KEITH DUGGAN SIDELINE CUT:TIRCONAIL BOCHT! Those of us who come from Donegal have learned, through bitter experience, to always expect the unexpected when it comes to the county football team. With Donegal football, you never know whether to laugh or to cry.
The ousting of Brian McIver this week is just the latest episode in how to make another fine mess of things. It may be an exaggeration to claim McIver was forced to resign when confronted with a staged coup d'etat at what was supposed to have been a straightforward county board meeting. But what has become clear is the executive of the county board is unhappy to have lost his services and the players are unhappy to have lost a manager. It is surely a mutinous state of affairs when the county captain, Kevin Cassidy, has publicly vented his anger with his club, Gweedore, over the role its delegates played in cornering McIver until he felt he had no alternative but to offer his resignation and leave the room.
So many of the GAA's cloak-and-dagger episodes seem to involve car-parks and there is something terribly wrong about the image of McIver finding himself alone and ousted as he walked across the car park in Ballybofey, adjacent to MacCumhaill Park. And it is ironic that Cassidy should emerge as McIver's most vocal champion given the Gweedore meant spent a summer in American exile after falling out of favour with the Ballinderry man after a disagreement about what constituted acceptable socialising. But Cassidy returned to the set-up a season older and wiser and, six years after his maiden All-Star season, had the cut of an athlete determined to achieve something tangible with his team.
Sixteen years have passed since Donegal won an Ulster championship, the longest period without laying hands on the Anglo-Celt since the initial success in 1972.
They were runners-up in 1998 (when Joe Brolly crushed them with a late goal in the rain and blew kisses to the gallery), 2002 (when Armagh defeated them on the way to All-Ireland glory), 2004 (when Armagh hammered them: when one Donegal defender tried to soften up one of the gilded Orchard County attackers he was stilled with the rebuke, "are you tryin' to tickle me, young fella?') and 2006 (Armagh, again). In 2002, they famously held Dublin to a draw in a thrilling quarter-final in Croke Park and after some players embarked on a Lennon-style Lost Weekend in the city, they acquired the reputation as a party team and Dublin murdered them in the replay.
In 2003, Donegal embarrassed Brian McEniff with a useless display against Fermanagh in the Ulster championship and then surged to an All-Ireland semi-final where they scored one of the goals of the season and fell gallantly with 14 men to Armagh. They were promoted and relegated in the league - in 2005 they beat just two teams in exiting Division One - Kerry and Cork. Then, in 2007, they went unbeaten through Division One and claimed Donegal's first ever league title.
It is a record that screams of an unpredictable, schizophrenic soul. The popular assumption was the Donegal squad was populated with wild men who believed in playing for a good time rather than a long time. The departure of the Mickey Moran/John Morrison axis after the summer of 2002 led to a disastrous period when, it seemed, no self-respecting manager wanted to touch the Donegal job. The crisis resulted in McEniff, against all advice, returning to inter-county management for the first time since 1994 and bringing Donegal to an All-Ireland semi-final for the fifth time, as either player or manager. McIver is the only other manager to have guided Donegal to a national title.
Fat thanks he got for it this week. Perhaps those who challenged McIver's suitability believe Donegal football could do better under a new voice. Home championship defeats against Monaghan and Derry this summer and last year's whipping by Tyrone suggest the team is no nearer the elusive Ulster title. But the timing and nature of the challenge on McIver leaves a bad taste and it is difficult to know how it will impact on the team, whose confidence seems fragile at the best of times.
McIver has stated he will not manage another team because he would not work against the Donegal men. That's the most handsome and glowing tribute an often maligned team has been paid in years. For a supposedly unruly bunch, men like John Morrison and Mickey Moran still speak fondly of the Donegal players as individuals. They remain one of the few teams whose players speak freely and courteously when asked to.
But in autumn of 2008 this Donegal team are without a manager and for several of the players, time is running out. Since 2002, they have been politely dithering on the periphery of the arena where the very best teams operate. When Donegal examine the championship games they lost by one point (Monaghan '08, Cork '06) or why they lost the Division Two final replay against Louth by three points the season before they won the first division league or why, after drawing with and almost beating Armagh in 2005, they finished the replay in a state of wildness, with just 12 men remaining on the field, they will surely see their shortcomings have little to do with football. Mental toughness and confidence are what they need. Arrogance is what they need now. Perhaps they will inherit some of that from the men of the Donegal All-Ireland winning team whose names have been associated with the evacuated post.
At least the players are not culpable in this latest mess. Apparently, they held a meeting to discuss the situation during the week. Maybe this stark situation will have made them realise that ultimately, it is down to themselves alone: that they are the ones showing up for training in Ballybofey week-in and week-out. There are two ways to go from here. They can continue to potter along, a dandy but puzzling football team capable of giving all-comers a good game. Or they can deliver on the undoubted potential they've shown in the last five years. Because ultimately, nobody cares either way except for themselves. A friend sent a text a few minutes after Donegal exited this year's All-Ireland: "George Allen, a great American football coach, said, 'Every time you lose, you die a little.' Until the Donegal lads believe that, nothing will change.'"
