It is now well over 30 years since a senior intercounty football championship has taken to the stage without Kieran McGeeney having a role in the show.
So when his Armagh side face Tyrone at Clones today, there isn’t much the scriptwriters could conjure up that McGeeney hasn’t previously seen play out in one of Gaelic football’s fiercest rivalries.
After all, he goes back. Way back. McGeeney marked a kid called Peter Canavan in a 1989 Ulster minor quarter-final. By 2003 those two teenagers had become lionised figureheads for their respective counties – and were team captains for what remains the only ever all-Ulster All-Ireland SFC final.
This afternoon McGeeney will manage Armagh against a Tyrone side whose cast of attackers includes Peter’s sons, Darragh and Ruairí.
McGeeney was first invited to train with the Armagh senior panel in late 1989, an era when league games took place pre-Christmas. In December of that year he came off the bench in Tralee as Armagh beat Kerry – a Kingdom side that included Charlie Nelligan, Jack O’Shea and Ambrose O’Donovan, icons of the game but by then in the twilight of their careers.
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It would be 1992 before McGeeney made his first championship start but from that defeat to Down until now, the Mullaghbawn man has an unbroken record of senior intercounty championship involvement either as a player, coach or manager.
“His longevity is incredible. He has had a great career and he’s certainly not finished,” says Paul Grimley, the man McGeeney succeeded as Armagh manager.
McGeeney played with the county’s seniors from 1992 until his retirement in September 2007. But a little over two weeks later he was appointed Kildare senior football manager, a position he held until September 2013.
Grimley – then managing Armagh – swooped quickly and in October 2013 McGeeney was confirmed as his assistant. McGeeney also worked with the Tipperary hurlers during this period but in Armagh an unstoppable train of events had been set in motion.
Grimley stepped down in August 2014 and later that same month McGeeney was appointed manager for a five-year term. Some 11 seasons on, there he remains. Grimley’s impulse to bring McGeeney on-board and his willingness to adopt a helicopter view of the landscape was a history-changing moment for Armagh football.
He had coached McGeeney when operating as Joe Kernan’s assistant in Armagh during that period when the 2002 breakthrough All-Ireland was mined.
And after McGeeney was appointed Kildare manager, one of the first calls he made was to check if Grimley would join him.
“We had a great couple of years down there. I enjoyed it massively,” Grimley recalls.
Grimley later moved to coaching stints with Monaghan and Meath until in the summer of 2012 he eventually got his hands on the position he had always craved – to manage his native Armagh.
But at the end of the 2013 season a surprise and contentious vote in Kildare to remove McGeeney shifted the goalposts. It led to Grimley and then Armagh chairman Paul Duggan hatching a succession plan.
“We felt there was a responsibility that instead of leaving a gap to develop where Kieran might go elsewhere, because he was very much in demand, we wanted to close that gap and bring him in with us. So, we agreed I would stay to the end of that term and then he would take over.
If you bring in a new man after two years, all you are doing is suspending the progress because a new manager comes in with fresh ideas and so you are starting all over again. I think managers should be given at least five years
— Paul Grimley
“I felt that to take it to the next stage you needed a younger manager. Coaching was moving on. The style that I would have had with Armagh in the noughties was no longer viable. I wanted the board to give it to somebody who would grasp it and drive it on. Kieran was that man.”
Not that McGeeney has always been the apple of everybody’s eye in the Orchard. It took him five years to win a game in the Ulster SFC and in advance of the 2024 season there was a vote on his future.
But Armagh’s belief and patience was rewarded last July when they won Sam Maguire – with the man who had captained them to their maiden title managing them to their second.
“I think county boards could take a lesson from Armagh. There are plenty of good young coaches and managers out there and they should be supported; they need time,” adds Grimley.
“If you bring in a new man after two years, all you are doing is suspending the progress because a new manager comes in with fresh ideas and so you are starting all over again. I think managers should be given at least five years.”
In Grimley’s last season in charge he guided Armagh to a rare championship victory over Tyrone in Omagh, a 0-13 to 0-10 All-Ireland qualifier victory.
He stepped down as Armagh manager a few weeks later following a one-point All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Donegal and has been content to spend recent years simply as an Armagh supporter again.
“In 2002, you got to see the joy of the players at first hand. It was brilliant to be involved but we maybe didn’t get to see all of what was going on because in some ways you were looking at it through the windows of a bus,” he adds.
“So for me it was wonderful last year to see what it meant to everybody in the county. It’s such a powerful thing. I’m sure it’s the same in all counties, but Sam Maguire nearly becomes like a holy relic. It is often brought to people who are unfortunately unwell and the lift it gives them is unbelievable.”
Today’s Ulster semi-final will be the 47th championship meeting of Armagh and Tyrone – with the Orchard County edging the win count, 22 to 18.
“The bigger picture of the All-Ireland series will be on the back burner for now because while the rivalry might not be as bitter as it once was, it’s still there, both counties still want to win, it’s still important,” adds Grimley.
“Armagh-Tyrone in championship is always an outstanding event and I don’t see any reason why it won’t be the same this weekend.”
With McGeeney still calling the shots for Armagh and Tyrone forever hoping a Canavan will shoot the lights out. The more things change, and all that.
