ALAN Davidson has put his success on the Gaelic pitch down to the mentoring of Bredagh club manager Jody Gormley.
The former soccer star has transferred his raw talents to the 15-a-side game and admits that former Tyrone star Gormley has brought his game to another level – a level that has subsequently seen Davidson called up to train with Antrim, under the co-management of Frank Fitzsimons and Gearoid Adams.
“He lets me know what way to play and what is the way to best utilise me,” Davidson said of Gormley, who managed Newry’s Abbey CBS to MacRory and Hogan Cup success in 2006.
“He tells me when to run into the space, when not to run into it, when to give the ball. He has basically taught me how to play Gaelic Football. When I came in at the start, I was still very raw, but was still scoring a lot. I think last year I scored eight goals and 96 points in 17 matches. This season, in 11 matches, I’ve got 5-72, which is something like 20 per cent up on last year. A lot of that has come from making the right decisions, shooting from the correct angles and running into the right positions.”
Davidson is now in line for an appearance with Antrim, having been overlooked for his own county, Down and with training sessions and in-house games already under his belt for the Saffrons, he feels the intensity of Gormley’s training at club level has allowed a smooth transition into the county set-up
“I feel comfortable playing at that level. At the end of the day, it's just football isn’t it. It’s not a vast contrast between the Antrim training and Bredagh training to be 100 per event honest because we’ve been training very intensively each session ever since I arrived at Bredagh. So, to move to inter-county training from what we’ve been doing at Bredagh wasn’t that much of a difference to be totally fair,” said Davidson, who feels that playing soccer has enhanced his abilities on the Gaelic pitch.
“Strength was the biggest difference. I’m potentially going to go back to soccer next year. I’ve been talking to a couple of clubs but I don’t know whether I will go back after the Gaelic is finished. But when you go back to playing soccer, you feel far stronger within yourself. The other way round, going from soccer to Gaelic football, your lateral movement is better. Any sort of twisting and turning, you’re stronger at because Gaelic, as a general rule, is mainly linear running and a lot of the boys haven’t been doing much twisting and turning,
“The other big thing I noticed in the difference between Gaelic and soccer is that it’s more of a team. Nobody shouts at each other. In soccer, I just thought it was the norm that the whole team screamed at each other all game. You never hear anything negative said to you in a Gaelic match – we don’t at Bredagh anyway,” he says.
Davidson revealed that should he return to soccer next season, he will still turn out for Bredagh and turning to thoughts of an Antrim debut against Limerick on the Qualifiers, he was philosophical about his possibility of an appearance.
“The boys have been training together for a couple of years or whatever and I’ve joined the squad late. If I get any game time at all, it will be a big bonus for me,” he said.
“I don’t expect anything but if I get minutes in the match, I’ll be happy enough that I can contribute and hopefully score a couple of points for the team.”
