The name Padden still carries a certain aura in Mayo football circles but tonight Billy Joe will be firmly in the opposing camp, writes KEITH DUGGAN
MAYO MEN of a certain vintage will sigh when they scan the match programme in Armagh city tonight and see the Padden name listed on the team page of the Ulster side.
The name is, of course, true Belmullet and for connoisseurs of the 1980s vintage of Mayo football it will always be associated with his father, Willie Joe, soaring through the muggy altitude of midfield in the tumult of some Connacht final or other to make another outrageous catch.
Following in the father’s footsteps was never going to be an easy feat for Billy Joe Padden and he candidly admits that, when he was in his early twenties, plenty of people doubted that he would make the breakthrough at senior level for his county.
Ten years later and he is in the midst of a second intercounty career and both lives intersect at the Athletics Grounds tonight, where his old team and native county come to play.
Like any Mayo man, those red and green jerseys will always mean a lot to him but when it comes to playing this game it is down to business as usual.
“That is how you have to approach it,” he said from his home in Newry. Padden was named on the bench for tomorrow’s game, but will surely play a part. “I’m just back from an injury and I only came on for the last few minutes against Kerry. But my attitude has always been to do what I am told. I will always try and do a job.
“And the fact that I was born and bred in Mayo and know so many of the guys makes me even more determined to play well and do a job for Armagh and show both the Mayo and Armagh fans that I am a good player and that, you know, I enjoyed playing for Mayo and was honoured to do that but that I’m with Armagh now and want to do my absolute best for them. So it is a motivation and it does place a bit of added pressure on you.”
The issue of players moving from one county to another is controversial, but, for Padden, the move came about through circumstance rather than design and it was garlanded with good wishes from both counties.
He married an Armagh girl in 2008 and was living in Newry and for the following 18 months was going through excruciating drives to make training in Belmullet and Castlebar with Mayo. It was a journey far more punishing than its actual miles; on wilder winter evenings, the road from Ballina to Belmullet can take its toll.
With a starting point in the eastern heart of Ulster, it was a wonder that Padden had sufficient energy to complete a lap of the field, let alone a training session.
He had decided to wind things down in an orderly way, committing to Belmullet until after they hosted the Comortas Peile na Gaeltachta, beating Ardara by a single point in June 2010 on a day that coincided with the official opening of the new pitch.
It felt like an appropriate time for Padden to bow out and he decided he would also draw the curtains on his county career. It wouldn’t have felt right to try and commit to the county and not to the club.
So that was that. By then, he was in veteran status anyway; he had been on the Mayo panel for seven years and a few dozen memorable championship games under his belt, including the 2006 All-Ireland final – a train-wreck of a day for Mayo people but still a significant date on the calendar of September purges that they have gone through. Padden’s Mayo career had been slow-burning and substantial.
A lack of physical strength held him back until he was 23 or 24 and because Belmullet were a small club trying to survive in a county whose club heritage ran deep, he was used to playing against the odds.
Even after he was drafted on to the Mayo panel, he earned his stripes slowly, playing two league seasons before he got his championship break.
It could certainly never be said that the family surname got him the fast-track to a quick debut. But he never minded that.
In the early stages, he was conscious of following in his father’s footsteps.
He quickly learned, though, that it was up to other people to make comparisons because he was clear enough about that issue: there were none to make.
“There was no point in me trying to be like Dad because I am a totally different footballer,” he says. “And he was so iconic in Mayo . . . there are only a few footballers that achieve that in any county . . . Ciarán McDonald was the guy from our generation. So it wasn’t that big a deal for me.
“Once I got up to speed with being as fit and as physically strong as the other lads to play in the role I was being asked to play, I concentrated on that. I am not terribly quick so I was never going to be bursting away from people.
“I had to be fairly strong on the ball and take my chance when it came. So I played in the league for a number of years and felt I progressed but once you make your championship debut, you forget about everything like that.”
He made his debut in 2004 and operated at midfield, half forward and full back. But his championship debut wasn’t the first time he appeared in a Mayo team photograph though – he was team mascot in 1987 for the Connacht final.
Growing up, he was steeped in Mayo football. The county team was energised after a stagnant decade in the 1970s and suddenly they were in Croke Park in 1985 and in an All-Ireland final four years later. And his father was in the midst of all this. It was an exciting time and it gripped his imagination.
By the time Padden played in an All-Ireland final some 17 years after his father had done so, the mood in the county had changed. The optimism of the late 1980s had been replaced by a kind of anxious yearning.
Padden does not believe that the general hoping-against-hope weighed heavily on the team but when he reviews that period, he isolates the three championship games against Kerry in 2004, 2005 and 2006 as key to why they didn’t succeed. The finals in those years are easily recalled because they were such cakewalks for the Kerry men. But it is often forgotten the teams met in the 2005 quarter-final and engaged in a shoot-out, Kerry winning by 2-15 to 0-18. Padden played in the half forward line.
“That day should have been an indicator that we weren’t as defensive or physical as a lot of teams at the time. We were as good as a lot of teams with the ball – we had Ciarán Mac, James Nallen . . . a lot of top players. But there was an element in our game missing in comparison to other successful teams. Even Kerry were more defensively minded than we were.
“In 2004 I was on the bench and it is hard to understand even the emotions involved. But in 2006, yeah, it felt like a missed opportunity because we didn’t play to our absolute best. We had too many big players that day who didn’t start well enough and Kerry are the one team against whom you can’t afford to do that.
“They catch you on the break and they keep on punishing you and next thing you know you are four, six, 10 down. Maybe because we came out of the Dublin game on such a high, it sometimes happens teams that no matter how hard you try it is hard to prepare yourself in terms of doing the hard things first. Kerry put the foot on our throat. And you have to admire them for that.”
It is easy to see why Paddy O’Rourke, the Armagh manager, would have been keen to invite Padden to audition for his side once he learned he was living in the county. O’Rourke had taken control of the Orchard County at a desperately tough time, with most of the All-Ireland winning side of 2002 either retired or on the verge of doing so.
He had to start from scratch and having a seasoned campaigner like Padden in the squad had obvious benefits. He invited the Mayo man along for trials and Padden, while delighted to accept, was aware that he was a stranger in a strange land.
“Everyone made me feel welcome. And I can understand why people would feel that is unjustified because there are plenty of men in Armagh who would do anything to have a shot at playing on the Armagh squad.
“So I considered myself lucky and I just wanted to go in, work hard and try and be a good team- mate. And that was it. It has worked out well. I have enjoyed it. I have played some good games and some bad games.
“Last year ultimately ended in disappointment for us but I enjoyed it on a personal level. And I think we can see that there are some young footballers in the squad now who are going to be big players for Armagh over the next six or seven years so the future is bright.”
He was soon immersed in Armagh football, playing club games with Carrickcruppen and feeling the plight of all other footballers not born in Crossmaglen. The enduring excellence of the Rangers men means that several excellent Armagh players have come and gone without winning county medals. And there is no sign of that changing.
Life in Armagh was refreshing and while playing Gaelic football had its similarities to home, there were differences. He had been expecting a different feel to football life in Armagh but what has surprised him the most is just how central the clubhouse is to the social life of GAA-orientated towns in the county.
“I was expecting a major difference I suppose because of the history and the Troubles and all that. The only thing is that the GAA up here is definitely more of a focus for the community. In Mayo, you would have various things going on and places to meet. But the GAA grounds – they all have excellent facilities and a club bar and meeting rooms – really are the centre for the GAA community. And I suppose people are a bit more entrenched here, which is understandable after all they’ve had to put up with down the years.
“In terms of the football, up here every team is measuring themselves against Crossmaglen and is falling well short. In general, the style of football is a bit more direct in terms of getting the ball into the forward line, which I like.”
It is, of course, only March but the early spring signs are promising for Armagh. Not only have Crossmaglen marched to another All-Ireland club final, Paddy O’Rourke’s young squad have defied the bookmaker’s odds which consigned them to relegation from Division One.
A draw in that bruising encounter against Cork was followed by a victory in Kerry that was notable for its poise as much as anything else. It should bring patrons flocking to the Gaelic Grounds for what promises to be an attractive game against Mayo.
It will be a peculiar evening for Billy Joe Padden and for his family in the crowd. But what better way to establish his co-ordinates than to look across at the red and green shirts warming up under the floodlights?
He is truly home from home.
