JUST over five years ago Richie O'Callaghan was getting ready to head off to Australia with his club Enniskillen Gaels on the brink of dropping down into Junior football.
He delayed his departure, stayed long enough to help them avoid that fate - and this Sunday he'll lead them out in the county senior football championship final against the recent Erne county kingpins and near neighbours Derrygonnelly Harps.
The date of that Intermediate Championship relegation semi-final in 2016 is seared into his brain, due to two loves of his life - wife Gemma and the Gaels.
"The day before we left for Australia we were in a relegation match to go to Junior Football. That was the 25th, and we left on my wife's birthday, the 26th of September.
"We played Coa in Irvinestown, on a real wet, dirty day. I'd planned to go a week before so we'd put the flights back and everything else. The next thing, it was a real dirty day and I was pleading with the ref for the game to go on, knowing I was going away - the other team didn't know I was going away… We just scraped through that, actually, by two points, I think.
"To get back to this is great."
Indeed, strange as this might seem for the skipper of Enniskillen Gaels, O'Callaghan never believed he'd be in this situation:
"Dara [McManus] that trains the team, we're friendly, take the U17s in the club, and I said to him I never thought I'd get the chance to play in a championship final, that's being honest."
Speech, speech
Even so, the 30-year-old will have a victory speech prepared, but that's not him being an 'arrogant townie', as he explains with a laugh:
"Oh, no, I'll have something. I made a speech when I was a minor, we won a league, and I didn't prepare anything. To say that it wasn't the best speech in world would be an understatement, so I think I'll write something down.
"The ones in the club will know the blunders I made that day. I'll give it Gemma and hopefully after the game she'll be handing it to me."
At least that embarrassment followed a victory. Other, much more bitter experiences have come in his playing career, especially against the Harps.
"They relegated us actually from Division One as well, which fed into the rivalry. They celebrated that like it was a championship win. I'll never forget it."
The same goes for his club senior debut, also against Derrygonnelly, when Dom Corrigan was in charge of the Gaels: "I remember I didn't thank him for it, he threw me on against 'Archie' Greene of Derrygonnelly and I got battered and bruised. I'll never forget it. I got absolutely destroyed, physically.
"Dom said 'Go and out-run him, run him and run him' - but Archie wouldn't let me run him [laughs]."
Over the years he's had a closer relationship with another Harps midfielder, Ryan Jones, a rival and a colleague, with St Michael's, Enniskillen and Fermanagh:
"Me and Ryan, fifth year we won a Rannafast, both midfield, and from then up we'd have been the midfield, got to the MacRory Final. Same with county minors, U21s, and seniors as well playing together.
"We'd know each other right and well - football-wise we'd know each other's strengths, know a lot about each other. There'd be a bit of craic and banter in there, we get on well. It's great to have a pint and a chat."
Brewster inspiration
O'Callaghan was always going to be a midfielder, growing up watching one of Ulster's finest in Gaels club-mate Paul Brewster:
"He would have been the boy you'd been looking at the whole time, kind of idolising. He was the benchmark. I remember an Ulster Club match in '06, the last kick of that good team, against [Tyrone champions] Errigal Ciaran, even then he was out-catching boys that were younger than him, making differences when maybe younger lads weren't able to. He stood up. Those things stick in your mind still."
The Gaels were a terrific team in the late 90s and early 2000s, winning six consecutive Fermanagh finals and reached two Ulster club deciders, losing out by one and then two points to Crossmaglen [1999] and Errigal [2002].
"Growing up, I would have followed Fermanagh and the Gaels, daddy [Pat] would have brought me to everything, far and wide, to development squads too.
"It was fantastic to be able to model yourself on lads like that - there was an '03 match when Dom [Corrigan] was in charge of Fermanagh and there were seven, maybe eight starters from the Gaels. Boys like Tom and Paul [the Brewster brothers], Colm Bradley, Ronan McCabe, Mickey Lilly, I could rhyme them off… It was brilliant.
"I'd have been kicking about training, over at the side probably making a nuisance of myself at times. It was fantastic."
Rivalry with Harps
However, he saw his heroes denied a Fermanagh record-equalling seventh senior championship in a shock upset against - who else? - Derrygonnelly in 2004.
Although the Gaels won the trophy again in 2006, the county town club was spiralling downwards, while Derrygonnelly became dominant over the last decade.
"Traditionally it mightn't have been the biggest rivalry but in the recent past, Derrygonnelly stopped us and that was kind of the start of it.
"Since then it's kind of built up. It's a healthy thing, there's no nastiness, good competitive rivalry on the pitch. Off the pitch there's great respect between the two clubs, what we each do for the local community. They've got a great community base down there and we try to take from that as much as we can. I'm sure they try to take wee things from us as well.
"I've said to the boys that you've got to embrace the rivalry, expect it, and hope that you can feed off it, take it with you."
Echoes of 2004
There are clear echoes of that 2004 Final this coming weekend, with a dominant but ageing team facing talented up-and-comers from a club without a senior title for a while. This time, though, the roles are reversed.
"There are parallels, definitely," agrees O'Callaghan, "although there still would have been older lads kicking about that Derrygonnelly team. There are parallels in terms of the dominance, definitely.
"Derrygonnelly got five out of the last six, and we got that six-in-a-row. They definitely had a massive push on for that six-in-a-row to match us, and they had an eye on beating that and getting seven-in-a-row.
"It's great that we still have that, to tell you the truth, to have that bragging right. It's good for the rivalry.
"They'd a lot of young players then, boys who are much more experienced now, like Paul Ward, Danny Ward, others who have gone away. Wardy [Paul] now is half-managing, he's on the sideline shouting orders. Deccy Cassidy would have been on that team and he's still playing centre half-back now.
"They have great experience, but they have youth too. At that time we didn't have a lot of youth coming through. They seem to have been able to rattle out three or four lads every year - something we're starting to do, but they started that process a whole lot sooner than we did."
The price of success
Indeed Enniskillen paid the price of all their success in the late 90s and early 2000s, O'Callaghan acknowledges:
"The youth was a wee bit neglected in that period, the club would openly say that. I was caught up in that. It's not a bit of a coincidence that after me, there's a few boys - Ciaran Smith, Paddy Rehill - around the 25, 26 mark, there's three or four years with nobody.
"Then above me you've Neil Love, who was actually away from the club and came back, and Conor Kelly. There's no one around my age. I could name boys who'd be fit to play, but they took the senior success for granted and the youth kind of suffered. But it's coming back great now."
The Gaels winning the Ulster Club Minor tournament at St Paul's, Belfast on New Year's Day, beating Ballinascreen of Derry in that decider, was an obvious manifestation of the work that's been done.
New role
Many of that team have graduated to the senior side on which O'Callaghan is the senior, key figure, in his third year as captain - but no longer as a midfielder:
"I came back the year before last, kicked around the middle, but Eoin [Beacom] and Brandon [Horan] would have played together the whole way up, obviously won that Ulster Minor, and they know each other very well.
"So we sat down, had a chat when Simon [Bradley] and John [Rehill] came in. I said 'These boys need to learn to play together, hopefully they'll be here for the next 10, 12 years playing together'.
"The whole idea was to get out of Intermediate, try to re-invent myself as a mobile target man at full-forward. It worked really well last year in terms of hands on the ball and linking play well. But a lot of clubs have copped onto it this year so it's developed into several roles over the course of League and Championship.
"I enjoyed my time in there, opened your eyes to how you can help the team further up the pitch. It also helps you understand when you're out there in the middle what you'd be looking for in a run, or where and when you'd be looking to give the ball, all that sort of thing.
"Your whole mindset changes when you go in there - mine did, definitely, listening to boys beside you and what they want from boys kicking ball in, where they should and shouldn't be running. It was a great experience. I'm still there but there's been a bit of change at different times. I've embraced it, just to get on this team we have is brilliant."
Unexpected progress
Enniskillen Gaels are undoubtedly talented but - mostly - young, so O'Callaghan admits that "within the club there's definitely a feeling that this has come sooner than expected. It's great to be there, that's the feeling, but we didn't see this team getting here until a year or two down the line.
"The idea was that when we get there we have to capitalise, make sure that we're there for a five-, six-year period, make the most out of what we have and what's coming through.
"Being perfectly honest it is slightly unexpected. On the flipside, we go into each match with a plan to win. The overall aim at the start of the year wasn't to win the championship; it was to perform well in the league and keep senior status. We didn't want to find ourselves in a dogfight risking going down to Intermediate again."
Tempo were overcome in the quarter-final, to ensure senior football again in 2022, then neighbours Belnaleck were well beaten in the semi-final.
"The management kept it very focussed, gave everyone a role in each match, saying 'If you do this, this, and this, teams won't live with us, won't be able to stop us'.
"We're well aware of the talent we have - but we also know the importance of experience, age.
"We target this match now, go in with a plan to win the game, even though it wasn't exactly the overall aim to be there… If we don't win, don't get me wrong, we'll be very disappointed.
"It's brilliant to be there, there's a buzz around the place again. Ex-players, boys from that team, are texting, maybe boys who have moved away, texting me or John or Simon, saying how great it is to be back.
"That kind of puts the pressure on. We've got there a bit early but we're here now and we have to capitalise on the talent we have."
Last year ended very well with the return to the senior championship secured by winning the Intermediate Final, then a call on Christmas Eve to get him a year's contract as a PE and IT teacher at St Aidan's, Derrylin. Wife Gemma has also opened an optician's in that village - but Richie's vision is all about Enniskillen on the football front.
Even Fermanagh can wait, with his sights set on Ulster involvement: "I'm going to focus on the club, I'd love to not be involved for another couple of months, I'd love to have that opportunity."
