SO let’s go back to the very beginning. Five years ago, a clear winter night, I travelled to south Armagh to meet Tony McEntee and Gareth O’Neill - the managers of Crossmaglen Rangers.
“I want to make a documentary on your team. I will need changing room access, microphones on you during games and editorial control will rest with the BBC.”
Throw enough mud at the wall, some of it might stick and all that.
Tony called me a few days later, liked the idea but thought the changing room access might be disruptive.
Understandable. The following year I tried again.
The year after that, Joe Kernan was the manager. Joe liked the idea, mentioned that he loved the ‘Living with the Lions’ documentary following the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 1997.
I was hopeful.
Again, the concern was it could be disruptive - and we decided it wasn’t going to happen. Again, understandable.
Year four. Oisin McConville and John McEntee are the new managers. So another trip through Newry, Camlough, Silverbridge and into Crossmaglen.
We talked and I outlined the vision. Eventually I received the phone call from Oisin “You’re in”, one pre-condition; you’re the only one allowed in the changing room. Agreed.
On the first week of February 2014 we start filming ‘True North: Crossmaglen Field of Dreams’.
Now, let’s go to the end. Castlebar.
Eddie Kinsella blows the whistle and the dream is dead. The beautiful aerial shots of Cross running out in Croke Park, a step too far. Paul Hearty lifting Andy Merrigan - gone!
Instead, we’re in the changing room. Recording the devastation. Jamie Clarke’s face. John McEntee signalling that’s the end for him as manager. It was similar to Omagh the year before when Cross were knocked out. Distraught.
Aaron Kernan collapsed in the changing room as he was ill. Paul McKeown rubbing the skin off his face in frustration. As Margaret McConville, Oisin’s mum says: “Its life or death”.
I now had the help of producer/director Natalie Maynes, who has a rich history in programme making, and the superb cameraman Seamus McCracken now on board.
We even convinced the management to allow the three of us access to the changing room.
One of the days I spent with Jamie Clarke we dandered up to the pitch. He takes out his notebook, pages crafted with pictures of special people, memories and a training regime.
He hits six shots at goal from 21 yards out - all 6 clip the inside of the post and go into the net. All six! Jamie is obscenely talented, and what might surprise some, works ridiculously hard nurturing it.
However the reality is simple. Gaelic football is preventing him from living his dreams. So stop the sport? That’s kind of difficult if you come from Crossmaglen.
Paul Hearty has 19 county championship medals. He’s an amazing sportsman. He’s also a married man.
The father of Breanne 8, Erin Mae 6, Oran 4, and Aoibhe 2. The level of commitment needed now, even from a 37-year-old goalkeeper is simply not conducive to family life. It’s a daily struggle.
The conflict and the army is in there too. The archive material we’ve gathered is astonishing.
So I’ve spent more than two years filming with Crossmaglen, embedded in their lives, their jobs.
But this is not a PR exercise. We’ve followed Crossmaglen religiously for two years, warts and all. It has the good, and the bad. The club is like faith. I was reminded this week by a friend who works for a newspaper, of what St Thomas Aquinas once said.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
True North: Crossmaglen Field of Dreams, BBC One, Northern Ireland, Monday, March 21, 9pm.
