Joy. Pure, unbridled joy.
The moments after an All-Ireland final are always special, but the moments after an All-Ireland final won by a team ending a long barren spell, can be life-affirming.
Many Armagh folk in Croke Park on Sunday will, many years from now, still be recalling it as the greatest day of their lives. Others will argue that such a declaration is nonsense, for Sunday July 28th, 2024, can only be second on that list after September 22nd 2002.
Because of Armagh’s second All-Ireland triumph, wedding days and the birth of first-borns are now battling it out just to remain on the podium. It shouldn’t make sense, the prominence we afford to a game of football, how we yearn for a group of players to define us, to represent our community, our tribe, to show who we are.
“Special times for our county, special times for this group,” said Aidan Forker, who will now henceforth be known as Aidan Forker, All-Ireland-winning Armagh captain.
Sunday’s showdown was no classic. It never threatened to affect the list of great finals. The cautious, structured, formulaic approach of both teams determined this would be a grind.
Modern Gaelic football tends to be a slow march towards the final whistle, teams mirroring each other with largely predictable set plays and transitions. Come the last quarter, both sides assess the state of play, and a game of football might break out. Or it might not.
The Football Review Committee is working on solutions and while over the years there has been too much tinkering with the game, Sunday’s final didn’t help the argument for those saying football should be left alone.
The current intercounty game is no place for inside forwards. All three of Armagh’s inside men failed to score on Sunday while Shane Walsh was the only one of Galway’s full-forward line to pop over a score from open play.
Attackers are suffocated, penned in, you’d need the nimbleness of Rhys McClenaghan on the Pommel Horse to manufacture a sliver of space as a corner forward at Croke Park these days. Mostly, inside forwards now just trot around like frustrated show ponies.
But solving the problems of Gaelic football is for another day. The year belongs to Armagh, whose supporters have been among the most loyal all season.
For their opening game of the year, a McKenna Cup encounter against Antrim at the Athletic Grounds at the start of January, a crowd of 4,510 turned out to watch Kieran McGeeney’s men beat the Saffrons.
On the same night, just 1,000 turned up to watch Dublin play Wicklow in Baltinglass. Only 430 came through the gates to see Wexford play Kildare in Enniscorthy.
When they travelled to face Kildare for a league match in Carlow in February, before the team arrived there were hundreds of Armagh fans patiently standing in a line outside the ground waiting for the gates to open.
Before the All-Ireland final, McGeeney praised such support but admitted there are two sides to that particular coin.
“Armagh has so many genuine supporters who just love to see you do well and are so sorry for you when you get beat,” he said. “You get a lot of abuse within that, but they tend not to be the same type of supporters.”
Because, stripped all the way back, the main protagonist in this Armagh story is McGeeney. It took him 10 years as a player to fulfil his ambition of winning an All-Ireland, captaining the team in 2002.
And it has taken him 10 years as a manager to get the county up the mountain again. Some felt he had been there too long. But since Sunday’s victory, it has been noticeable the number of players and backroom staff suggesting this success would not have been possible without McGeeney.
“In terms of what he had to go through personally himself, the sh*t he went through last year with people sticking signs up outside his house and wanting him out, and all that kind of stuff,” said Kieran Donaghy.
“The easiest thing in the world, after nine years and after the heartache of another penalty shoot-out defeat, against Monaghan, would have been to step away.
“But McGeeney doesn’t do easy, and he demands it off his players not to take easy roads. It is about doing stuff right, doing your gym, doing your video, have your leadership groups, hold each other accountable.”
McGeeney made Forker captain this year. They are now forever linked as men who lifted Sam Maguire on the steps of the Hogan Stand.
“We have a really close group of boys who keep soldiering together and who are great friends,” said Forker.
“I think that says a lot about what can be achieved if you stick together and you keep going. Guided by an unbelievable management team and a leader in Geezer, there was always going to be something special at the end of it.”
The Armagh players returned to the pitch on Sunday evening, long after the crowd had dispersed, for a photograph. They wanted to capture a moment in time because it might play out as the final occasion all that group would be together at Croke Park.
“Our whole thing is about team first, we before me,” added Forker. “That is what I’m most overjoyed with, just the joy that is in the group, the joy that the boys get to experience it.”
As the Armagh players smiled for the camera, the devastated Galway footballers sat on their team bus in the tunnel under the Hogan Stand blocked in by the empty Armagh coach. One last gut punch. The Armagh bus was eventually moved aside to allow Galway on their way.
Soon after, a cacophony of flashing blue lights and the screeching sirens of several Garda outriders announced Armagh were heading home. As the coach emerged from the Croke Park tunnel, the unmistakable glimmer of Sam Maguire sparkled out from the windscreen. There it was, sitting up top, pride of place.
A group of Armagh fans cheered wildly. A day of days for the Orchard.
Joy. Pure, unbridled joy.
