There is no easy measure of how far Johnny McGurk fell from grace in the years after scoring the most important and iconic point in the history of Derry football, which is a good thing, because while his story may be familiar it remains no less startling in warning content.
Trace the trail and there is no way Derry would have won the 1993 All-Ireland without him, their first and still only senior title, McGurk scoring the deciding point late in the semi-final victory over Dublin – off his weaker left boot – then producing a man-of-the-match display from wing back in the final win over Cork. It also earned him a first All Star.
By then McGurk had already greeted triumph and some tragedy, also winning an All-Ireland with his club Lavey, as captain, in 1991, his father dying suddenly a year later while watching his son play from the sideline.
Still he always felt blessed, one of 13 children – eight boys and five girls – growing up in the relative safety of Galladuff in rural south Derry.
The fall that followed later in his life reached a low point in May 2016, after McGurk pleaded guilty to stealing £572,206 from his employers Patrick Bradley Ltd, one of the North's top construction firms, which he had been using to feed his five-year gambling addiction. McGurk also admitted to 36 other charges involving fraud and abuse of trust, and was sentenced to 30 months, 10 in prison and 20 on licence; he served 5½ months.
"I have probably been as far down as anybody can be, and yet I'm still here to tell my story," McGurk says early in the series finale of Laochra Gael (TG4, Thursday, 9.30pm).
One of the reasons for that, he says, is because the tears he cried on the bus from Antrim Crown Court to Maghaberry Prison weren't of shame, more relief, going to prison not so much a sentence as a release.
Now aged 56, the experience has visibly taken a toll; McGurk still experiences irregular heartbeat, which has required hospital attention.
In an interview this week in advance of Laochra Gael, he still appears shaken by that period of his life where he lost almost everything – his job, his wife, his house, his reputation.
He’s not the first high-profile sportsperson to succumb to gambling and won’t be the last. Still his experience of going to prison for it, as a former inter-county GAA player, sets him apart. With a new partner, and now four children, he’s suitably recovered to talk openly about it, not that it makes it any easier.
Proper addiction
“Very difficult,” McGurk says of facing the camera, the episode sympathetically directed by Ronan O’Donoghue.
“I’ve had a lot of bother discussing some of it over the years, so to put it all together was very difficult. And it did bring up a lot of that past again, as it had to do, if I was going to face that. It was quite harrowing, to be honest.”
His gambling habit first surfaced while studying at Queens University in Belfast; it only became a proper addiction after he retired from football. In 2006, he lost around £60,000 in a single bet, and things spiralled downwards from there.
“It was despair and depression,” he says. “It was £60,000 but it could have been £600,000, because I had no realisation of what I was doing with myself, with gambling. If I walked into a bookmaker now, and someone gave me 300,000, I could get rid of that in a matter of minutes. I just have no capability of dealing with it. And the only way I could deal with it was to hide it, because I was an absolute shambles at that stage, an absolute shambles, the lying was everywhere.”
By 2011, he was found out; still it took another five years to get to court: “Which is why I felt if I was sentenced, at that time, at least it was some kind of closure on it. And if I got a sentence, and served that, they decided that was right. But it’s something that’s not going to leave me, has left marks and scars and so on. I don’t think I’ll ever totally get over it.
“For five years there was no control, the next five years were nearly bad, the court appearance wasn’t until 2016, so it was 10 years that I lost out of my life, basically.
“I never gambled on any game I played myself, to be honest. Or around the time Derry were successful. Which is a bit strange, I suppose, for the person I was. It didn’t really come into my head, I wasn’t confident enough in myself. I suppose I was lucky in the aspect it wasn’t so easy to gamble in those earlier days. I do feel there are far more options now, for anyone that might have a problem with it.
“The gambling probably did replace that buzz of Gaelic football in my life. And being back involved with Lavey, and the Derry U-20s, that’s a big part of what keeps me going at the minute. I’m probably the best I’ve been for a very, very long time.
"The prison sentence was a big factor, just being able to draw some line under it. Prison life, actually, I didn't struggle a lot. I know there was a bit of fear in me, especially when I went into Maghaberry the first day, and I got a transfer out after a week, to Magilligan, which would be a lot less difficult that Maghaberry.
“I just think there was a switch inside me, an addiction to it, full stop. If I hadn’t got that prison sentence, it might have been more difficult, I would never have had the way of getting rid of the shame, and anger, because the judge made a decision, and I had to accept that, and it did give me a release absolutely.”
