Ulster club SF final/Bellaghy: Ian O'Riordan finds Bellaghy manager Damien Cassidy in confident mood ahead of Sunday's final against St Gall's
Before this dominance of Tyrone and Armagh, before Down's second coming and just after Donegal's first, there was Derry. And before all that there was Bellaghy. Trace the trail of the Ulster football revolution and a large part of it leads to the heart of south Derry, where the fortunes of Bellaghy are about as central to the community as its troubled history. They were a club before their time. They won the second All-Ireland club title in 1972, having won seven Derry titles in the 1960s. All 21 of their titles have been won since 1956, which easily rivals any other football club in the country.
After winning three successive county titles at the end of the decade, Bellaghy's stock plummeted. They lost two county finals by a point, but also endured a first-round exit. Just as suddenly, they're back. They've won their way out of Derry again, then beat Crossmaglen, and set up tomorrow's Ulster final meeting with St Gall's of Antrim. They last won the Ulster title five years ago, and it should be no surprise that one of Bellaghy's most celebrated players is behind the renaissance.
Damien Cassidy was born and raised on Bellaghy football. His father, Dan Joe, won nine county medals with the club, and his uncle, Brendan, kicked the winning point when they beat UCC in that 1972 All-Ireland final. He saw several uncles graduate from the club to play with Derry, as did his younger brother Joseph, who is starring again in the current team at full forward. Cassidy was full forward on the Derry minor team that won the All-Ireland title in 1983. Ten years later he made history as a forward on Derry's first and only All-Ireland senior winning team. After retiring five years ago, he was eased into management when his old mentor Eamonn Coleman asked him to share some duties on the sidelines. Cassidy is currently juggling his managerial role between Bellaghy and the Cavan seniors.
"I don't see it as trying to do two different jobs. Bellaghy is the priority right now . . . when I came in with Bellaghy last year, the club were on the back of being beaten in the first round of the county championship, two years previous. We then lost the county final to Slaughtneil by a point last year, even though I believe we left that one behind in the changing-room. So I decided to change the whole format, and really held back on the training. Our championship doesn't start until August, so I deliberately didn't start training the lads until May. We trained one night a week until the first week of May, and if we had a match we didn't train at all.
"Then we started up in earnest at the start of May. It was a bit of a risk, and it would have been my fault had it gone wrong. Thankfully it did work out, because I think the team came together and was still fresh when it mattered. But the bottom line is the players. They have to be committed, and without that you're wasting your time as manager."
Cassidy speaks with the sort of healthy arrogance that marks successful managers. When the Derry senior position opened up recently following Mickey Moran's decision to move, he was one of the obvious contenders, but he didn't let his name go forward. "I'd my own reasons," he explains, "but most of it was about timing . . . Sometimes it's a double-edged sword for teams from Derry to do well in the club championship. We've seen Derry teams progress in the past, but I've no bones about saying we've had problems with club football in Derry, that it has had an adverse effect on the county team. Like players concentrating on their club. You have to put that alongside the county board of the early 1990s, that eventually pushed Eamonn Coleman from the management of a very successful team. The fallout from that still resonated up until a few years ago, and I think those two factors made it very difficult to progress a successful county team."
Cassidy's Bellaghy have been growing in confidence, but he doesn't heap false praise on them. When asked about the revival of his brother Joe's form he refers to one of his old team-mates. "He's just doing what he should be doing, especially for a footballer with such natural ability. So I'm not going to pat him on the back for that."
He's equally careful to keep a close tap on the confidence in his own abilities, and his team: "I would never look beyond the match in front of me. I think it's fair to say Crossmaglen were a team that had Ulster club aspirations. But I mean they're 10-time county champions in succession. So there's no point in me saying when we beat Crossmaglen we didn't realise we're as good as what was there. Of course we did. But St Gall's have now won five Antrim titles on the trot, so I think they're entitled to Ulster club aspirations as well. This is also their second final in three years. They're a quality team. The only reason people are saying we're favourites is because we beat Crossmaglen. So I'm not bold enough to say it will happen for us on Sunday, but I just know we've won the games out in front of us, and they've all been hard enough battles."
Sounds like a bit of confidence all the same.
