By John Harrington

Former Down footballer, Ross Carr, takes a trip down memory lane to give a very revealing insight into the Mourne County's dramatic All-Ireland SFC winning campiaign in 1991.

Q: Down's 1991 All-Ireland win seemed to come out of the blue. But, within the camp, was there a sense at the start of the season that something was building?

Ross Carr: I wouldn't go so far to say that things were building. The 1990 campaign had ended when we were beaten after a replay by Armagh in the Ulster semi-final. We would have been beaten in the drawn game but for 10 minutes of genius from wee James (McCartan) when he scored two goals.

That took the bad look off a very poor performance, but Armagh finished the job in the replay. A lot of players had been on the panel for quite a long time, five or six years plus at that stage. Looking back now, Pete McGrath and his selectors John Murphy and Barney Treanor, probably sat down over the winter and decided that the style in which we were playing wasn't what they wanted and they were quite harsh.

I hadn't been playing well personally and hadn't gone back to group training for the national league. The team ticked over during the League and then maybe eight weeks before the Championship I remember the turn-out for training was less than positive. I remember rejoining the panel and, I have to say, at that stage as a player I would never have thought we were going to have a championship campaign with the goal of winning an All-Ireland.

We were playing Armagh in the Championship again in the first round in Newry, and our motivation was simply to save face after the defeat to them the previous year and salvage a wee bit of personal pride. That's all the players were thinking about. The management might have felt there was potential within the group, but, certainly, from a players point of view, all the focus was just on one game and that was a home game against Armagh.

When that came along we got over the line. It was by no means a spectacle, but we got over the line. It was really funny, things just began to gather momentum.

We drew with Derry then in the Ulster semi-final and beat them in the replay. From a players point of view we were thinking then we were just one step away from an Ulster title, we still wouldn't have been thinking about All-Irelands.

Down hadn't won an Ulster Championship in ten years. We were playing Donegal and I think the performance that day probably gave everybody within the camp a serious boost and a serious confidence. You had boxed away an Ulster Championship, and after that we sat down and talked about the potential of winning an All-Ireland.

Q: I want to bring you back to that drawn Ulster semi-final against Derry. You took a long-range free in the dying moments of the match that had to be converted, and you nailed it. What are your memories of that moment?

RC: The situation itself, you're a point down and you have a free from whatever it was, fifty yards. I know as I've gotten older the distance has gotten greater! There was no problem with me going to kick it. I knew I could kick the distance. If you were being clincial about things, had I have missed it was far enough out that people wouldn't have been critical. And the way Down were playing, people would just have said that, there you go, Down have failed again when it was put up to them.

There was probably a more important moment in that match. About 20 minutes into the second-half when our goalkeeper Neil Collins had a big moment. One of the Derry forwards had shot for a point and it was about six inches above the bar. In normal circumstances the goalkeeper would have tipped it over, because if you tipped it down then a forward could rush in and just punch the ball to the net.

But Neil stopped it going over the bar. Tapped it down to the ground and gathered it himself. At that stage Derry were a point up. That would have put them two up. So the free-kick that was scored at the end would have been immaterial had Collins not saved that point.

Q: That Down team were poetry in motion by the time they reached the All-Ireland Final in terms of its attacking play and structure. You and Gary Mason were modern half-forwards in terms of how you dropped deep, won ball, and then delivered it to the inside forwards. Greg Blaney was knitting things together at centre-forward, Peter Withnell was a powerful full-forward and you had two fliers of corner-forwards beside him in Mickey Linden and James McCartan. Was that Ulster Final against Donegal the first time it all just clicked? You won ugly in the first round against Armagh, so how did you suddenly become a team that plays with the sort of fluidity you'd associate with a team that has been playing that way for a long time?

RC: Looking back, the only way you can comment on it now is because you've gone through the experience and you've been together with a group of fellas not just in '91, but then the subsequent three or four years when you were able to win again. There were a whole load of things within that group that maybe were just bubbling under.

There were some incredible strong characters. Really strong characters. Once Peter, John, and Barney in the management team got them together, the players nearly ruled the changing room. I don't mean they were against management, but the management had little to do in the changing room. Like, Paddy O'Rourke was captain and he was a phenomenal captain. He didn't ask anyone to do anything he wasn't prepared to do himself in terms of training and application.

We had a couple of other serious characters. Ambrose Rogers, God rest him, was one. Paddy and Ambrose had played together through minor and U-21. Liam Austin was there, Greg Blaney was there, so you had fellas who had been about since that '81 campaign and had been on the panel for 10 years at that stage and had a wealth of experience.

I remember talking to Colm McAlarney a few years ago and was asking him did he think at the time that the '91 campaign was a flash in the pan and did he think it would ever happen at the time. He said the only thing that surprised him about the '91 campaign was that it took until '91 for it to happen. Because he was playing against these players, us, on a weekly basis within Down and he knew the calibre of them. He couldn't understand why it wasn't then coming through at county level.

So when you talk about us scraping over the line against Armagh to the performance in the Ulster Final against Donegal, we felt that once we'd gotten over Armagh there was a huge relief. The pressure was off slightly. We had 30, 35 lads training and training was savage. McGrath's training was absolutely savage.

So when we drew with Derry, we felt we had thrown it away. And we didn't think for one minute we were going to lose the replay. We went into that game expecting to win it. So then when we backed that up by winning it, that added more confidence and self-belief.

Some of the games in training were savage. Paddy O'Rourke would be marking Greg Blaney, DJ (Kane) would be marking myself, Paul Higgins would be marking Mickey Linden. There were incredible individual battles. And as time went on you were thinking if I can hold my own against some of these boys then there's nothing coming down the line that's going to be an awful lot better.

Donegal had won the Ulster title the previous year and had been narrowly beaten by Meath in the All-Ireland semi-final. We'd been playing Donegal on a regular basis in the McKenna Cup and National League, and we knew they were the sort of team that would let you play football. They had some fabulous footballers, but it was going to be an open game of football.

I remember being on the bus on the way to the match and the sun was out and it was a really nice day. You can never be 100 per cent sure in sport, but I can honestly say that, looking back, we were very confident going into the match.

They style of play that you're talking about there with Gary and I playing like we did as half-forwards...a lot of that team, apart from maybe Mickey and James, would have been playing at number six, eight, nine, or eleven with their clubs. So we would all have been playing against another inter-county footballer every week in club football.

So you were pretty adaptable in terms of positions you could play, and you were also recognised as a ball-winner in your club team. Which meant that if you went to another position like five or 12, whatever it may be, you were able to win your own ball. I think Pete and his management team identifed Gary and I because we had previously played as defenders in earlier county teams. And he figured he had a role for us whereby we were to get on the ball and, because we were kickers of the ball, we were to deliver it as accurately and quickly as we could into fellas who were very sharp and, if it was any way decent, their pace and athleticism and natural skill would cause any defender trouble. Bearing in mind you didn't have sweepers and that sort of stuff back then.

Q: Most counties who hadn't won a provincial title in ten years might be apprehensive of playing Kerry in an All-Ireland semi-final. Down, though, have a history of beating Kerry. So would you have been relishing that challenge, or what was the mood in the camp like?

RC: A lot has been made over the years of Down's record against Kerry. If you were looking to be emotional about it you'd say that Down have a great record against Kerry, but we've only played them five times! And we've always played them when we've had good teams.

If you look at that Kerry '91 team, they had Jack O'Shea, Tom Spillane, Pat Spillane, Ambrose O'Donovan all playing. They had four or five of the greatest legends of the GAA playing whose careers had started not ten years previous, but maybe 15 years previous. That Kerry squad was in transition.

We went into it with confidence but not because it was Kerry, but because we felt we were playing well. It was brilliant to play Kerry because if you can in your career play against Kerry in a championship match, it's something special. It would be like playing against Dublin now.

We grew up hero-worshipping those Kerry lads. I think everybody did. You would have grown up watching that Kerry glory years video on repeat. Yes, we were confident of beating Kerry, but it wasn't because of the history of Down beating Kerry, it was because we were playing well and we felt if we hit form, especially in Croke Park, we'd be hard to stop.

We also had incredible support from the boys from the '60s team who told us what to expect from playing in Croke Park and dealing with the buzz around it. Down going to Croke Park was probably more of an emotional thing than Down playing Kerry. There was no doubt we were confident we would do ourselves. justice.

Q: That All-Ireland semi-final was Peter Withnell's big day. He scored 2-1. What was Peter like to play with, what did he bring to the team?

RC: Yeah, that was Withnell's big day. It was great for him because he had come along out of nowhere. What he added to the team was an incredible physical presence and athleticism. Seldom do you get somebody who is as physically strong but also incredibly quick in the one package.

And he was new, so people didn't really know much about him. He got the two goals that day and it was great for him because he didn't come from the traditional GAA background and that day summed up what he brought to the whole squad. It was great for him to experience that on an individual level and, of course, for us, because it got us through to an All-Ireland Final.

Q: You were up against a Meath team that had dominated the scene for a few years and had a higher profile than ever that summer after the four-match series against Dublin in Leinster. What can you remember of Down's preparations and how you would have viewed thechallenge ahead?

RC: I think a couple of things went in our favour. Meath had beaten us in the National League Final in 1990 by a couple of points in a game that we competed very well in. I know it's only the National League, but the National League back then was pretty competitive. For us to go to Croke Park and get that under our belt and come out of it disappointed that we were beaten was a factor.

Also, over the previous three or four years when Meath were in All-Ireland Finals they used to come up to Newry to play us in challenge games to prepare for All-Ireland semi-finals and finals. Those challenge games were fiesty matches and while Meath might have beaten us in them, but we would have done alright in them considering we weren't in collective training at the time.

We certainly wouldn't have viewed Meath as an unbeatable team. There was a serious respect for them, but there would have been no fear because we had played against them regularly in the previous four or five years. After the All-Ireland semi-final there was no doubt in our minds that we were training to win an All-Ireland Final, we weren't just turning up to enjoy the day.

I remember at the first night of training after the semi-final, that was very firmly laid on the line by Pete and his management team. That we were going to win this and not just going to Dublin to take part. Some of our games in training were ferocious. To the point that the odd time there would have been fisticuffs because we felt we were going to go and give this a really, really good shake.

Our preparation had gone well, but from a Meath point of view maybe not as much. I'm not saying this to dilute our success, but Robbie O'Malley broke his leg and Colm O'Rourke got sick in the run-up to the Final. If we couldn't start with Paul Higgins and Mickey Linden was only fit to play the last 20 minutes, you can understand how much of a blow that was to Meath.

It's funny, though. Gerry McEntee was O'Rourke's replacement that day and when I watched the match back a few years ago, McEntee was incredible. He was probably Man of the Match. That's why I wouldn't dilute our success. Because if Colm had started Gerry wouldn't have and maybe we would have controlled the middle of the field. So you just don't know.

But our preparations were certainly superb. We were flying. From an injury point of view we had a clean bill of health. And the euphoria within the county at that stage was something else. It was something that people hadn't experienced before because it was 23 years since we were there last. So a whole generation had no idea what it was like for Down to play in Croke Park.

Q: What sort of manager was Pete McGrath?

RC: When he came in it is fair to say that Down had been in the doldrums for a few years. It was ten years since we had won an Ulster Championship. When Pete, John, and Barney took over, the one thing they really wanted to do was to make sure that whatever player wore a Down jersey, they understood exactly the privilege they had. A lot of stuff was based on the pride of wearing that Down jersey.

Pete had coached and managed a lot of St. Colman's College teams to success at Ulster and All-Ireland level. He had managed the minor team to an All-Ireland.

John Murphy was a player from the 1968 team. He scored a goal in that All-Ireland Final. And Barney Treanor had been immersed in Down football for 50 years at that stage, back to the '40s and '50s. Martin Walsh was the team doctor and had played for Down in the '40s.

So the people that Pete put around him, if you were to cut them they would have bled red and black. It might have been a primitive approach, but the first and foremost thing they would have pushed was that if you were going to play for Down you had to understand what it meant to play for Down. The pride in the jersey.

There's no dout that Down had lost their way in the 1980s. They were held up as being a soft option and that would have sickened a lot of the true Down people. Whether or not we were going to win, the flippancy that had grown within the county set-up wasn't going to be tolerated anymore.

From a training point of view it wasn't rocket-science. Our game was based on being able to win your own ball and kick the ball accurately and long if possible. And our training mirrored that.

In training we ran. Oh f**k, did we run! Thinking of it now, I'm shaking! The drills were literally you were kicking a ball from one side of the pitch to the other between two. And you were expected to be able to kick it 40/50 yards accurately.

And then we'd move into game situations where you were expected to tick those three or four things and put them into practice. So it wasn't rocket-science, but everything was done with a serious intensity.

And I suppose that was Pete's greatest trait. He was able to get across to a group of players what they needed to do to play at a certain level. This is the style of football that I want to play and this is how we're going to do it. And if you don't agree with that then, no harm done, but good luck.

Q: The dream for any sportsperson or team is to get into what some people describe as 'a state of flow' on the biggest occasions of all where you perform exceptionally. Between the 19th minute and the 47th minute of the All-Ireland Final, Down outscored Meath by 1-9 to 0-1. What did it feel like to be part of something like that on All-Ireland Final day?

RC: The match itself, I remember thinking after ten minutes that we just hadn't started well. Meath were maybe two up and had missed two or three scores. Then Gary Mason got a couple of free-kicks. They were very scoreable, but given that this was our first time in an All-Ireland Final, if a free-kicker was nervous at all he could have missed them. But Gary nailed them.

And I can remember thinking on the pitch, 'There's 12 or 14 minutes gone here and we're only a point down and they've had all the play'. I was thinking if we could only get a run at this we would go okay.

Then Eamonn (Burns), God rest him, got a great score. We turned the ball over around the middle of the field and Greg got on it and played Eamonn in and he took it on the run and hit it with the outside of his foot probably from 25 or 30 yards.

That started it for us. Then half-time came and we were thinking, 'We've only played for ten minutes and we're four or five points up here'.

The start of the second-half came as a result of a serious bollocking at half-time for the way we had played in the first-half. McGrath wasn't happy. Ambrose Rogers, God rest him, gave a serious talk at half-time about wasting chances and missing an opportunity.

I do believe that the effect of that half-time talk propelled us into that 15 minute spell after half-time. In fairness, I do think we also missed a few changes in that period of the match and we could have been even further in front.

Liam Hayes scored a goal that cut it to five or six, and my memory is that they then had two or three opportunities for goals that they missed. Had one of them gone in, you just don't know what would happened.

Q: Was the final whistle almost as much a relief as anything because of the comeback that Meath mounted?

RC: We got a couple of points. Eamonn got a great point again. His second point came from a great 1-2 with Greg Blaney under the Hogan Stand after we turned the ball over in our own defence. I think that propelled us on because then Gary scored a point that put us out to four or five again. Meath did get the last two or three points, but, in that period of time, we missed two or three really opportunities.

I think at that stage we had broken their comeback. I know it's easy to say now, but I wasn't as afraid in the last five or six minutes as I was in the period after their goal when they had those goal chances they missed. I remember David Beggy going through and he shot just over the bar. It was shortly after Colm O'Rourke won a ball and went for a goal and blasted it wide. That all happened in a very short period of time, three or four minutes.

They came away from that with a point as opposed to two goals. Once we got back down the pitch and scored ourselves after that period, I felt we were going to be okay.

When the whistle went it was a bit surreal. I don't know how others find it, but as a player the journey is nearly as enjoyable as the aftermath. The aftermath was brilliant for us as players too because we celebrated not just with each other, but with our families.

I went up into the stand to see my mum and dad. I actually didn't go over to the presentation of Sam. I just wanted to be with them. It was just incredible to sit with them because they had been the people who brought you to training. Who supported you, who consoled you. They were the ones who kicked you in the arse and also offered you a shoulder to cry on from when you were a child.

So the aftermath was brilliant, but once those three or four hours or over, it's the supporters who get a bigger kick out of it than the players. It was great for them. I started playing for Down in 1983/84 and I remember going to play in Division Two and Division Three of the National League and Down supporters followed us everywhere. So, for those people, it was fantastic.

Some of those people have passed on, unfortunately, but some are still alive and they still talk about that period of time which they would describe as they greatest few months of their lives.