BUTLER Walk in the heart of Ardoyne keeps exalted company. To the left, as you enter Holy Cross Boys’ Primary School, portraits of Plato and Socrates stare down from the gable wall.
‘To find yourself, think for yourself.’ Accompanying these ancient Greek philosophers is a side-on portrait of a Holy Cross boy.
The stunning art on this gable wall sends a million positive and thought-provoking messages to the teachers, school staff and the kids themselves each day they pass through the school gates.
Another inspiring move by school principal Kevin McArevey was recruiting two of the best footballers to emerge from the streets of Ardoyne – Tony Kane and Joe Gormley – as classroom assistants.
It’s break-time and the staff room is buzzing with chat and the clatter of coffee cups.
Tony Kane and Joe Gormley come in smiling and bantering with their colleagues.
Mr McArevey shares out a few Double Decker chocolate bars and pours the coffees.
As staff members drift back to their classrooms on this bright Wednesday morning, the mood is easy between Mr McArevey and Joe.
Kevin taught Joe at Holy Cross in P5 and knew he was gifted with a ball at his feet, so much so that he had him practising with the P7s.
“In class, Joe loved to get everything right, and when he didn’t he got very frustrated,” Kevin says, with Joe almost morphing back to that nine-year-old P5 kid again.
“Joe’s hero was his dad…”
Joe’s father – also Joe – died in 2002 after a short illness, aged just 39. Kevin remembers Joe’s father as a constant presence on the sidelines whenever his son played for the school team.
Kevin can’t speak highly enough of Kane and Gormley and having them back working in the school.
“Why would you not bring a role model like Joe into the school?” Kevin says.
“I already had one local hero in Tony Kane [formerly of Blackburn Rovers]. Why not bring Joe in because these kids need role models and something to aspire to because Ardoyne is a concrete jungle.
“The only green area here is our nature garden. So, for the kids to see Joe in the school, they might think: ‘One day that might be me.’
“Joe is a revelation,” Kevin adds, “because I don’t think he realises what he’s achieved in football. He’s humble, he’s formidable on the field but when he comes off the field, he has all those beautiful qualities of honesty, enthusiasm, he’s ambitious and has a great ability to relate to others.
“If there’s one word to describe him it’s loyalty – his loyalty to this school and this community is second to none.”
Joe listens intently to Mr McArevey, probably slightly embarrassed by the principal’s heartfelt praise.
“I’m proud to be where I’m from,” Joe interjects. “And I don’t like when people have a lot of negative energy towards Ardoyne. But, until you come here and get to know the people who work and live in it, there is nowhere better.”
Then, the school principal reveals another nugget about Cliftonville’s record goal-scorer.
“One of the greatest things to come out of here was the film we made, ‘Young Plato’,” Kevin says.
“Joe himself takes philosophy sessions with the staff. Joe leads it. The confidence I’ve seen in Joe since the day he started until now has been incredible.”
It’s true. Every other Thursday, all the classroom assistants gather in the staff room for a philosophy session.
During the 45 minutes of discussion on a chosen topic Joe keeps everything on an even keel, prompting debate among his peers and calming it when required.
Joe brings me upstairs to his P7 class where Mrs Lynch exudes a calm authority. The classroom’s curtains are drawn as the children watch the story of Julius Caesar on a big projector screen.
Joe looks after two children in the class who are diabetic. The kids come to him, they prick their own thumbs, and their blood levels are tested by a small contraption. All is good.
Mrs Lynch occasionally pauses the projector to prompt debate among her P7s about their thoughts on the Roman General.
You can tell Joe loves his role here – and the kids give their love back to him in spades.
“Joe is a breath of fresh air in the school,” Kevin says. “Once a Holy Cross boy – always a Holy Cross boy.”
A FEW weeks pass before we meet again in Aunt Nellie’s Café, on Alliance Avenue in Ardoyne.
What’s happened since? Well, quite a lot as it turns out.
Cliftonville beat Larne at Windsor Park to reach this season’s Irish Cup final and Neil Lennon was guest speaker at his testimonial dinner at the Devenish Complex.
His partner, Aoife, is just a couple of weeks away from giving birth to their second child.
Lorcan, their son, is excited about having a wee brother in the house.
After an emotionally charged semi-final win at the south Belfast venue in which Joe came off the bench - a role he’s reluctantly had to adapt to this season - the striker energised Jim Magilton’s team in the final quarter to get them over the line.
Thousands of Reds fans were in dreamland.
When the players finally emerged from the changing rooms, it was late, but there were still a few Reds fans hanging around the smoking area.
At that precise moment, Joe was sorely tempted to head back to the ‘social’ for a few pints and soak up the post-match atmosphere.
“It was obviously a great feeling because it’s not very often you reach the final of the Irish Cup,” he says.
“The fans were outstanding, as always. I live for those moments. I knew the ‘social’ would be absolutely rammed.
“I just love going in there after the home games, especially when we win because of the atmosphere.
“They’ve started to get singers in and there are sing-songs. I’d usually stay for a few pints…
“But I decided to go straight home after the semi-final. My number one thought coming home after a match is what am I getting to eat?” (laughing)
The testimonial dinner was a special night too – and being a Celtic fanatic, he confessed to being a bit star-struck when chatting with Lennon in the big ballroom at the Devenish Complex.
“Neil Lennon is right beside me. I’d grown up supporting this guy - a Celtic player, Celtic manager.
“I was at the Barcelona game whenever Celtic beat them 2-1 and he started telling me the back-story to it. It was unreal.”
Football has been Joe Gormley’s life. It was all he ever wanted to do – a passion that was nurtured in him by his late father.
Joe remembers being brought to work with his father, who was a steel worker, a couple of times when he was very young – but most of his memories revolve around watching teams his dad managed or played in up in Mallusk.
Joe was 12 when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“We were told he had five weeks to live and died within two,” Joe says.
“I’ll never forget the day he passed away. I was playing in the next street and my aunt came round to bring me to our house in Velsheda Court.
“One of my daddy’s best friend’s – Paddy McDaid – drove past us in his car really fast, like very fast.
“And I thought, ‘Right, okay’. I got to the house, and I walked up the stairs. On our bannisters we have spindles, where you can see through them.
“I remember walking up and looking through them and I could see my mummy lying on the bed hugging my daddy, crying her eyes out. I knew straight away. I sat on the steps and broke down.”
A father to Joe, Ciaran and Naomi, wife to Marguerite and a friend to so many – snatched from their precious grasp forever.
Young Joe had built his life around his father.
“It was tough,” he says. “I remember in bed every night crying myself to sleep. That went on for about two years straight, just thinking about him.
“It’s something you wouldn’t want anyone to experience because he was so young and I was so young.
“My younger sister, Naomi, was only eight or nine, and my older brother, Ciaran was going through his GCSEs at the time.
“It’s something that’s going to happen in life – you just don’t want it to happen at that age.
“My mummy had to be strong for us. When I say strong, she was a rock growing up because she was obviously heartbroken. It was hard on her growing up with three kids…”
Football was Joe’s salvation.
Every school match seemed to be more important than the last one.
He tried harder every time and later went on to play for a few local clubs, enjoying a spell with Cliftonville U18s before moving to Amateur League club Crumlin Star where Sean Brown and Eamonn Hawkins became hugely influential figures in his life.
He scored goals for fun on park pitches all around Belfast, breaking all sorts of records. Hat-tricks were the norm. Sometimes four goals per game, even five.
Hawkins and Brown knew that Crumlin Star was merely a stepping stone to greater things for Joe.
At 21-years-old, Cliftonville was the most obvious destination for the young striker to flourish – and he was duly signed by Tommy Breslin in 2011.
But the sparkling career he went on to have at the Reds almost never happened.
Breslin tried to ease him into the first team reckoning, as established striker Chris Scannell was still producing the goods, but in those early days Joe spent a lot of time rooted to the Reds bench.
“At the start, I didn’t think I was good enough for Cliftonville. I was so close to leaving. I wasn’t playing as much as I would have liked and I went to go on in a game and I asked Brian Campbell, the kit-man, how long’s left and he said three minutes.
“And I thought: ‘F**k me. That’s me done.’ I was for leaving. I was just on the pitch, and I shot and scored, I think it was against Dungannon.”
Imagine if he hadn’t come on and scored that day. Imagine if Chris Scannell hadn’t wrecked his Achilles soon afterwards.
Fate and fine lines have made and broken many a career.
“I know,” Joe laughs at the thought.
“There would never have been ‘Joe The Goal’ or anything! No goals. No testimonial. It’s crazy when you think about it.”
With Scannell sidelined, Joe would go on to form a prolific partnership with Liam Boyce – “the best player I ever played with”, he says – and the Reds went on to claim back-to-back league titles.
The football that Cliftonville played in those seasons was pure magic.
Breslin, the most affable of managers, moulded foot soldiers with artists and they produced the most beautiful spectacle ever seen at Solitude.
By the time he hit 122 goals in 183 appearances, English League One side Peterborough signed him.
“It’s what I dreamt of doing – playing professional football,” he says.
He felt good in the pre-season friendlies but when the real business of the league began, he was surprised by the athleticism of his opponents.
“The step up was huge. The players were just bigger, stronger, faster. I was up against these 19 and 20-year-old athletes and I’m thinking: ‘Oh shit.’
“It was going to be a lot harder than I thought it was, and then obviously I got the injury, and my head was gone after that.”
He suffered an injury every footballer dreads. His ACL went in a game against Norwich City.
It was the kind of injury that derailed him, mentally, more than physically.
He would lift the phone at all hours of the night – to ‘Skin’ Lyttle, George McMullan, Sean Brown and many others – for advice about what to do.
Keep the head down. Keep working hard. He went on loan to Scottish club St Johnstone and loved it there.
“If I had got time at St Johnstone, I think I could’ve played there. I’ll never forget it. I played in this match and got my nose broke and that night I just put everything in the car and went back to Belfast.
“I actually put everything in the car twice when I was at St Johnstone. It was the second time, I thought: ‘F**k this. This is not for me’. It was the right thing. My mummy would have said: ‘If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’ That stuck with me. And I’ve always been grateful for the advice my mummy’s partner Martin has given me too.
“I have no regrets whatsoever. I contacted the reserve manager and said to him,
‘That’s me done. It’s not for me’. I bounced in the car and went home and that’s the last I ever seen of them.”
Upon his return home, Shamrock Rovers wanted to sign him. They offered him €1,200 per week and only wanted him down three days, with hotels paid for.
He met Crusaders manager Stephen Baxter twice and was on his way to sign for Cliftonville’s rivals before ‘Skin’ Lyttle, Reds manager at the time, rang him to say that he’d secured an improved offer for him to re-sign for his local club.
“It was nowhere near what Crusaders were offering me but it’s where I wanted to be. It’s just where I’m from. You speak to anyone at Cliftonville and it’s just hard to leave. I love playing for Cliftonville.”
Since 2011, and a short cross-channel sabbatical along the way, the privilege and pleasure has been Cliftonville’s.
He loved all the managers he’s played under – Breslin, Lyttle and he’d great time for Barry Gray. Likewise, Paddy McLaughlin and Jim Magilton.
He broke Kevin McGarry’s long-standing club record of 170 goals against Crusaders in October 2018 and has added another 100 to that tally since.
He would dearly love to start in next week’s Irish Cup final against Linfield – to right the wrongs of 2013 and 2018 – with Ronan Hale and Ben Wilson also in contention.
But he’s quick to remind everyone that next Saturday is not the end of the road for the 34-year-old local hero. He has another year of his contract to run and is feeling fit.
But it’s good to pause and reflect on exactly what he’s given to Cliftonville Football Club over the years.
Fathers and sons and hundreds of Holy Cross boys have squeezed through Solitude’s turnstiles over the last 13 years to laud and admire and be entertained by a truly brilliant goal-scorer and a wonderfully humble human being.
When Joe scores, he wears the kind of smile that touches his eyes. And he’s shared the joy of each of his 270 goals with his adoring public through a million embraces.
“I don’t think I’ll appreciate everything until I finish playing,” he says.
“When I’m walking down the street people say to me: ‘Well, what’s happening ‘The Goal?’ People actually call me ‘The Goal’,” he laughs.
If only his father could see him now – what he’s achieved and the joy he’s given to so many.
“Whenever I spend time with my child, I think of my daddy,” Joe says.
“I keep one of my mates going: ‘Where are you going this week? Over to a match with your Da? Grow up!’
“And I’m thinking, I would love to be able to do that. I don’t think you ever get over it. You get on with it.
“I go up to the graveyard, probably not as much as I should, and I’d bring Lorcan with me and he’d say: ‘Granda Joe under the ground?’
“I try to make my daddy proud every day, and I hope I am.”
He still has some road in front of him – but when it’s all over and done, no-one will forget Joe Gormley because legends live forever.
