Andy McEntee glanced down at his buzzing phone and immediately recognised the name flashing across the screen.
It is 11 years now since he managed Meath to an All-Ireland minor final appearance at Croke Park. Padraic Harnan was the Meath minor captain that day, and the Moynalvey man would go on to feature prominently for the county during McEntee’s spell as senior manager too.
They have known each other for years. When Harnan was 10 he played soccer in Dunboyne and McEntee was his coach.
“I suppose I’ve known Andy nearly all of my life,” Harnan tells The Irish Times.
When the 28-year-old Meath defender dialled McEntee’s number a fortnight ago, it was for a non-football matter. Yet before either spoke, they were both acutely aware their roads were starting to converge once again.
“I had to call him about something else and I thought I’d better do this now because I just knew it was bound to happen that we would end up playing them at some stage. It was written in the stars,” says Harnan.
McEntee spent six years in charge of his native county, but it all kind of spiralled to an indecorous ending. Days after losing to Clare in last year’s championship, he stepped down and highlighted personal abuse he received during his time in charge.
A month later, having initially intimated he would never take on another intercounty job, McEntee was announced as the new Antrim manager. “It surprises me as much as anyone else,” he said at the time.
Perhaps an attraction of the Antrim gig were the long odds of meeting Meath at any stage. Not only has McEntee known some of the Meath players since they were kids, but he also has a son and a nephew involved with the squad. Antrim were in Division Three in 2023 and Meath were in Division Two. The Saffrons were likely to end up in the Tailteann Cup, the Royals were unlikely to do so. It seemed they were on different paths.
And yet here we are.
At Croke Park on Sunday McEntee will send Antrim out in a Tailteann Cup semi-final against his native county. You could call them his old charges, but the reality is this is a very new Meath team. Colm O’Rourke has gutted the McEntee project.
Just five players that started in McEntee’s last championship game were in the first 15 for Meath’s Tailteann Cup quarter-final win over Wexford last weekend.
But while Meath certainly needed fresh impetus, history may shine a more favourable light on McEntee’s term in charge than some initial impressions granted.
They never finished lower than fifth in Division Two during his six years and in 2019 they were actually promoted to the top flight. However, they simply couldn’t break Dublin’s stranglehold in Leinster, losing on the four occasions they met – three times by double-digit margins.
“He gave everything he could for those six years, you couldn’t fault him in that, he gave it his all,” says Harnan.
“He brought in the right people and got a good backroom behind him, gave Meath football a boost for a few years. He’s a very proud Meath man.”
The McEntee family name is synonymous with Meath football. Andy was part of Sean Boylan’s panel in the late 1980s, while his brother Gerry was the team’s totemic midfielder during that all-conquering period.
“Andy was our minor manager in 2012 when we got to the All-Ireland final,” recalls Harnan, whose uncle Liam was also a key player during the Boylan era. “If you know Andy, you know he’s a very competitive man, he doesn’t really ever stay still, he loves Meath football and he wants to see Meath football do well.
“But he gives everything he has when he’s involved with a team, so that’s what he will be doing for Antrim now, that’s just the nature of it. When he’s in, he’s fully in. And you can see the Antrim players have been buying in as well to what he is bringing, they have had a good year and will be looking to keep it going now at the weekend.”
Andy’s son, Shane, was captain of the Meath team in 2022 but the versatile Dunboyne man has been hampered by injury this season and will not be available for this weekend’s game. Andy’s nephew, James, is very much available and was Meath’s top scorer from play last weekend with six points against Wexford.
Of that 2012 minor team, four players remain part of the current Meath senior panel – Harnan, James McEntee, Shane McEntee and Cillian O’Sullivan.
The winding road that has led Andy McEntee to this point is not exactly unheard of in sport, but it was always going to take a rather unlikely turn of events for him to be standing on the Croke Park sideline plotting against Meath this season.
Still, during their chat a fortnight ago, Harnan and McEntee largely steered clear of discussing football.
“There was a small bit of football talk, but for the most part we stayed away from it,” says Harnan.
Because, deep down, they both kind of knew what was coming. Their lives were about to converge again.
Old friends, but with new parameters for now.
