Devastated Harte says Tyrone should play McKenna Cup tie

TYRONE FOOTBALL has a reputation for rising above tragic circumstance, and does so yet again by committing to Sunday’s opening Dr McKenna Cup match against Fermanagh – even as manager Mickey Harte still comes to terms with the killing on Monday of his only daughter Michaela while on honeymoon in Mauritius.

In a brave and no doubt difficult decision, Harte last night gave his blessing for the Tyrone county board to fulfil the fixture, with one game already postponed from last Sunday due to the freezing weather. Should his daughter’s remains be returned to Ireland before Sunday then the game will be cancelled, although the expectation is it will be at least another week before any funeral arrangements are completed.

It’s not known whether Harte himself will attend Sunday’s game against Fermanagh, which is set for 2pm at Brewster Park in Enniskillen. Tyrone assistant manager Tony Donnelly is more likely to take charge. But, according to Tyrone press officer Damian Harvey, Harte expressed the wish the players should turn out for the first game of 2011.

“The only thing that will prevent that happening is the remains coming home or a possible funeral before Sunday,” said Harvey.

“But for now Mickey Harte has given his blessing for Tyrone GAA activities to continue.”

The unfathomable killing in Mauritius on Monday of Michaela Harte, the 27 year-old and only daughter of the Tyrone manager, continues to sadden the GAA community throughout the country, especially in Tyrone and also Down, the county of her husband John McAreavey. Harte hasn’t travelled to Mauritius but his son Mark, along with McAreavey’s brother Brian, left for the Indian Ocean island yesterday.

Down are also out in the Dr McKenna Cup this weekend, and will play Armagh in Páirc Esler on Saturday evening. There were also doubts whether this game would proceed as planned, due to McAreavey’s ties with the Down football team. However he’s not currently a member of the Down panel, and hasn’t been since 2008, when he made two appearances during the season.

“I suppose our circumstances are a little different,” said Down county secretary Seán Óg McAteer. “We’d always envisaged our game would go ahead, but at the same time we’d take whatever direction we get from the Ulster Council.

“Having said that, John would have been well known to a lot of the boys on the Down panel. He came through St Colman’s around the same time as a lot of the current panel, and well represented Down GAA. He only recently captained his club Tullylish to the county intermediate title last year, but he’s been carrying an injury as well, so wasn’t part of the panel currently.”

The Ulster Council had also been in communication with the Tyrone County Board yesterday, and was open to whatever alternative arrangements that might be suggested: “The fixtures stood as they were because we didn’t want to pre-empt anything,” said Ulster Council press officer Oliver Galligan, “but would wait and see what Tyrone suggested.”

Despite Tyrone’s decision to play on Sunday there is still some doubt about whether they’ll actually complete the competition. All first round games of the McKenna Cup scheduled for last weekend were postponed due to the freezing weather conditions, with Tyrone originally set to host Donegal in Omagh. Typical of Harte, rather than let the weekend go to waste, he promptly arranged a full and thorough training session at the synthetic pitch at St Ciarán’s high school in Ballygawley.

Speaking after that session he reiterated that “you’d like to win it, and if you were in the business of winning it, you would be well prepared for the league”.

Tyrone are also scheduled to play UUJ in Omagh next Wednesday evening, and then McKenna Cup holders Donegal at the same venue Sunday week – as the Ulster Council announced that all those postponed first round games would take place on the weekend of January 22nd-23rd.

Once Michaela Harte’s funeral arrangements are known then a decision will be made on those games, but it seems likely Tyrone will be forced to miss at least one of those games.

Harte’s Tyrone have always treated the McKenna Cup as an important part of their early season preparations – and in fact won the competition outright four times within the last seven years: in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Yet he could never have imagined his commitment to the competition would be tested in this way.