The statement from Armagh GAA on Tuesday night was short and to the point. “Following tonight’s county committee meeting, club delegates unanimously supported Kieran McGeeney as the senior county football manager and his backroom team for the 2025 season.”
This should hardly come as a surprise, given McGeeney had managed his county to only their second ever All-Ireland title this July – and having captained Armagh to their first one, his status as the key figure in Armagh’s entire football history up to this point is secure.
The vote by club delegates was, of course, a perfunctory one. Who could possibly demur? But those same club delegates had rather more doubts this time last year, when their backing of McGeeney came down to a vote.
In the end, the clubs and executive committee came out strongly in support of him, with 46 in favour of him remaining for a 10th season and just 16 against.
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When asked about it at Armagh’s pre-All-Ireland final media event, he was philosophical.
“I wouldn’t call it difficult. It was actually probably one of those moments that the vote reinforced [my position]. Whatever it was, 70 to 80 per cent of the clubs, voted for me. So, if anything, it was a good start to the year.”
That pre-final press conference and round of interviews, and many of his public statements all this year, had returned to the idea of the fine margins that separated ‘geniuses’ from, as he put it, ‘gobshites’.
When you lose as many tight games as this Armagh team had done in the previous three seasons, including four games (two All-Ireland quarter-finals and two Ulster finals) on penalties, it’s a rhetorical road he was forced to walk down time and time again.
“The standard from both teams, serious pace, serious tackles . . . It is a ball one way or a ball the other, a slip one way or a slip the other,” McGeeney said after this year’s Ulster final, which ended with another heartbreaking defeat on penalties to Donegal.
“When you lose, you’re the gobshite, but that is just the way it goes. Sure what can you do about it, I can’t control what is written. And when you win a game by a point or a penalty shoot-out, it was the same against Derry last year, we were doing a lot of things wrong and they were doing a lot of things right. But listen, we all know that is sport. We need headlines and drama; it is all part of the game and you get used to it.”
For a man with such a fearsome reputation, his overriding emotion during so many post-match interviews in the last few years appears not to have been anger – it’s more a sort of world-weariness. That’s why seeing his untrammelled joy and emotion after the All-Ireland final was such a visceral thing to watch.
However – I can’t help but feel the universe missed a trick by not convincing one of those 16 delegates who voted against him last year to stick by their guns. I think McGeeney would have appreciated the intellectual rigour of it all. One man or woman from one Armagh club should have just gone for it.
“Listen when you win, you’re a genius, and when you lose you’re a gobshite. This is what we’ve been told. But if Shane Walsh kicks his frees then we’re sitting here having a very different conversation.”
Unbowed by the boos and the catcalls of their fellow delegates, they plough on.
“You’re all engaged in just the sort of scoreboard journalism that Geezer hates [paper planes made out of the meeting agenda start being hurled in their direction].
“Listen, this is what he’d want! Forget the scoreboard for a minute, the essential metrics are quite similar! [They’re now getting dragged off the meeting-room floor]. Wake up sheeple!! The Emperor has no clothes! [Door slams].”
This would surely have merited at least a smirk from McGeeney. But equanimity is his default state of mind.
When I worked with Newstalk on their live GAA coverage, we seemed to cover Kildare every second week, and the post-match interview was always a tester. No sideline reporter or post-match interviewer ever enjoys being asked “what do you mean by that?”, but with McGeeney there was always an excellent chance you were going to be asked to explain yourself. Proper order, too. Even on the tough days, McGeeney was going to be clear and concise and illuminating.
After a slew of near misses with Kildare, and then 10 years of heartbreak with Armagh, maybe 2025 really will see a different, more relaxed, more jocular McGeeney. The “no, but seriously…” post-match interview meme that used to belong to Frank Lampard could be taken over by the GAA’s baddest man.
Either way, there’s no doubt that for a fella who attempted to treat the two impostors of victory and defeat just the same, who strove in vain to get people to see all that his team had done right even when the sport did him wrong over the last three years, McGeeney was powerless to stop himself from showing how much victory on All-Ireland final day meant. The job he retained this week will be his for as long as he wants it.
