like Gareth and Daniel McKinless, Ryan Bell and Darren Lawn (the veterans); Oisin Duffin, Ben McKinless, Eoin Devlin, Conor and Ryan O’Neill (the stalwarts in their mid-20s) and the likes of Niall O’Donnell, Ruairi Forbes, Shay McCann, Tiarnan Rocks (the youngsters). He never misses a game – Saturday’s final will be Ballinderry’s 14th championship game of the campaign and he’s been to the lot.
“Our win put us on the map,” says Adrian whose eldest son Dara is a chip off the old block who has won back-to-back Ulster titles (matching the achievement of his father and grandfather) and All-Ireland titles with the Derry minors but is too young to be involved in the senior panel.
“It put a star on the jersey that the club has won an All-Ireland. This crop that has come through has had to listen about the 2002 team and they’ve probably aspired to get there too and they’re getting the day in Croke Park that we didn’t get.
“People would see us as a big senior club in Derry and when we went to intermediate there was a bit of a shock and maybe a few egos dented. But I have to give serious credit to Jarlath (Bell) and Davey Harte because they embraced it and told the lads: ‘We are where we are and let’s go as far as we can’.
“They wanted to get back up to senior in Derry and they achieved that early on. We were still playing in the senior league in Derry and it worked out well because we were competing against the big teams in Derry and then we were in a championship we could compete in.
“In the first couple of group games in Derry, the performances… Well, they weren’t great! But the journey they’ve went on and the improvement in the team has been serious. You see a stability in the team now that hasn’t been there for a few years, Jarlath and Davy get their best team on the pitch, we’ve been lucky with injuries and you can see the progression in them. The second half against Austin Stacks was their best performance to date – in the second half I thought they were superb and hopefully they can carry that on.
“I fancy our boys. If we’re going down the stretch and still in the game, I’d be confident our boys can pull it out. I’ll be delighted for them all.”
JANUARY 27, 2025. The skirl of the pipes on Ballinderry Bridge again? Keep an ear out...
