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Geraghty remains the king of the Royal clan
By Tony Tighe
 From
Premiership soccer to movies to politics, the most iconic Gaelic footballer
of our time has done it all and as tony tighe discovers, he’s hungry
for more.
FIVE days have passed since Graham Geraghty’s return to the green
and gold of Meath and yet he is still feeling the aftereffects from the
derby defeat to Westmeath.
His joints ache, his muscles are stiff and he feels like he’s dragging
a few blocks of cement behind him to boot. Probably not the best time
to sit him down for a chat, I reckon, but his opening sentence all but
allays that scenario. “Back with a bang but the wrong kind of bang!”
Back he is indeed for what will be his 18th season of inter-county football
with the Royal County.
It’s an incredible commitment and considering the knocks and criticism
the 34-year-old has taken over his colourful career it is a testament
to still be turning out at the highest level.
But why keep going? Surely the hunger can’t still be as strong for
a man fast approaching his platinum anniversary with the Meath footballers?
“The hunger is still there alright,” he says. “Although
maybe not so much in the winter months when it’s cold and raining!
But once the Championship arrives and the ground hardens up, the appetite
comes back and I’m raring to go. If I hadn’t got county football
sure I’d probably be wondering what to do with myself.”
He’s not the only one. For how would the GAA as a whole cope without
Geraghty, one of the most influential yet controversial stars of his generation?
A player who looks without a care in the world when on a football pitch,
who makes the game appear ridiculously easy. From kicking points from
seemingly-impossible angles to scoring crucial goals in crucial matches,
the blond assassin is your go-to guy.
His sublime yet outrageously cheeky goal against Tyrone in last year’s
Championship is probably the best example you could give, when he nonchalantly
slapped the ball over the head of John Devine rather than waste energy
catching and kicking it.
Excitement with Geraghty is a stone-wall guarantee, whether it’s
his match-winning scores, off-the-ball skirmishes or a little bit of both,
you’re sure to have something to talk about in the car on the way
home. When the journalists line up outside the dressing rooms for some
post-match reaction, Geraghty tends to find himself bombarded with recorders
and dictaphones, because one thing the Meath man does above everything
else is speak his mind. No bland clichés with our Graham.
My first time seeing the man in the flesh was when Meath played an All-Ireland
qualifier away to Leitrim three years ago and quite possibly it sums him
up as a whole.
Playing at corner-forward, Geraghty was not enjoying the greatest of games.
The home side were turning out to be less of a pushover than perhaps he
imagined and with little ball coming his way his frustration grew and
grew. The home support, eyeing this, began goading Geraghty, chanting
that he took a certain something up a certain orifice. Hearing this, he
turned his back to the crowd and promptly bent over, much to everyone’s
amusement.
Then, with Meath lucky to take the game to extra-time, Geraghty moved
up a gear. A high ball came into him; he easily turned his marker and
coolly dispatched the ball into the net, sealing the win. He ran back
towards the mouthy home element, looking for a response. He got none.
But then when it comes to silencing a crowd, Geraghty has had years of
practice in front of a crowd a thousand times more vociferous than anything
Carrick-on-Shannon can muster: Hill 16.
The forward is the man the Hill loves to hate and they tend to direct
their most poisoned-tongued chants in his general direction; not that
it bothers the recipient.
“It’s a great buzz and it spurs me on more than anything else.
The abuse from the Hill will always be there but at this stage it’s
water off a duck’s back. To be honest I’d probably miss it
if it was gone!”
Another thing Geraghty would miss and plays a huge part in motivating
him ahead of the new season is the thought of a potential Leinster final
meeting with the auld enemy.
Leinster’s big two have endured some titanic battles down through
the years, with Geraghty more often than not immersed in the thick of
it. The Dubs pipped Meath after a replay last season and the Clann na
Gael clubman is hoping Meath can exact some revenge this time around,
with snatching their provincial crown the ideal retribution.
“Dublin have it on their shoulders that they have won Leinster for
the last three years but haven’t done anything in the All-Ireland
series. They’ll be under pressure because Leinster isn’t really
good enough for them anymore and we’ll definitely be hoping to push
them.”
Granted both sides have a few hurdles to jump before they can think of
a final meeting but given the current state of the Leinster Championship
Geraghty can be forgiven for thinking othe,rwise. “There doesn’t
seem to be anyone there at the minute that’s really challenging
for it,” he observes, and it’s hard to argue with him. With
Laois seeming to take one step forward and two steps back every summer
and Kildare only starting to emerge from the doldrums, Dublin have been
getting too easy a ride of it lately.
Meath and Geraghty intend on bucking that trend come Championship time
as they aim for what would be a 21st provincial title and a fourth for
Geraghty himself.
Yet it could have been all so different for Meath’s favourite son.
Despite making his senior debut for the county at the tender age of 17
and capturing All-Ireland titles at both minor and under-21 levels, Geraghty
almost made the switch to soccer after one of the Premiership giants came
knocking in 1994.
After going to a Meath match in Croke Park, Alex Ferguson was asked afterwards
if anyone had caught his eye. He immediately singled out Geraghty. No
conversation took place between the two however, so the latter just knuckled
down and concentrated on an upcoming Leinster final with Dublin. Meath
went on to lose that final but shortly after the game Geraghty received
a phone call from Bill Darby, a scout with Arsenal who had been in attendance.
“He said he liked the way I played and attacked forward from defence,”
said Geraghty, whose soccer CV read: “Played a bit with my local
team Kentstown Rovers but not a whole lot really.”
Nonetheless Arsenal were interested and unlike Ferguson they had no intention
of dallying. In less than a week Geraghty had arrived on English soil
for his trial with the Gunners. He was with the big boys now, experiencing
what the majority of young boys all around the country could only dream
of. Yet as Geraghty found out, although it was an amazing experience and
opportunity, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“It was great togging out and playing with Premiership players.
I played in a couple of games at right-back and right-midfield. I suppose
the only thing I would have lost out on was first touch; it wasn’t
up to the standard they were used to but I was still happy with how I
performed. I think they were looking for someone who was going to replace
Lee Dixon, yet he ended up playing on for years after that. Overall it
wasn’t what I expected really. I felt the training was very relaxed
and easygoing compared to training here in Ireland.”
The Arsenal lads obviously hadn’t experienced training under Sean
Boylan either, with Paul Merson famously remarking that Geraghty was the
fittest player he ever saw.
Arsenal’s loss was Meath’s gain, as they went on to clinch
two All-Irelands and three Leinster Championships in the years that followed
his return. In 1996 the Royals got their hands on the Sam Maguire for
the first time in eight years and three years later Geraghty captained
the side to glory over Cork, his finest moment in football.
“To captain the winning team in ’99 was a great feeling. I’ll
always remember going around with the cup afterwards, the crowd all around
us, seeing your friends, meeting my parents in the stand; it was amazing.
“We then went back to Kentstown and there must have been seven or
eight thousand people there to greet us. That was the high point of my
career. There has been plenty of low ones too but that was definitely
the highest!”
While you could easily arrange a Hall of Fame in honour of the forward,
a Hall of Shame could quite comfortably sit right next to it. Geraghty
is the flawed genius of the GAA and has been in the news for the wrong
reasons almost as much as for his footballing talent. Examples include
being slapped with a 48-week ban in 2003 for verbally abusing a referee,
while last year he almost quit the inter-county scene after a training
ground bust-up with 19-year-old Stephen Sheppard.
Yet what Geraghty himself ranks as the worst was the incident in Australia
in 1999 when he racially abused a young Aborigine player, Damian Cupido,
during a challenge game. “It wasn’t meant in the way it was
said but that was the way they saw it and they ran a story on it. It wasn’t
really much at all over there but a big story was made of it back home.
I felt bad for my family more than for myself.”
If that kind of incident took place today however, you’d have to
question whether it’d make as much of a splash. With issues over
grants for GAA players and strike action taking place, the game has changed
quite a bit over the last 10 years. Meath’s game with Cork was postponed
last month due to the Rebels refusing to play and although now resolved
it’s an issue that didn’t sit well with Geraghty.
“The Cork thing went on too long. The players wanted to make their
point but I don’t think that they should have got involved at all.
If the board appoint someone it should stand but instead Teddy Holland
was made a scapegoat. He did nothing wrong. Cork were almost holding the
GAA to ransom.
“Nobody wanted to see it but the rules are that if you don’t
fulfill two of your League fixtures you’re thrown out of the competition.
We were in limbo for the first couple of weeks, not knowing who or when
we were playing next.”
Most players outside of Cork declined commenting on the internal conflict
in the county, viewing it as a situation better suited to politicians
rather than footballers. But then Geraghty has always had a love for the
boardroom debate, which led to him being nominated by Fine Gael to run
in the General Election.
Only 1,284 first preference votes were received in his constituency, yet
he is refusing to rule out running again.
Nor is he ruling out a return to acting. Geraghty appeared in the 1998
Irish kung-fu movie Fatal Deviation opposite Boyzone’s Mikey Graham
and Irish rugby star Conor O’Shea. An unlikely trio granted, but
possibly the strangest thing was that Geraghty didn’t have any lines.
Maybe the director thought it best not to give him an inch in case he
put the main character in the shade.
So what’s next in the never-dull career of Graham Geraghty? Politics,
movies, soccer and rugby’s boxes have all been ticked. Maybe give
singing a lash, Celebrity You’re A Star perhaps?
“No, not You’re A Star! One thing I definitely cannot do is
sing. The next thing for me will be to retire and disappear into the distance.
“I’d like to do a bit of television later on, maybe be a pundit
on The Sunday Game. It’s something I think I’d enjoy. Instead
of getting kicked around the place I can sit back and watch the games!”
Spillane and co. have been warned. Luckily for them there’s life
in the old dog yet. |
