WE celebrate our GAA heroes, the brilliant men and women who excite and thrill us and get to raise cups in triumph in front of cheering thousands, and rightly so.
But some bright talents make fleeting appearances on centre stage only to have their sporting dreams cruelly snatched away because of injury or bad luck. Armagh’s John Toal is one, Derry’s Adrian McGuckin junior is another and, last week, Tyrone’s Harry Loughran reluctantly joined the list of men cut down short of their sporting prime.
A back injury forced Moy Tir na nOg clubman Loughran into premature retirement despite the years of extraordinary effort and truly awe-inspiring dedication he made just to get on the field. Day-in, day-out for seven years he worked alone (a conservative estimate puts the figure at around 5,000 hours which equates to more than 200 days of his life) strengthening his back so he could play for his club and county.
Pain was his constant companion but he played with it and through it, knowing all the while that he’d struggle to get out of bed the following morning. And why? Simply so he could be like his friends and play the game he loves.
HERE’S a tale to set the scene. Early on a Sunday morning in August 2018, the Tyrone bus rattles and hums in the Garvaghy car park as the Red Hands board for a vital ‘Super 8’ (remember them?) showdown with neighbours Donegal.
With the winners guaranteed a place in the All-Ireland semis, the game boiled down to a quarter-final and players and management took their seats with nervous excitement as the bus rolled out. Harry Loughran was the last man standing. He stayed on his feet to hide a painful truth - he really shouldn’t have been on that bus at all.
“My back had gone completely in the days leading up to the game and by the day of the game I could hardly move at all,” he explains.
“I didn’t want to tell anyone because I wanted to play. I used to sit beside Colm (Cavanagh) but I knew I couldn’t sit because, if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to get back up. So I had to stand.”
At first no-one really noticed but then someone turned on a movie on the bus television. They hadn’t reached Omagh by the time Loughran, a sizeable unit, was getting it in the ear from team-mates imploring him to 'get out off their road'.
“They were going completely mental,” he says.
“I couldn’t tell any of them why I was standing because they’d be saying: ‘Why’s this lunatic coming to play when he can’t even sit down?’”
So he stood all the way to Ballybofey and after the bus parked up somehow he got through the warm-up. Later he entered the fray with Tyrone struggling and the game was in its final 10 minutes (and Tyrone trailed by a point) when he slammed the ball into the Donegal net. The place erupted as Loughran wheeled away, punching the air in delight.
That was the magic he brought: He couldn’t sit down but he could get you a goal, he couldn’t train but he could win you a game and the tragedy is that we never saw him at his best.
FOR the answer to ‘why not?’ you have to go back to September 22nd, 2012.
That day Loughran, who was named after his paternal grandfather, also Harry Loughran, who lined out for Armagh in the 1961 Ulster final, was part of the Moy squad that travelled to Dublin for the Ratoath All-Ireland Intermediate Sevens.
There were four All-Ireland winners in the panel – the Cavanagh brothers Sean and Colm, Ryan Mellon and Philly Jordan – and 18-year-old Loughran was delighted to be part of it.
The action was fast and furious and the incident that changed his life came early in the tournament; A ball to be won, a tackle, his body crunches into another and then… Pain and the hot flush of realisation that something inside is broken.
Moy won that game and went on to win the tournament and Loughran kept on playing in the forlorn hope that he could run his injury off but the running made things worse and it turned out he had fractured a vertebrae in his lower back.
“It was a combination of being too young to realise that I should have stopped and the adrenalin and everything else,” says Loughran, now a P7 teacher at St Jarlath’s PS in Blackwatertown.
“I played on and probably made it worse - that was when the damage was done.”
He could barely walk when he got home. He spent the next few weeks in bed and most of the next four years on the sidelines. That period was the beginning of what he describes as his “crazy rehab journey”.
“I was going around all the leading specialists and consultants and a lot of them were saying: ‘You could think about playing a different sport’ or ‘You’ll not get back playing a contact sport’,” he explains.
“But I had this burning desire to play, I just wanted to prove that I could get back playing for the Moy and, some day, Tyrone.”
Years passed and with the help of St Mary’s manager Paddy Tally, Loughran made a comeback with ‘The Ranch’ in the Sigerson Cup in 2015. Another setback cut him down but he returned to the field in 2016.
“I really got three years of football (2016-2018) and I had some good times, great times, but the tough part was that in them I was just constantly battling through the back injury and I started to get a lot of nerve problems because of my back down into my hamstrings,” he explains.
“At that stage I was playing games for the Moy and for Tyrone but not able to train. I was playing at 50 per cent – I couldn’t sprint, I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t really kick with my left foot because of the nerve… It was crazy when I look back – trying to play county football.
“After missing four years if someone had told me I’d get a few good years with Moy and with Tyrone and have a bit of success I probably would have taken their hand off but it’s still a tough one.”
He played a full season with Moy in 2016 and Mickey Harte brought him into the Tyrone squad. Harte knew Loughran had issues with his back but was prepared to my allowances for him and give him the opportunity to do things his way.
Having masterminded Tyrone to three All-Irelands, Harte knew a footballer when he saw one and what he spotted in Loughran quickly became apparent to the rest of the squad.
Tyrone skipper Mattie Donnelly recalls his early impressions: “We were all really excited about him.
“He was putting himself in the window as a half-back which he would probably say was his best position. We were thinking: ‘We have a Jack McCaffrey here’. That’s how electrifying he was pace-wise at training.
“Then you throw his physique – he’s a big man – and his characteristics – he’s a tough, aggressive character – into the mix and I was saying: ‘We have a serious, serious player here in this man, we have a serious addition to our team’.”
There’s obviously an element of white line fever about Harry Loughran. Off the field, he’s as nice a guy as you could meet but on it, those ‘characteristics’ Donnelly mentions got him into a few scrapes.
“He was abrasive,” says Mattie with a diplomatic chuckle.
“He bust my mouth one day in an in-house game. I complained to the ref and he told me: ‘It’s not Go-Games, play on’. He’s lucky my discipline was so good that day!”
THERE are few hiding places in the dog-eat-dog world of inter-county football. The constant training load will sniff out the slightest weakness and ruthlessly exploit it. Without time to recover, niggles become strains and strains become injuries and 2017 was a tale of setback after setback as Loughran’s body struggled to cope with the demands put on it.
But his single-minded determination meant he got back on the field by the end of the year in time to lead the way in his club’s unforgettable run in the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship title. Playing as a full-forward, Loughran ripped defence after defence to pieces. He scored 2-1 in the Tyrone final against Derrylaughan, then three points in the one-point Ulster first round win over Monaghan champions Carrickmacross and his personal tally of 2-2 against Derry’s Newbridge ushered Moy into the provincial final against Down’s Rostrevor.
Two more points that day helped Gavin McGilly’s side capture the Ulster crown.
“The key all along in that run was that we had Harry available for matchday,” explains McGilly.
“He put in endless hours by himself on the side of the pitch to get himself into a position that he was fit to put on his boots on matchday.”
In the eight weeks between the Ulster final and the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry’s An Gaelteacht, Loughran was unable to train with the team. He spent the entire period working on strength and flexibility so he could take part in the game.
“He’s a seriously determined fella and without him the Moy wouldn’t have reached the level they did,” says McGilly.
“Going into the Gaelteacht match he hadn’t played a minute of football in two months but there’s no way we couldn’t have started him. Gaelteacht were scared of him! They knew if they gave him half-a-sniff he would hurt them.”
The game was in injury-time and the Kerry men were leading by three points when Loughran got “half-a-sniff” and he did what he usually did – he stuck the ball into their net and then added a point to seal a dramatic win for his club.
“That showed you the quality he had – the instinct and the speed of thought and movement,” says McGilly.
“His effort in that game was huge and his talent and class won it for us in the end.”
The All-Ireland final against a rough-and-ready Michael Glaveys side was just 20 seconds old when Loughran caught Sean Cavanagh’s free and sent his brother Tom in for a goal. Moy never looked back and won the title by six points.
LOUGHRAN was back in Croke Park that September. Tyrone hoped he could replicate the cutting edge he’d provided for his club in their quest for the Sam Maguire.
Although he was really in no fit shape, he did his best to provide it, marking his Championship debut with a vital goal against Meath and conjuring up another crucial major in that Super 8 game against Donegal.
Tyrone made it to the All-Ireland final and Loughran recalls the campaign with pride but there’s understandable frustration too because the level of fitness he needed to be part of the team was always just out of reach.
“Every four or five weeks the nerve thing flared up really badly and I had to take another month off and start rehabbing again,” says Loughran.
“I never really got going. I was never able to hold down a place. Mickey and Gavin Devlin were brilliant because they said to me: ‘If you get fit, you’ll play in this team’ and that was great to keep me motivated but it was also tough because I knew that I couldn’t get fit.
“Between the All-Ireland semi-final and final I missed a key training session… I was trying to push on but I was limited in what I could do.”
He came on as a substitute in the All-Ireland final but couldn’t turn the tide against Dublin and afterwards he took stock and decided the time had come to get to the root of the problem and have an operation on his back.
He hoped the procedure would give him the clean slate he needed to play football injury-free but there was a more fundamental reason for it too – he hoped to regain some quality of life so he could do the normal, everyday things the rest of us take for granted – like getting out of bed without pain.
“I was in constant pain,” he admits.
“Looking back, I did some crazy things (like standing all the way on the bus to Donegal). I was always trying to mask it, I was eating anti-inflammatories like sweets.”
That he was able to function at all was down to the work of the Tyrone medical team - Louis O’Connor and Michael Harte and specialists Enda King, David Grey and Marty Loughran.
“They were all brilliant,” he says.
“As well as the quality of life, I wanted to try everything, I didn’t want to be walking away from football thinking: ‘What if?’”
He’ll always be grateful to the Tyrone County Board and Club Tyrone for organising his operation and the early reports were promising. The fusion procedure was a success and, with renewed hope in his heart, Loughran began to work on his fitness.
Sadly, the clean slate he craved didn’t materialise and, like a bad penny, the painful nerve issues returned.
He spent 2019 on that solitary, rehab hamster wheel and last August he managed a half in Moy’s championship clash with Derrylaughan and another against Dungannon in the league.
The penny began to drop as he walked off O’Neill Park that day.
“I realised it wasn’t going to work out,” he said.
“I had been fighting it for years. After the operation I had quite a few setbacks but I managed to get back which was a big achievement for me but I started to break down - the same process started again.
“Somebody on the outside would have been able to say: ‘I don’t know why this boy can’t see what’s happening here?’ But I always thought there would come a point where I would be ok, I was clinging on to hope. I put off the inevitable until it was time to make that call.”
Last week, he made the toughest decision of his life and called it quits. At 26, his football days are over and only the coldest heart wouldn’t go out to him. He couldn’t have given more, or tried harder and he deserved a better outcome.
“Leaving the team WhatsApp groups was tough and even hearing the word ‘retirement’… Retirement? I never fully got going, nevermind actually retiring!” he says.
“But I did spend a lot of time angry and frustrated. The hard part was going again after a setback and at the moment I have a sense of relief because I was nearly torturing myself for years.
“It’ll be nice to get a break from that – it’s a weight off my mind in a way.”
It may be a cold comfort but at least he knows he tried everything. For years he swam against the tide, continuously clutching at an answer that was just out of reach and he has bowed out with some memories to treasure and, although he won’t play football again, the operation means that he can now lead a full and active life.
“I’m lucky that I did have a few really good experiences that a lot of people never get,” he says.
“Playing in front of the great people of the Moy and Tyrone in big games was very special. Although it was only for a short time, the buzz I felt is hard to explain and that’s the part I’ll miss the most.
“I suppose I’m fortunate that I got those few years considering where I was but, at the minute, it’s hard for me to see it that way because you always want more. I feel as if I’ve let my club down because I’m not able to give them a few years - I’d love to be able to play for 10 years for the Moy but I’m not going to be able to do that.
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