Donegal great Kevin Cassidy has been explaining why he felt he had to turn down his ex-boss Jim McGuinness’s invitation to come back to the Tir Conaill after the pair’s bust-up in late 2011.
“I felt there was too much damage done between myself and players who were there,'' he tells TG 4’s GAA programme Laochra Gael, which will be aired tomorrow night (9.30pm).
In an absorbing TG4 programme, Cassidy also speaks of his early life in Glasgow before moving to Gaoth Dobhair, and his father’s battle with alcoholism and his eventual untimely passing.
One particular scene shows Cassidy going to a graveyard to visit the graves of his grandmother and his father, Tommy, who passed away at the age of just 58.
“Things didn’t work out too good in the end,” says Cassidy, who speaks from the heart about his father’s alcohol addiction and the fallout it had for his family.
Jim McGuinness controversially axed Cassidy for comments he made to author Declan Bogue about the team in a book entitled “This Is Our Year” towards the end of 2011.
It's a decision that divided GAA opinion in the county at the time and still does.
But then county chairman PJ McGowan arranged a meeting between McGuinness and Cassidy where McGuinness invited Cassidy back to the squad.
However the Gaoth Dobhair man tells the programme that he explained why he would not be going back, at a meeting between himself, McGuinness and county chairman PJ McGowan around Easter 2012 at a school premises in Donegal.
“I suppose when anyone speaks to me about GAA it’s probably the first thing they want to ask,'' said Cassidy.
“But it is such a small part of the time I spent with Donegal and Gaoth Dobhair.
“Obviously it was a massive story and with the way things finished with my own career it was disappointing, but it is what it is.
“We’ve touched on that during the episode, but just naturally it probably will always be there.''
Cassidy outlined his reasons for not returning to the squad saying he felt it was best to leave well enough alone at that stage.
“The reason for not going back was I just think, and I said this to Jim when he came to the school and we sat down . . . it was a very civilised conversation and the county board chairman was there as well,'' Cassidy tells the Laochra Gael programme.
“I gave my side of the story and Jim gave his side and when the door was opened to come back, I just felt there was too much damage done between myself and players who were there, players who may have been upset at what I had done.
“Likewise, I would have maybe been upset at how they reacted.
“So my words to Jim were that I think it would cause Donegal football more harm if I went back in — so that’s why I left it where I left it.
''I’m happy because if I went back in and, say, Donegal had a terrible year, who is to know that it might be said, ‘Ach, why did he go back in? If he hadn’t gone back in, things would have went alright’.
“I think it was best to leave well enough alone and to walk away at that stage.”
However, Cassidy felt that bridges had to be mended with his own clubmates from Gaoth Dobhair, Eamon and Neil McGee.
And he is happy that there was a good outcome there.
“When you are in a panel, you are very close to everyone in that panel because you are in the one bubble,'' added Cassidy.
“After, to be honest, it happens anyway, when you leave the panel you don’t see much of those lads.
“I might bump into one or two of them at the very most.
“The lads I was eager to make it up with and eager to have that conversation with was my own clubmates.
“We grew up together before Donegal came on the scene and we will see each other after Donegal are finished.
“Those were the lads I wanted to build those bridges with and thankfully we got that opportunity.
“It was just great to go back to normal.''
Meanwhile Cassidy paid tribute to the book author Declan Bogue and added that the treatment of the journalist after the All-Ireland final in 2012 did not sit well with him.
** G4's Laochra Gael returns for a 19th series tomorrow evening starting at 9.30pm.
