Keith Dugganprofiles manager Dessie Dolan snr, whose Leitrim team begin their championship campaign in New York tomorrow.
THERE ARE reluctant travellers and then there is Des Dolan senior. The affable Westmeath man was not exactly dragged kicking and screaming to Shannon airport on Thursday but as he contemplated the previous day what would be his transatlantic trip, he admitted over the phone it was not an adventure he was looking forward to.
It is not that he has a fear of flying; he has taken to the air much too seldom to have developed any such acute paranoia. But like many people, from the Dutch football star Denis Bergkamp to the great Muhammad Ali, the Leitrim boss has never much fancied the idea of aviation that involves him.
"It is not the roominess or the fear of flying," he explains.
"I just don't like the bloody idea of going off into the air like that. It is not so much fear as common sense, I suppose.
"Also, I do suffer from high blood pressure and I had a bad experience a few years ago coming from London. It was a small sort of plane and I found I wasn't able to breathe. My wife, Irene, was with me and I told her, 'I have to get off this plane.'
"A lady behind me told me to take deep breaths in through the air vents. That worked and I made it through the flight but when I got home, I said to Irene, 'never again.'"
He may well have forgotten those famous last words until chance conspired to send Leitrim to New York for the opening round of the championship.
The visit of the Connacht teams to Gaelic Park is generally treated as a footnote in Ireland, but in the Irish enclaves of New York the event is regarded as not just a football match but a cultural weekend. Three days of festivities have been organised by the Leitrim branch of the New York GAA. The match will take place on Sunday afternoon, with a banquet to follow that night.
All of these details are immaterial to Des Dolan. For him, it presents a trinity of nightmares. The dastardly flight is just the beginning. In addition, the tie clashes with the Longford v Westmeath match and so, yet again, he will miss the chance to see his sons Dessie and Gary playing for his native county.
But worst of all, the trip will cause him to miss five crucial days of the mayfly season. Fishing is Des Dolan's chief passion in life. It possibly even eclipses his interest in football. He knows he is being a bit of a grouch about this but he can't help it.
His wife led an advance party to New York, pleased a football weekend gave her the chance to reunite with family. And many other friends have built a small holiday around the match, taking a few days to shop and see the splendours of the city.
Dessie though, cannot rouse any enthusiasm for taking the long elevator to the top of the Empire State Building or a boat trip around Liberty. Not when the mayfly is hatching back on the Corrib and the other lakes he fishes at this time of year.
"I am not interested in America. I am not interested in New York. I will never go there again. I won't! I am the type of guy that I love where I am. I love the fishing and the shooting around home and am quite happy with that.
"America is a fantastic country and all that - and I would love to go up to Canada sometime because I hear the rivers are great up there. Where I go and what I see doesn't come into it this weekend as far as I am concerned.
"There is a football field in New York and we have to go there and try and get more scores than them. I am not sure what to expect but I am going over there with an open mind to try and help Leitrim to win a game of championship football."
Dolan knows deep down that, when it comes to it, he will be charm personified to his New York hosts and that once he sits down with his players at their base in Pearl River, all thoughts of fishing will evaporate.
The work Dolan has done with Leitrim in the past two-and-a-half seasons has not shown up on the national radar. They were relegated to Division Four in the spring and, as usual, face a mammoth task in the provincial championship.
They have beaten Sligo under Dolan and pushed Mayo to within a point two summers ago, when Mayo went to the All-Ireland final.
In McDermott Park they took Meath and Donegal to extra time in two genuinely thrilling qualifying games. They have been hugely competitive in the qualifiers yet will not feature if and when they are knocked out of the main competition this year.
Dolan's work has been admirable and excellent and it has largely gone unnoticed. In a more meritocratic system, he would probably have been singled out for the monthly gongs they hand out to outstanding managers. But he went to Leitrim because he believed in a cause.
This is his last season, and when Leitrim bow out of the championship they will see out Tommy Murphy Cup duty and that will be that. He is adamant he won't be returning to the intercounty game again. As it was, all his previous involvements took great persuasion.
In 1991, he took Longford to the B All-Ireland final, where they lost to John Maughan's Clare. That run enlightened him as to the demands of county management - and the fact the championship had the pesky habit of clashing with the mayfly season.
He vowed then not to ever miss the fishing again but when Eamon Coleman came calling five years later - with Longford again the cause - he found it impossible to say no. The Derryman was a good friend and he just sat drinking tea and holding Dolan in that amused grin of his until they had struck a deal. Once again, they marched to a B final and another fishing year was up in smoke. That, Dolan concluded, was that.
"Then these people from Leitrim came up to me and they made such a huge impression that it drew me into them," he sighs.
"They were crying out for someone to do a bit of coaching. That is what I did. My first year, I hadn't a clue what was what but I got lads together as a team.
"When I discovered what Leitrim was about, I knew that the only way to go was to bring in young, impressionable lads. Like my late father used to say about a gun dog, buy a pup. He was from Woodford and he was a great fishing and gun man. He gave me the interest in the fishing.
"And he first taught me that you won't change an old dog's habits. It is the same with a football team. With young lads, you can change the mindset.
"We had seven U-21s in the second year and a new three this year. Leitrim won't build a team over a year or two, but over five or six they could do."
In his time in charge, he has gained a lot of empathy for what it is to be a Leitrim football man. The odds are stacked against you year in and year out but you have to play and behave with the same discipline as a Kerry or Galway footballer just to compete. In the event of injuries or absences, the county suffers.
When Dolan was forced to field inexperienced teams in the first four league games, they shipped an average of 19 points against. When the regular men returned, that dropped to an average of 10 and Leitrim beat Down in their penultimate game. They are always capable of those flash results. But in the bigger picture, Dolan is firmly convinced the lot of the small county is typical of the GAA class structure.
"Leitrim are second-class citizens. That is how it is. We get the wrong end of the stick from referees; we get shocking decisions against us. In the FBD league, we were pushing Galway all the way and we had Michael Duignan sent off with one yellow card. I was incensed because a mistake had been made and none of the officials would even acknowledge me.
"I am not saying we would have beaten Galway but 15 men would have helped. And we did push them all the way. Losing that game wouldn't have mattered to Galway but winning it would have been huge for us. And now, we find ourselves in a knockout championship.
"What they did to the qualifiers was the greatest load of bullshit ever. The qualifiers were brought in to give weaker counties a second chance. Now, it is based on a money-driven system. The GAA should be embarrassed by this. The facts are these Leitrim lads have trained as hard as anyone else. And the championship is what it is all about.
"With respect to Tommy Murphy, a great Laois footballer, that is a joke of a competition now. They had to threaten teams with fines to get them to participate in it. So it means if Leitrim get beaten in the championship, they have no meaningful game until next February. And the Leitrim people are great; they care about their football."
New York is a game Leitrim will be favourites to win, a dangerous novelty in its own right. There are close connections between the teams - the Foley brothers from Drumkeerin will play on opposing sides and Johnny Goldrick, who hit the winning goal for Dolan against Sligo in 2006, will wear the New York colours tomorrow.
There are also a few Westmeath men of Dolan's acquaintance training with the expatriates. Gaelic Park is never easy for visiting teams and Dolan is well-acquainted with its legend: "A small pitch, astroturf, skyscrapers looking down on you and a railway station running alongside - plenty to distract our lads if we are not capable. People react differently to those kind of situations. Teams visiting New York are always made favourite but it is never a cakewalk."
Leitrim should prevail. If they do, it would set them up for a big-day clash against the winners of Roscommon and Galway and guarantee Dolan another outing on the sidelines. Regardless of how far he can take Leitrim, he will leave them content he has contributed something to a cause.
LAST OUTPOST OF THE GAA: THE BIG APPLE
IN SOME ways New York boast the most feared reputation in Gaelic football. This is the one team no one dares lose to.
Their championship record may be impeccably consistent (as in never winning anything) but each year Connacht send out one of their football counties for a bite off the Big Apple, and they always travel at their peril.
The thought of losing to a team of exiles - and the embarrassing headlines that would create back home - means no team ever take the trip lightly, even if they are practically certain of winning.
They are just as certain to bring home a few souvenirs in the form of scrapes and bruises.
New York may not play pretty football, but they always play hard. Leitrim won't need any reminding of that tomorrow. In 2003, they got a real fright in this same fixture. In the four years since, Mayo, Galway, Roscommon and Sligo have all secured relatively easy victories, and there are signs New York's main strength, as in numbers, is diminishing.
For years New York GAA was the first point of contact for the thousands of Irish that arrived every year, but more recently, the migration has shifted in the other direction.
Just over a decade ago there were 40 football clubs in New York. Now there are 31. The Four Provinces club from Philadelphia now also play in New York as a result of the decreasing number of players in that area.
Last year's result (Sligo 2-18, New York 1-3) reflects the drop in standard. New York's last competitive game was in November against the visiting Wicklow team, who travelled out to contest the Treacy Cup as reward for winning the Tommy Murphy Cup.
Yet there are still positives about New York GAA. Their famous pitch at Gaelic Park in the heart of the Bronx last year underwent a $3-million refurbishment, including an artificial playing surface, and they have a good manager on board this year, Kerry's Paddy Kearney.
Some of the Leitrim players will know exactly what to expect. Forward Michael Foley will be lining out against his brother Alan, who emigrated to New York several years ago.
Two other former Leitrim players - Seán Munnelly and Johnny Goldrick - are also in the New York panel. Their captain is Kenny O'Connor, who learnt his football in Kerry. While no one is giving them much of a hope of beating Leitrim, that is part of what makes this fixture mildly attractive every year. Lose to New York, and the whole country will be talking about it. - IAN O'RIORDAN
