I NEVER met John Boden but I think he would have enjoyed this walk down memory lane.
Half-a-century on from Bryansford’s remarkable rise from Down’s lowest league to the first-ever All-Ireland club final via back-to-back county and Ulster titles, his former team-mates Oliver Burns and Eugene Grant roll back the years in the Millbrook Lodge
John and Malachy Smith, sons of the team’s late, great manager Sean Smith, are here too and the conversation turns to the exploits of Boden, the team’s wise-cracking goalkeeper, whose life was tragically cut short by a hit-and-run accident on the Hilltown Road just outside Castlewellan some years ago.
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“Och, he was a bit of a character,” says Oliver Burns.
“He was working in a factory one time and got the tops of his three middle fingers cut off. Anyway, we were playing Tullylish and they got a penalty.
“Dan McCartan took it, Boden dived and he just touched it and the ball hit the post and came back out. Dan followed up and put the ball in the net.
“After it I said: ‘Hard luck Boden.’ ‘Ach,’ he says, ‘If this fuckin’ thing (his hand) had of been the full length I would have got it!’”
“He was an awful cheeky boy,” Oliver adds, with a warm smile, the kind that is reserved for a friend who has passed away.
“We were playing Loughinisland and Paddy Doherty (former Down captain) was their manager.
“As soon as he came on, Bowden shouted: ‘Ah go way home Doherty before I show you all my championship medals’.
“Paddy never got a Down championship medal but he was probably the best footballer ever came out of Down.
“You didn’t realise it was happening at the time but it was something else.”
John Boden was ever-present throughout the Bryansford glory days.
The team’s achievements would be impossible now but they were considered impossible then too and Maghery-born primary school teacher Smith, better known as the ‘The Master’, was the architect.
After moving from Ardglass, where he’d played with the Dunsford club, to Burrenreagh Primary School in Bryansford, Smith took over the struggling senior team in 1966 and his revolutionary training methods and tactics had an almost immediate impact.
‘Ath Bhriain’ won the Down junior title in 1967 and, despite being a Division Three team, entered the senior competition the following season.
It took a strong Newry Mitchells side that included Sean O’Neill and Val Kane to stop them in the 1968 final and after the defeat Bryansford literally went back to the drawing board.
Oliver explains: “When Mitchels beat us ‘The Master’ asked where we had gone wrong and this one and that one spoke up and it was all put up on the blackboard.
“Sean O’Neill beat us with the space he had in front but we cut the space out the next time and they never beat us again.”
And so, thanks to Smith’s tactical genius, Bryansford had invented a GAA zonal marking system years before the term was coined.
The revolutionary tactics and the ability of Burns and the likes of midfield dynamo Cecil Ward (“A useful man if a row broke out,” according to Oliver) worked a treat for the giant-killing Down outfit who gave their fans and their choir (yes, the team had a choir) plenty to sing about.
It was an all-female ensemble but manager Smith used to say that the choir was an extra man for his team and the ladies would sing right through every game with choruses for each of the players.
“There could have been 20 or 30 of them and they never stopped,” recalls Eugene Grant.
“I remember we played Saval one night and I got a couple of goals and I’ll never forget the choir singing: ‘Weeeeee’ve got the best goalscorer in the land…’ Haha, they were great days.”
Eugene, now a leading QC, grew up in Glengormley and was one of the stars of the St Malachy’s, Belfast MacRory Cup-winning team of 1970. His mother hailed from Aughlisnafin and his Newry-born father encouraged him to get involved with Smith’s emerging side.
“He had learned about this Bryansford team with the Neeson brothers (Paul and Brendan) on it so he came down and watched them,” he explains.
“We had a wee holiday home in Newcastle and he said: ‘Why don’t you go down and see what you think’. I joined the club in 1969 and they were still in Division Three which was the lowest division of senior football in Down.
“I played for the Seconds for a month or two and then I was brought into the senior panel for the first time against Clann na Gael (Ulster Club Championship round one).
“I was 18 then and I only knew the Neesons but there was a great mixture between city and country and college boys and working men. The chemistry was just unique.
“That day against Clann na Gael, Sean Smith took me aside and said I was to be absolutely ready to go on. He put me on with about 20 minutes to go and took John Neeson from left corner-forward to corner-back and I went up front.
“I got a goal and we won by a couple of points and from that moment I was in the team.”
Reigning Ulster champions Bellaghy were next up. Bryansford were still viewed by many observers as a novelty and the Derry men were expected to crush the unfancied ‘minnows’ at Casement Park.
“It was a dirty old day,” Eugene recalls.
“Sean O’Hare broke the ball in the square and I toe-poked it into the net. Bellaghy had been so sure of themselves but they lined up and clapped us off the pitch at the end.
“We were from Division Three, we were nothing to them and they were sure they would win the replay, but we had a dream replay.”
Brendan Neeson scored the goal as Bryansford won by five points and, incredibly, the rank outsiders progressed to the Ulster final against Crosserlough at Clones where the fairytale continued.
The Cavan champions were unable to cope with the Bryansford tactics as forwards became defenders and defenders went on the attack and 1-1 from Sean O’Hare earned the underdogs a one-point victory.
“Sean Smith used to say: ‘There’s 60 minutes in a game, there are 30 on the pitch so you’ve only got two minutes each. Make up your mind what you’re going to do with those two minutes,” Eugene explains.
“The second thing I heard from him was that if we lost possession my job was to get behind the ball right away, to get back and cover and defend.
“As a corner-forward I had been taught up to then, right up to Antrim minor level, that I had to stay in my position. He taught us that we were a unit and I had to get back the minute I saw the other team getting forward.
“My problem was that when I went onto the county panel, they were still playing the old-fashioned game. County mentors were screaming at you: ‘Stay in your position!’ But he taught me that I was as much a defender as anyone.
“I finished the Crosserlough match in the full-back line which was unheard of in those days. So we actually won that Ulster title as a third division team and after it we had to go to Dromara to win the C League (the third division).”
Wherever they went, they were rightly hailed as triumphant conquerors. Eugene remembers Glen visiting the Bryansford base at St Patrick’s Park, Newcastle and forming a guard of honour as the players ran onto the pitch.
And the wins kept coming with a footballing style that neutrals queued up to watch.
“There was a style to the football,” explains Sean Smith’s son John.
“Gaelic football has changed a lot but there was a tradition of pass-and-move football. If they took their jerseys off and played, you would still know it was a Bryansford team.”
During the 1970 season, Eugene scored in every game and Willie Kane and Brendan Neeson also wreaked havoc in opposition defences but, as Oliver says: “There were no individuals in the team.
“The way I looked at it that time was: You can go out with a whole lot of women but you only have to be true to one of them and we were true to Bryansford.
“We’re watching Bryansford today and the boys are playing soccer for Newcastle or Rathfriland, there was none of that in our time. Kilcoo would be a bit like that now.”
Later this year, Kilcoo will start out on their quest for back-to-back Ulster titles and Bryansford began theirs with a 3-11 to 0-4 win over Burren in the 1970 Down final to set up an Ulster Championship clash with Belfast’s St John’s, a team Eugene knew well from his days in Antrim football.
“Andy McCailin, the Goughs, Gerry McCann, John Grieve… They were a magic team,” he recalls.
“They were so sure of winning, they called us a ‘team of trained greyhounds’.”
The complacent ‘Johnnies’ were rapidly shaken out of their comfort zone and by the mid-point of the first half they were already nine points down. However, with McCailin (Antrim’s Allstar) leading the way, the city men forced their way back into the game.
“They started to play and we were on the ropes,” says Eugene.
“Right at the end, Andy McCailin was one-on-one with John Joe. He decided to sell his lovely swerve once more but John Joe had done his homework, we had planned for McCailin’s moves and he went straight for the waistline and took him down. St John’s got a free and we beat them by two points. It was a great game of football.”
The underdog myth was gone after that success but Bryansford beat Armagh’s Crossmaglen (0-8 to 0-5) in the Ulster club semi-final and Derry’s Newbridge (0-6 to 0-3) to defend their title and book their place in the inaugural All-Ireland Club Championship final, which was played in 1971.
In what Sean Smith described as “the farcical All-Ireland club championship debacle” the Down outfit – working off a panel of 17 players – found themselves up against a star-studded East Kerry select, an amalgamation of several teams from the Kingdom.
“If we had played another club side we would have won the All-Ireland,” says Eugene.
”They got about six up before we got a breath but from then on we held our own. We got off to a bad start and that cost us.”
It finished 5-9 to 2-7 in favour of the Kerry side.
“I was nervous,” Oliver recalls.
“You’re talking 50 years ago and getting to Dublin was a big thing then nevermind playing at Croke Park!
“I wouldn’t have been a real athlete but I mind running to the sideline and I thought I wasn’t going to get back to full-back again. It was an awful lot bigger than St Patrick’s Park.”
However, there was revenge for the Down men in the All-Ireland Sevens tournament the following year. In the semi-final Bryansford beat familiar foes Clann na Gael from Lurgan and took on Kerry’s Waterville in the final.
“Most beaten teams would have gone off and jumped in the shower but Jimmy Smyth and the whole Clann na Gael team, to a man, stayed for the final to watch and cheer for Bryansford and we won,” Eugene explains.
‘The Master’ went off to manage Down but Bryansford, now managed by Michael Hanly, regained their Down title in 1972 and retained it in 1973. Smith returned alongside Hanly to guide the side to another Frank O’Hare Cup in 1977 against Burren.
“That was the last hurrah,” says Eugene.
Time moves on and the team broke up as the players went their separate ways to concentrate on work or family life but on days like today they remember glory days and great men like Sean Smith and John Boden who’ll always be part of this band of brothers.
“That team started something that stuck with us our whole lives, even business-wise,” says Oliver and Eugene adds: “There has been a lifetime of looking after each other and it endures to this day between everybody involved in that team.
“It was a family, we became a family.
“There hasn’t been in a row in all the time that team was together. It’s weird but the craic was always mighty. They were the days and we thought they would never end…”
They never will.
The Bryansford Glory Years
1969
Down Senior Football Championship final: Bryansford 1-11 Burren 1-6
Ulster Club Championship, round one: Bryansford 1-7 Clan na Gael (Lurgan) 0-6
Ulster Club Championship semi-final: Bryansford 1-4 Bellaghy 0-7
Ulster Club Championship semi-final (replay): Bryansford 1-10 Bellaghy 0-8
Ulster Club Championship final: Bryansford 1-10 Crosserlough 1-9
1970
Down Senior Football Championship final: Bryansford 3-11 Burren 0-4
Ulster Club Championship, round one: Bryansford 2-13 St John’s (Belfast) 2-11
Ulster Club Championship semi-final: Bryansford 0-8 Crossmaglen 0-5
Ulster Club Championship final: Bryansford 0-6 Newbridge 0-3
All-Ireland Club Championship final (played in 1971): Bryansford 2-7 East Kerry 5-9
1971
Down Senior Football Championship final: Bryansford 2-12 Tullylish 1-7
Ulster Club Championship, round one: Bryansford 1-10 Lamh Dhearg 1-10
Ulster Club Championship, round one replay: Bryansford 3-10 Lamh Dhearg 0-12
Ulster Club Championship semi-final: Bryansford 1-6 Clan na Gael (Lurgan) 0-9
Ulster Club Championship semi-final replay: Bryansford 0-6 Clann na Gael 0-13
1973
Down Senior Football Championship final: Bryansford 0-16 Loughinisland 1-7
Ulster Club Championship, round one: Bryansford 1-5 Clan na Gael (Lurgan) 2-7
1974
Down Senior Football Championship final: Bryansford 3-5 Loughinisland 0-8
Ulster Club Championship, round one: Bryansford 1-9 Cargin 0-4
Ulster Club Championship, round two: Bryansford 1-7 Clan na Gael 1-9
