The Trib (55 page)

You don't know that only two weeks earlier he told Mickey Harte he was on the verge of quitting the panel. That if that ball had sailed past Stephen Cluxton's post, not just Tyrone's 2005 All-Ireland dream would have been over but possibly his inter-county career. That during that Monaghan game, Heather Mulligan had to turn round to another woman in the crowd and say, ‘For the last half-hour I've sat here and heard you abuse Owen Mulligan. Owen Mulligan is my son.'

You don't know – not even Owen Mulligan himself knows – that one of his sisters avoided games this summer because of the vitriol directed at her brother during the Ulster final. You don't know that, instead of just pumping his fist after that goal, he wanted to ‘rip off [his] top and stick the fngers up at all the wankers that had been mouthing'.

Or, at least you didn't know.

Not to worry. Let's put you in those shoes. You are Owen Mulligan. And first, it's the distant past. Your first hero is a local hero and future friend, Stephen Conway. You go to the 1989 Ulster final with your father Eugene and Scotchy points a last-minute 45 to force a replay. You later pluck up the nerve to go into the club dressing room in Cookstown and ask Stephen to sign your uncle's Silk Cut cigarette box.

After Scotchy comes another hero. Peter Canavan. Soon he's a local one too, teaching you leisure and tourism in Holy Trinity. Well, maybe he doesn't teach you much because you don't listen much but you're all ears when it comes to football. He tells you not to be holding onto that ball in midfield, to hit this pass and that. You try his way and find it always comes off. You look over at him, he doesn't even look at you and you think to yourself, ‘Jesus, you're right.'

You win a schools All Ireland under him but miss another with the county vocational team after breaking your arm. You cry your eyes out, fearing you'll never play in Croke Park. It's actually a blessing in disguise. Because you've become a bit hesitant going up for the high ball, you're moved into the forwards. You win an All-Ireland final in Croke Park the next year. You also learn from it.

Shortly after that minor final win, the club seniors are training. You go drinking instead. That drives some players mad, then the management too. But you say, ‘F**k youse so.' It will be one of the biggest regrets of your life. You miss a holiday to Canada. The boys come home, all saying, ‘Mugsy, you should have seen that trip.'

After that you swear that never again must your natural confidence cross over into arrogance.

The silverware and lessons keep coming. In 2001 you win your second under-21 All-Ireland medal and your first senior Ulster one but about your only contribution to that latter triumph is scoring a goal off Ger Reid fifteen seconds into your debut; the rest of that summer you spend ‘getting involved with men pulling your jersey and starting fights'. In 2002 you're even more peripheral. It's not just your form, it's your attitude. ‘Though it's a bad thing to say, on the bench you kind of lose interest and start thinking, “I don't have to do that extra run, I don't have to train.” ' Then Mickey Harte is appointed senior coach. You know he values tackling and work rate so you tackle and work harder than ever before.

Soon the whole country is talking about the master and student combo of yourself and Canavan and the bleach you've in your hair.

You first tried it when you were a minor for a bet. This year it's for a woman, your granny; when you had allowed your hair go its natural brown, she said, ‘Will you get that hair back to the way it was? I can't make you out anymore on the TV.' Now everyone can't but notice you, the way you're playing.

The next thing it's September and Canavan is telling you to practice your frees because he mightn't be playing. You do, every day on the club pitch. Canavan actually plays but goes off again and though you've been foolishly exchanging pushes with Francie Bellew all day, you sense it's time you take a bit of responsibility. You land two massive frees.

Then suddenly you're on your knees, Francie is shaking your hand, a clubman, John Brennan, has you in a headlock and Cookstown shoulders you to the foot of the Hogan Stand. You look down and Croke Park is a mass of white and red. Next evening, so is Aughnacloy, then Omagh. You pick out an old boy from Cookstown, one of the Glackin twins, and with tears streaming down his face, he's looking up, saying, ‘Thanks, young Mulligan. Thanks.' And it hits you.

‘What the f**k have we just done here? What the f**k have we just done?'

2004. You're drinking 7-Up in a bar, watching a rugby international on the big screen, not knowing another customer is phoning his manager. ‘I have money on Tyrone to win Ulster again this year yet I'm here watching Owen Mulligan drinking.' You later tell Mickey the truth and he understands; while the world's become yours, you've become the world's. You know, though, that there have been many other times when you've been drinking more than 7-Up. You've been living it up.

Women want to say they shared a moment with you. Fellas want to say they had a pint with you. But other fellas want a pop at you. You know you should walk away but before you know it, you're in another bout of fisticuffs. But hey, you've got your All Ireland and sometimes you've got to fight for your right to party.

Then at quarter to seven on a Tuesday morning, just as you're heading off to work as a joiner, your mobile rings. Ger Cavlan tells you to sit down. Cormac McAnallen is dead. You start laughing.

‘Cavo, were you out again last night?' He tells you he's dead serious. ‘Cavo,' you say, ‘if you're telling me lies, I'll bloody break you.' But he's not; you call Canavan and he's already up with the McAnallens. You feel distraught. You feel guilty. Why him? McAnallen was easily the fittest man on the panel. He didn't drink. All you've done since the All Ireland is drink.

Thank God for Kevin Hughes. When the coffin comes out, Hub is there beside you, for you. After the funeral meal in Paudge Quinn's, he stands up and says, ‘Boys, I lost my brother in a car crash. I lost my sister in another. But I moved on. You're going to think I'm mad here but you've just got to move on.'

At first you can't. You keep going out. Maybe Cormac's the reason, maybe he's just an excuse. The week before the championship, you're injured when a car bumps into the back of yours but the simple reason you're dropped is because you're playing crap.

You realise Hub is right. You have to move on. You're Tyrone's best forward against Fermanagh, Galway and Laois. The next day out against Mayo, it doesn't happen. It's almost a relief. 2005 will be a new start. You'll be fresh. Or so you think.

2005. It's late February again when you phone Mickey Harte to tell him you're going to miss training ... again. ‘Sorry, Mickey, but work here's mad busy.' You're lying, of course. You're not at work. You're at home, on your couch, exhausted.

You started the year, the day, with the best of intentions, getting up at six o'clock to take Bob, the boxer you got as a present, for a run.

And you genuinely are flat out from work where nearly every customer wants to know when you'll have the job finished. You've settled down; yourself and Tina are going to share a house. Still, you're just after scoring a goal against Dublin in the league and you're down to start in the McKenna Cup final.

Then in that game against Derry, you get a hit below your knee. The physio tells you not to play against Offaly the following week but you do. Twenty minutes into that game and your league is effectively over. Yet come the first round of the championship, you're starting against Down. You can't believe it. You also get the nod against Cavan.

You stink Clones out. The Wednesday before the replay, you leave your phone in the van. When you head off for training, you see three missed calls from Mickey Harte. You know why he's phoning. You pull into the car park and Mickey is there waiting for you. You've been dropped.

You're furious with yourself. You just know it's going to be a complete stuffing match after the treatment Sean Cavanagh got in the drawn game and know you're not going to get back in for the Ulster final. But you think, ‘Maybe this is the kick in the ass you need.'

You keep getting up at six to run with Bob. You start going to train early, working hard on the left foot Mickey told you to develop. You start leading the way in the sprints. You train with the club on the nights the county aren't out. You're constantly in the gym in the Glenavon. The desire, the fitness, is back. But the form isn't.

You're brought on in the Ulster final. You nearly feel like an impostor. Whereas in 2003, everything used go through you and Canavan, now everything goes through Stevie O'Neill. Hours before the replay, Mickey tells you Peter won't be starting. Neither will you; instead he's going with Ryan Mellon. You nod. But inside, you're reeling.

With twenty minutes to go, yourself and Canavan are brought on. Then Canavan is sent off, then Stevie too. You think, ‘This is a chance is to grab the headlines, to grab the winning point.' But you don't. Oisin McConville does. That day it seriously crosses your mind to pull the pin.

You've always said that if you're not good enough to be starting, you won't be sticking around taking the panel spot of some young fella and having the crowd shout, ‘Get that stupid prick back off!' For the last few weeks you've had friends say, ‘Pull the pin, Mugsy. You should be on that team. Look at the forwards today. Bloody crap.' And you're thinking, ‘Maybe they're right. This is getting too frustrating. Maybe I will hang them up.'

For some reason, though, you go to the next training session. And for some even stranger reason, Mickey Harte tells you you're starting against Monaghan. Again you struggle; setting up a goal for Stephen O'Neill is all you do.

Your mother hears the ‘supporters'. You can too. Last year apparently you were a drug dealer and riding men's wives; this year, the discussion boards say you're good mates with Wayne Rooney. Yourself and Tina laugh that one off but you can't laugh off what your mother and father are having to put up with. Right now they're both prayed out.

Their last hope is Frank McGuigan. They ask him to call up to the house. Frank asks how everything outside football is. ‘One hundred per cent,' you assure him. He assures you your football will come good too. You're trying too hard. ‘Don't be afraid to make a mistake. There's less chance you'll make one that way. You can't become a bad footballer overnight, Mugsy.'

You can become a brilliant one again though.

A few Tyrone subs are warming up. You know it's fight or f**kin' flight. So you fight for a ball played in by Stephen O'Neill. And after that, it all just happens. The ball seems to stick to you when before it was bouncing off you. You sell a dummy. You think, ‘Why are you boys falling for that dummy?' But you throw another, and again they buy it.

Then you let fly. You intend for it to go to Stephen Cluxton's right, but it flies past his left. Croke Park explodes. And with it, so does the tension within. Afterwards, you phone the parents and you can sense the relief in their voices. The next day, the replay, you're sure your first shot is sailing wide and shout out ‘S**t' but it turns inside the post.

You can now do no wrong. You score a goal with the left foot Mickey had you working on and stare out the Hill. That's 1-5 now from play. After the game, you applaud that Hill. It applauds you. You're no longer a ‘poof' to them. You're a player.

The next day out, Francie again makes life tough for you. Again you do your bit. And again, poor Francie ends up having to congratulate you. It's a big scalp. Before the game, you wanted to beat Armagh more than you wanted to beat them in 2003. But now it's not enough. You want what you experienced on 28 September 2003.

‘People talk about it being like a drug, about getting that same trip over and over again. You want to get that feeling again, that feeling of winning and being carried off the field and going up the steps.

‘But the whole thing is a drug. You'll have people begrudging you but at the end of the day, travelling down on the bus, listening to Mickey give a team talk, running out in front of 80,000.' You are Owen Mulligan. Or at least today you'd like to be.