Can Mayo lift the air of apathy and gloom in Omagh?

RTÉ News​

2 days ago

"Are we back in Longford?" asked the boys on the Ah Ref podcast the other week.
They weren't talking about Center Parcs. Or surveying the majesty of the restored St Mel's Cathedral.
Rather, they were referencing that infamous qualifier loss in Pearse Park (or Pearse Brothers Glennon Park as one website once called it) back in 2010, which marked a sorry end to John O'Mahony's often glorious inter-county management career.
The Mayo blogger 'An Spailpin Fanach' invoked Ballinamuck in 1798 afterwards, writing that "O'Mahony, like Humbert, had met his Waterloo in Longford."
In the days of thunder which followed in the 2010s, the disaster in Longford would often be recalled as a reminder of how far they'd travelled.
One possible difference between 2010 and 2025 is that a huge Mayo crowd had descended on the midlands that sunny June evening, evidently not deterred by their shock loss to Sligo in the Connacht championship.
There were only 7,000 in attendance at the now infamous loss to Cavan under a fortnight ago, a sign that the Mayo football team are currently in the doghouse with their public, if not the warehouse.
Even fewer hung around long enough to see injury-time, with the home supporters streaming out the exits before the end.
Some of them were possibly back in their cars in time to hear Martin Carney talking about trying to "climb Everest in the nude".
Apathy has taken hold of Mayo football in the past.
After the horrid beating against Cork in the 1993 All-Ireland semi-final, the Mayo public decided they'd had enough of it for a while and barely showed up for the subsequent two Connacht finals, both of which were lost.
When Mayo were smashed by Galway in the 1995 Connacht final on a baking hot day in Tuam, a few leading players were even of the same mind. Liam McHale was concentrating on basketball that year, where he figured he'd a chance of winning a national title, while Anthony Finnerty had forsaken the game to participate in the Macnas parade in Galway city.
As in 2010, this nadir immediately preceded a dramatic revival. John Maughan, who'd listened to the '95 Connacht final on a wireless while on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon, was installed as manager and told McHale and Finnerty they were to report back for duty.
This set in train the epic, thrilling journey of 1996, which ultimately wound up kick-starting Mayo's subsequent psychosis around All-Ireland finals.
In his last game for Mayo, Finnerty was to the famous Meath brawl what Gavrilo Princip was to the First World War (as determined by the findings of the Spillane Commission).
The pre-Maughan slump of the mid-90s was long before 'Mayo for Sam-ism' evolved into a public religion.
For well over a decade, the Mayo fanbase has been among the most fanatical and un-ignorable in the country. Their quest for an All-Ireland title had become obsessional and all-consuming, as well as an internet meme.
The attitude was best typified by the words of County Council chairman John O'Malley at the sorrowful 2013 All-Ireland final homecoming, when he sent everyone into the night with the defiant roar: "The Americans got Bin Laden, we will get Sam Maguire!"
Over the course of the next decade, this encapsulated their mindset as Mayo's elite Navy SEALs team made several daring raids on the Croke Park compound, coming within a whisker of capturing Sam on a couple more occasions, only to be foiled by Jim Gavin's Dubs.
At its zenith, the US President had been briefed to roar "Mayo for Sam" from the podium in Ballina. The late Pope had been ambushed with a Mayo jersey at Knock airport.
One Mayo man working in this organisation had taken to using the phrase as a standard farewell at all times of the year and regardless of the nature of the conversation that had taken place.
It was further evidence that the 'quest for the Holy Grail that's tantalisingly out of reach' fan experience is the most intense and absorbing of all (see also Liverpool fans at the turn of the decade).
But that dogged, relentless spirit has been waning in recent years and has probably never recovered from the 2021 All-Ireland final loss.
"There's a very specific breakpoint and that was the 2021 All-Ireland final," John Gunnigan of the Mayo GAA blog told the Irish Times ahead of the league final in March. "I think that broke everyone."
That certainly tallies with the vibe around Jones' Road that evening, as this correspondent recalls it.
In previous years, Mayo supporters had been teary-eyed and heartbroken after All-Ireland final defeats, inclined to lash out at a ref but express pride in the players.
But the mood was very different on the night of the 2021 All-Ireland final. Anger had taken hold. The limits of their 'bouncebackability' had finally been reached. It was one defeat too many. This was taking the p*ss.
Outside the Savoy takeaway, there was poison in the air and venomous, unprintable comments were flying around.
Tyrone fans, never slow to sew it into Kerry supporters after their glorious wins in the 2000s, were almost apologetic and tiptoed around Mayo sensibilities for the night that was in it.
It was one thing to fall short against Dublin of the 2010s, quite another to lose to what was perceived as a middling Tyrone team, who had emerged out of leftfield and have done next to nothing in the years since.
As time passes, it looks more and more likely that the ill-fated '21 decider will prove to have been the last shot at ultimate glory for that 2010s generation, most of whom have since slipped off into retirement.
The Holy Grail is still out there but someone has mislaid the map and the flashlight is beginning to flicker ominously.
Kevin McStay, passed over the job in contentious circumstances in late 2014 and who resigned himself to not getting a shot at it, was handed the reins at the end of 2022, right at the moment when it seemed Mayo were headed for a cyclical trough.
Lee Keegan called it a day shortly after that, joining Andy Moran and Keith Higgins in retirement.
They had some success in the first year, winning the league and eliminating their hotly-tipped neighbours in a preliminary quarter-final in Salthill.
However, they flatlined in 2024 and the Connacht title, which McStay won as a manager with Roscommon, has proved frustratingly elusive.
Crowds plummeted in the league, with just 6,000 showing up to the nervy home win over Tyrone, a reasonable turnout in anywhere other than Mayo. That they wound up in a league final this year was written off as an accident, something like a computer glitch.
There were grumbles about the style of play and Mayo's slowness in adapting to new rules. Ironically, Mayo had embraced the concepts of caution and control right at the moment when the FRC re-wrote the sport.
There was an air of extreme despondency that seemed to settle over Mayo following this year's Connacht final defeat, which hit much harder than last year. McStay's face was ashen after the loss; he'd been comparatively chipper after the one-point defeat in 2024.
Part of it was down to the unspoken - in fairness, it was spoken in some quarters - perception that Mayo's only realistic chance of championship silverware was gone.
In that context, they were acutely psychologically vulnerable to what happened against Cavan the other week.
As usual, with results on the pitch gone south, off-field craziness took centre-stage at county board level.
There was the jolt of McStay's medical episode which has forced him to take a step back and put things in perspective. While he recovers, Stephen Rochford returns to the hotseat temporarily, seven years after his departure from the role.
It wouldn't be unheard of for a team to rally in such circumstances, least of all Mayo.
It was a loss to Tyrone which probably brought an end to the 2010s generation's doomed push for a Celtic Cross. Could a win over the same opposition lift them from a low ebb?
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