Croke connection: Danny Magill following in father Miceal's Down footsteps

IT’S almost four years on, and we’re back in Newry’s Canal Court Hotel, a few tables up from the last time. Then, it was the morning after the night before when Miceal Magill and Charlie Redmond took their seats, strong coffee the only way to escape the haze.

The party was still in full swing hours earlier. It was an event to mark 25 years since Down’s last All-Ireland triumph in 1994, with former Dublin forward Redmond – whose late penalty was saved by Neil Collins that day – the guest of honour.

Magill held Redmond to a point from play, his performance in the lashing rain securing the Allstar award that takes pride of place in the family home. And from adversity, a firm friendship was formed, the pair keeping in touch since - Magill’s first-born bearing the name of his most famed opponent.

Hangovers and sleep deprivation are soon forgotten once conversation starts to flow, shoulders juddering and cups shaking as yesterdays are relived in vivid detail.

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Tucking into a fry at the adjoining table is a tall, skinny teenager sporting a mop of red curls.

Danny Magill was 17 then, quiet as a dormouse listening to his father’s tales, hoping that one day he might have similar stories to share.

Danny has since stepped out from the shadows, and in some style. Bigger, stronger, quicker, at Croke Park on Saturday the Burren ace is keen to carve out his own slice of history when Down take on Meath in the Tailteann Cup decider.

• Guinness time - how Down star Daniel battled back to form and fitness after injury nightmare
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The Mournemen may not be sat alongside the big dogs at the minute but, with an exciting young side emerging under Conor Laverty’s stewardship, a mood of cautious optimism has swept through the county after some dark days.

It feels good and, for Miceal, it feels familiar too.

The previous evening Danny and the other Down players posed for pictures and signed autographs during a meet the fans event in Pairc Esler. Up in the stands, just like in his own playing days, were Miceal’s mum and dad, Susan and Mickey, lapping up every second of Danny’s moment in the sun.

“It takes me back, it really does.

“It’s great for him, great for us, great for the family, but most importantly when you see the smiles on the faces of the young people around the county… instead of looking at Manchester United or Liverpool jerseys, the last four or five weeks have been great. The colour’s back.

“I was running Danny into his coaching course this morning and you look up and you’re seeing flags out. Pete McGrath used to say that - there was always a flag on top of the P&R Motors garage along the canal, and when you saw that flag up you knew it was Championship time.

“Outside of going to Garth Brooks, it’s great to be back in Croke Park to watch Down playing football.”

“You see the photos of daddy and the boys back in ’94 and how happy the county was at that stage,” adds Danny, “you want to part of the team that brings that buzz back.

“Hopefully we’re starting to do that.”

**********************

SCANNING the field half an hour before throw-in, a father’s fears begin to take hold. People were still searching for their seats in the stand, terraces filling up as the soaring sun overhead gave Newry that unmistakable Ulster Championship feel.

The Down and Donegal players are being put through their paces before going into battle but, no matter where Miceal Magill looks in a field thronged with bodies, there is no Danny.

He had played the final National League game in Offaly, his first senior appearance in red and black after an ankle injury sidelined him through the spring. And he did well but, in a de facto dead rubber, so had all the Down players as they coasted across the line with 12 to spare.

An hour before throw-in was all the notice given that he had earned a starting spot, the task on his Championship debut to curtail the lightning breaks of Eoghan Ban Gallagher.

“That’s just the way we are,” says Danny, “the short time between finding out, it doesn’t really let nerves creep in…”

Those words would come back to bite him as the story unfolds.

Out in the stand, the Magill family are unaware Danny is in the first 15. Concern grows when the Down players take the field for their warm-up and he isn’t among them.

“I’m turning round to Danny’s older brother Charlie and younger brother Harry saying ‘where is he?’” recalls Miceal, “then we spotted my nephew Ryan [Magill], who was injured but was down on the field - Harry takes out his mobile and rings Ryan, asks what’s happening.

“Ryan’s relaying everything to Harry, he gets off the phone and tells us ‘Danny’s being violently sick in the changing room, but he’s okay and he’s starting’. So, unknown to us, he actually ended up going through a separate warm-up with one of the coaches because he had been told late.”

“Yeah,” smiles Danny, “see what I said about nerves earlier? Scratch that.

“When our Ryan was on the phone, I was telling him I was 100 per cent - tell daddy put the phone down and relax.

“The funny thing is it had never happened me before, but then before the Armagh match [in the Ulster SFC semi-final] it happened again. We were in the Hillgrove Hotel, we’d just eaten, the team was named and I said to ‘Dutchy’ [Ceilum Doherty] ‘I’m gonna be sick’ and he was like ‘not again’.

“So I told him if Lav’s looking for me, tell him he can find me in the toilet, I’ll be out in 10...”

“Anyway,” says Miceal, drawing a line under the matter, “thank God for mobile phones.”

All was well that ended well, Danny stepping up to the plate impressively as Down extended Donegal’s winter of discontent, emboldening a growing sense of camaraderie within the group and giving success-starved supporters something to cling onto.

“That was the first time I really saw everybody was pulling in the right direction,” says Miceal, “and I told Danny on the field after, take all this in because 20 minutes ago, if you don’t beat Donegal, this doesn’t happen.

“You’re walking off the field, head down, into the changing room. You don’t have young kids coming up looking for your gloves or your jersey. Days like that don’t come along all the time.”

Yet while it couldn’t have been more perfect from a footballing perspective, those celebrations were tinged with sadness that a special person couldn’t be there to share a magic moment.

Miceal’s wife Nuala had been diagnosed with bowel cancer weeks earlier, and underwent surgery in Craigavon Area Hospital on the same day a Down U20 side including Harry Magill - second youngest of the crew - sent reigning All-Ireland champions Tyrone tumbling, the first step on the way to claiming the Ulster crown.

Charlie and Danny made the trip to Omagh to support their sibling - that evening, and the weeks that followed, are forever etched in their memories.

“There were a lot of tears,” says Miceal.

“But following the boys, it was a great lift - a much-needed lift at that time. We didn’t see all the games, we saw what we could see, but Nuala had her surgery and was starting chemotherapy.

“It was extremely challenging for the lads but on the back of that, when their mum was recovering in hospital and back recuperating at home, the papers were being bought, scrapbooks were being started…”

Nuala was in Croke Park three weeks ago to see Down steamroll Laois, when Danny bagged two of their incredible eight goal haul.

“After the 10th decade of the rosary she realised she had to stop at some point,” laughs Miceal.

And she will be there on Saturday for the biggest game of Danny’s career to date. Football has provided a welcome distraction in difficult times and, for her boys, Nuala’s resolve remains a constant source of strength.

“The boys on the team and the management were absolutely amazing, I couldn’t thank them enough for what they’ve done for me and for Harry,” says Danny.

“We always would’ve sent mummy a wee message before and after every game... me and Harry spoke after the 20s beat Tyrone, and he said to me ‘look, if mummy can fight like she is, why can’t we run another 10 yards for a ball?’

“That was our motivation going into games. If mummy can do that, we can try and do something for her.”

**********************

CAVAN was the big one, really. Donegal was great, a brilliant occasion on home turf, but in terms of days that shape and mould a developing side, when winning makes or breaks a campaign, what unfolded in the Tailteann Cup quarter-final was critical.

Danny Magill has made a habit of being in the right place at the right time. Seven days before the trip to Kingspan Breffni he came off the bench to slot home as Down wrestled back control following a rocky first half against Longford.

Against competition favourites Cavan, with the Mournemen a point up heading towards the last, he collected a Pat Havern lay-off before cushioning beyond Ray Galligan with that cultured left boot to all but seal the deal.

Two more followed against Laois, a bit of soccer on the side steeling nerves before goal when the pressure is amped up.

“I played a bit for Warrenpoint, Rossowen, a bit for Damolly then last year.

“I scored 10 goals in seven games for them, and it became a bit of a running joke because I go with [former Newry City manager] Darren Mullen’s daughter Eve, I was always going into the house saying ‘come on Darren, sign me up here!’”

“I was hoping he needed an agent,” says Miceal with a wink.

In the moments after the Cavan game, Down assistant manager Mickey Donnelly was quick to highlight the influence at home too.

“You can’t beat coming from good stock…”

Miceal appreciates the compliment, his pride in Danny’s achievements clear, the father and son bond evident throughout the course of conversation. The pair have been working at even closer quarters in recent times too, with Miceal enlisting Danny and M&M Performance Lab partner Conor Milligan to look after the strength and conditioning side of things with Louth club Geraldine’s, where his father has take over the reins as senior manager.

But if there is tough love or harsh words are required, well, so be it. That’s how it was for Miceal coming up, the lessons learned taking him to the very top at 24.

“After every game mummy, even if I was brutal, she would say I was brilliant, best player on the pitch,” says Danny, “but daddy would be open and honest, and tell me what I did wrong, what I can improve on for the next day.

“He’s been there, done it, worn the jersey, so anything I can get off him is a bonus.”

“When I was playing, you had to be open to constructive criticism,” adds Miceal, “it’ll make you an awful lot better.

“I was lucky that my mother and father always had my back, my mum is one of the McGoverns from Burren, her brothers had all won All-Ireland club titles in the ’80s.

“When school was finished, and with the McGoverns being 12 of a family, it was whoever gets to granny and granda’s first gets the top bunk. You got there early, you got a bed for the summer, and you were able to go to all the football training, and you were infatuated by watching your uncles being successful.

“On top of that I was fortunate to go through St Mark’s under the guidance of Barney McAleenan and Liam Austin. They always would’ve instilled into us, from the day and hour you walked into first year, that you were only as good as your last game.

“But as parents, we see the work that goes in - the diet control, the life they lead, everything revolves around it. Sometimes I have to make an appointment to have a chat with Danny.”

And on occasion, the truth can hurt.

A defining point in Down’s Tailteann Cup campaign was the defeat to Saturday’s opponents Meath in the last round robin game at Parnell Park six weeks ago.

At the height of the early summer heatwave, the Mournemen kicked a shocking 17 wides on a day when anything that could go wrong, did. Frustration filled the air on the journey home, Miceal in no mood to pull punches.

“I didn’t get any dinner that night,” says Danny, before dad takes up the tale.

“Whenever I got to the top of the Whitehall Road there was a circus directly across from the entrance to the chapel - I said to Charlie and Danny ‘there’s a lot of the Down boys could be in that circus today’.

“Funnily enough though, the circus played a bit of a part in how that day panned out. Because of it the traffic coming into Dublin was tailed back nearly as far as the airport… I was eventually walking through the gate with Darren O’Hagan 20 minutes between throw-in at two, and some of the Down lads hadn’t arrived by 20 past one…”

“We normally travel together,” adds Danny, “that day we were in the Carrickdale and decided to scoot on down the road in cars

“The Meath team were late as well, we were walking in with fans about half one, so it didn’t go too well preparation-wise. But it probably was a blessing in disguise… we know we didn’t show our full hand that day.”

One unexpected bonus for Danny on the walk in was a brief renewal of acquaintances with Sean Boylan – the Dunboyne man part of the backroom team during his Down U20 days, now back involved with Meath under former charge Colm O’Rourke.

Boylan and Laverty will share a few words at some stage but, on Saturday, sentiment goes out the window as the Kilcoo man eyes up Royal revenge.

Alongside Marty Clarke, Mickey Donnelly and Declan Morgan, Laverty has helped unify a county coming off the back of its annus horribilis, those smarts on the line – and on the training field – a key part of Down’s armoury.

“If you get near Lav you’re doing a good job,” says Danny, “he would slip a dummy and put you on your hole very handy.”

Plenty of water has travelled beneath the bridge since Miceal Magill first encountered Conor Laverty - long before Danny was born, a time when the current Down boss was just like the sons who accompany him everywhere and the starry-eyed youngsters flooding the field to meet their heroes.

“Back then we did a lot of our field sessions in Ballykinlar, which is a two-mile camel trek to get to. Hail, rain or shine, it didn’t matter, there was always this young kid who would’ve stood in the corner of the changing rooms with his father.

“After training was over, you’d have had extra gear, boots, socks, shorts, and this wee kid would have gone round asking if you had anything – I hadn’t a clue who he was, but I discovered in later years it was actually Conor Laverty, him and his dad Gerry.

“It’s funny how these things work out…”

While Danny Magill is preparing for his date with destiny, Miceal plans to meet up with some old comrades in Meagher’s, settling nerves and having the craic.

Down were on the crest of a wave back in their heyday, but a journey that finished up with the greatest prize of all has become a distant dream or a second hand story for too many.

Symmetry of a kind exists now, the little boy to the leading man, the father to the son, and hope at least for the generations to come.