By John Harrington

Inter-county managers tend to have a poker-player mentality – they don’t like to give too much away.

That’s why a chat with new Cork football team manager, Keith Ricken, is such a refreshing change of pace.

Always honest and engaging, he’s not the type to ever varnish an opinion, and he has plenty of those on all sorts of topics.

On Monday this week he met with the local and national Gaelic games media and was in typically forthright form about his hopes for the development of this Cork football team under his watch, as well as some lessons he’s learned from life in general.

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Keith, you have suggested that getting Cork football back to the top will be a long-term project. Do you think the Cork public will have the required patience for that?

Keith Ricken: Well, I came into this with my eyes open and I knew what the task ahead of me was when I started off on the eight of December which was the first time we could get a handle of lads and I knew what was in front of me when I saw what came in and what was around. I knew we had an awful lot of work to do physically and conditioning wise.

Football, we have a lot of footballers, but we're on a different trajectory than some of the more established counties for whatever reason over the last couple of years. I know the Cork county board have done a lot of work in relation to trying to put structures in place, but that's going to take time. I would see my job as being to restructure and reorganise Cork football from our end.

Re-establish maybe a good kind of character among players and good place for Cork football to be in and that's as much as I can do at the moment. Division Two is very difficult if you look at the teams in Division Two.

Are we just going to go in, play Division Two, go up to Division One and that's it? No. That's not my concern. My concern is can we develop a squad of players that will sustain the future of Cork football over the next number of years?

That's not going to happen overnight. Good timber takes its time to grow and we have to be patient. While I'm focusing on every match and every training session to get the best out of them in the here and now, I'm also acutely aware that there's a longer-term project coming through. There's an underage system that is now starting to produce some very good footballers and I have to be patient. They're not going to go from U-19 or U-20 or U-17 straight ito the senior set-up. There's a lot of work to be done there and there's a lot of work for guys who maybe for whatever reason haven't been conditioned in the way an inter-county footballer should be conditioned and we have a lot of work there, it's as simple as that.

I'm taking it every game, every day, every time we come together as a new adventure, a new thing, and a new project and we're going to see what's there. I don't have any long-term aims of how long it'll take us to get up to Division 1. If it presented itself this year and we took a few victories, great, but it has to be a long-term project. Whether we're winning or losing it has to be long term.

What’s your target for the Allianz Football League?

Keith Ricken: I tell you what I want to get out of it. I want to see a connection between what they’re willing and they’re saying they want to do, and to do it every weekend wearing the Cork jersey. Lads who would wear the Cork jersey with pride, who would give it 110pc; whether they’re good enough or not good enough, they would give 110pc for it, they’d give beyond what they could give for it. They’d commit to it, train for it and see could they improve. I’m fully confident in all the selectors that we have, that they will do very good work; our video analysis team, all that kind of stuff, will do work. How quickly that will happen, I don’t know.

I can’t stand around and say to you, ‘I would like to get up to Division 1.’ I would like Cork to play good football, I would like Cork to stand up and be accountable, and I want people to admire the way they go about what they do, as best they can.

And I can see improvements week in, week out - and attitudes, week in, week out. And I don’t want to be going backwards. So that’s my ambition this year. And whether we’re playing a challenge match, a league match or a championship match, that is my sole ambition – that people would recognise Cork, that they’re trying and working hard and we’re scraping.

And it might be hard scraping at the moment, but we’re not lying down, we’re not rolling over on or bellies and just giving up on it. That we’re going forward as best we can. We might be hitting walls and we might find it difficult and we’re going up against a lot of very experienced Division 2 teams now, with a lot of experienced players who are at that level and who jumped between Division 1 and Division 2 over the last couple of years with a seasoned team...so I’m hoping that they would learn from that each time.

Has the size of the task surprised you?

Keith Ricken: No is the short answer. I go to matches, I see what’s there. Going to the county game, I see what’s there. I see the investment that a lot of other counties have made, and probably they’re slightly ahead of us in that regard in terms of … that’s no fault of anybody, it’s just the way it is.

I’ve seen the attempts now to restructure Cork football, which will help in time. I’ve seen a lot of good stuff underage. But I’ve also seen a lot of poor stuff. Lads who condition for the time they’re in with Cork, and then don’t condition for the rest of the year … it’s not a full-time job, the back-up isn’t there for around-the-clock strength and conditioning programmes and all that kind of stuff.

So, I’m not surprised. I mean, I’ve seen the fellas play football and they play good football. But that’s at club level. You’re talking about bringing it up another four or five notches then.

And if you were down in Killarney on Saturday, and you saw the physique of the Kerry guys and you saw the physique of the Cork guys…if you knew nothing about football, you could see that there was a difference there. So, we have a long way to go. I’m not surprised at all, no.”

From a personal point of view, how much thought did you give to it before committing to the role as Cork football team manager?

Keith Ricken: Anything that’s worth committing to, you have to give it thought. It’s always an ambition of everybody maybe to get involved in coaching a Cork team. It wasn’t an ambition of mine to be coaching Cork, and I truthfully mean that. It was hardly an ambition of mine to be coaching the Cork U-20s at the time. It presented itself; they were looking for somebody, and I said maybe I could help here.

It was probably the same for this; I felt maybe I could help this. What I felt was needed, maybe I felt I could help the situation by getting very good people in and getting organised and getting the thing up and running.

That was the first part of what I did. I asked a large number of people to get involved, and everybody said yes and I was delighted. That was the first part of it; it’s going to take time after that but that’s fine.

In relation to wanting to do the job and needing to do the job, and then committing to the job, they’re all different things.

A lot of people say, ‘Oh, this is a dream job’ and ‘This is great.’ I’ve no ambitions and never had any ambitions; I’m not an ambitious person that way. I enjoy doing what I’m doing, I love giving over my time to the lads and trying to make better people out of them, I love that part of it. I love Cork football and I’m always committed to Cork football. But if I thought the best place for me with Cork football was down in a divisional U-15 team somewhere and helping that out, I would have gone there.

And I felt my skillset was probably needed here. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’m living in a three-bed semi-detached house with still a big mortgage hanging over my head, two kids, and a lot of other stuff on in my life.

This is not a job, as people talk about it; there’s no f*******ing money in it, there’s no anything in it. It’s 50 to 60 hours a week on top of your own job. I’m very lucky to have good support by my colleagues and good support at home obviously, and I’m giving my 100pc for as long as it takes until I feel my bit is done here or I can’t bring it any further.

Are you surprised then that you’re in this position now?

Keith Ricken: I’m surprised I’m alive at 52 years of age, to be truthful with you. I’d a couple of near-death experiences and everything else, and my life has gone 100 different ways and I’ve done loads of different things. So, there’s nothing that doesn’t surprise me. I’m surprised every morning, and I’m grateful every morning I get up that when I turn on the tap, water comes out of it.

There are people all over the world who haven’t got that luxury.

So, nothing surprises me. I take nothing for granted. If I commit to something, I commit to something.

And you know yourself when you’re walking along the road and you found a 50 euro note on the ground, you’d pick it up and say, ‘Jesus, my luck is in today!’ You didn’t think about it, you picked it up and went off and put into your pocket and you spent that wisely.

Sometimes things present themselves as they happen; sometimes they’re long-term projects. My long-term projects are the home; my long-term projects are for my family, for the students I work with … they’re long-term projects that I had … this project presented itself, this project felt like a good idea to be getting involved in.

Now that I’m in it, I’m in it 100pc. Will I regret doing it? Every fecking day you regret doing it, when you haven’t time to do what you want to do. Do I love doing it? Absolutely every day as well. So, it doesn’t sustain me in terms of who I am and what I’m about; but it does fulfil me.

What bits of it do you love the most?

Keith Ricken: I have always loved that sense of wonder and that sense of energy that young people give you. I was looking at a photograph there recently from my 30s, but I am almost the same, in my head anyway. Whether I was an old ugly child or whatever I was, but I have sustained a relatively good physique from dealing with young people.

They keep me alive and they keep me energetic. I love that part of it. I love the honesty about them. Dealing with people under 30 years of age, one of the things you'll find very little of is cynicism. As you get older, cynicism becomes very much part of everything. I love that part of it, I love the honesty of it. I love the trial and error. I love when they make a bags of it and they are trying to figure it out.

The things I don't like: when we work so hard for our freedom of choices and our freedom of everything and then you have a system where they are asking you, should I do this, can I do this, or can I have that. I don't like that part of it, I'd like to bring that back to them.

I'd like to say, this is your choices, what do you think, how do you see it? In this country, we fought hard for our choices and we've kept our choices for the last 100 hundred years or so, to have a choice. I think it is important for players to have a choice. I'd like to see young fellas exploring that.

A part I really love is when a fella comes down and he is not firing on all cylinders, but he is willing to discover it and research it and see it, and rediscovers that. It is a beautiful moment when they rediscover the joy of playing football and the joy of getting over an obstacle. That is the greatest kick I get out of it.

How difficult will it be for this group to believe in themselves, to drive it on themselves, and fall in love with the game again, given it has been a challenging few years for Cork football?

Keith Ricken: It depends on the narrative they want to create. Are they inter-county footballers or are they men that are trying to play football for their county? That is a great question. We become the person we think we are. Do I think I am an inter-county manager, do I think that I have some God given right to be different to the person I was two or three months ago? I don't, anyway.

I think it is very important to have a sense of self. I would like for them lads to discover that. That would be part of what I am doing. Maybe they might discover that they are not inter-county footballers, maybe they might discover they haven't the grá for it. That might be the discovery too.

Maybe they might discover that they are not more than just an inter-county footballer. There is a thing that I would have studied years back called 'identify foreclosure' where a guy or a girl, but particularly men, they would see themselves as footballers first and people second.

I would hope that we would change that, that they would get to open their eyes and see they are people first, that they are brothers, cousins, uncles, sons and whatever they are. They are also working on their careers and they are also working on bettering themselves; so that when they do anything better for themselves, they are doing it for the whole lot of themselves, they are not just improving their right leg or their left leg or their abs, they are improving the whole lot of themselves. These are amateur guys. A lot of these guys are living with their parents, we have players who can't drive, they are young lads who are living on College road or in student accommodation.

They are young men and we speak about them as if they are premiership footballers, that they should be getting into a Ferrari. But if they want to believe that, that is their choice. I am hoping they wouldn't believe it and that they would have a great sense of self among themselves. That is going to take time. That doesn't happen overnight. This is not the road to Damascus. We are not going to fall off the horse, wake up, and we are all converted. It is a long road where we change slowly.

You mentioned you had a near-death experience? Did that shape your approach to life?

Keith Ricken: Anyone that knows my driving knows I have had various near death experiences! It is terrible. But on top of that I have had some health issues over the years and it was tough going and tough calls there sometimes.

How it has affected me is that I don’t take anything for granted, I don’t take anybody for granted either. I try at all times to have a purpose in life, I think when you hit the last page earlier that you thought it would be and then you get a chance to go back a few pages, it does lead you to think, what is it all about, what do you want to get out of life, a sense of purpose, a meaning, something that when you leave this earth as an insignificant, which we all will no matter how wealthy we are, we will all leave it and someone else will replace us, that you will leave some form of, just a little tiny dot of difference in people’s lives.

I have always felt that, it is part of what I do. That is what I do in my life, in my job, in what I am doing here. I want to make a difference in some way and if I felt I was not making a difference I would not be doing what I am doing.

Does the language used by media when referring to inter-county managers as having ‘contracts’ grate with you?

Keith Ricken: Does it grate with me? It does if I was to listen to it to be truthful. I don’t particularly listen to it. I have often felt with language and with thinking, it can be awful lazy and people just latch onto the first term, the same terms they would use with professional sports they use on amateur sports. If I was to take that seriously I would buy into it and then all of a sudden I would be pretending something I am not. I don’t get a brass penny for what I do, right.

None of the people who are involved with us, with the exception maybe of your s&c people or the odd people we bring in on physio, they do not get a brass penny for what they do. We just do it for the love of it. I say that because I am no different to the fellow in Junior B who has taken over a small team in west Cork or anywhere else. He is giving his lot to it, he is giving his heart and soul to it and he makes a sincere effort.

I have got letters and people ringing me and talking to me, meeting me on the street thinking I am getting 100,000 a year so I should come up with the goods, like. And that I get bonuses for this and bonuses for that. I get Jack shit; that is what I get. But we don’t want it, we do it for the love of it and we do it because we also believe in sport that we can make a difference.

And there are other people out there who are teaching dancing, drama and arts and they are doing that because they believe they can make a difference in people’s lives and I am the same. In fact, if my young people involved with us are happy, talented Gaelic footballers, it makes no difference. It makes absolutely no difference in how I treat them. If a guy comes into play and he plays freshers 2 or freshers 3 football, I will treat him the exact same way. I will try to make a difference in his life. I will make no song and dance about it, I will not clap myself on the back or make myself out to be some hero. I do that like most other people in the GAA and what they do.

Some counties, some other places, maybe they don’t do that, maybe they get paid, I don’t know that. But I can tell you when I get up in the morning, I don’t listen to the press and that is no disrespect to anybody else because I have to listen to my gut and I have to see the evidence that has been placed in front of me.

Quite often with media, and that is no disrespect to ye or anyone else, sometimes we have a very simplistic way of thinking, a simplistic way of thinking implying the same terms to something that is not the same. And I often wonder if we were looking at piebald ponies and we were looking at thoroughbreds that were worth 3 or 4 million, would we use the same terminology?

We would not but yet I read papers and articles by journalists and it is the same terminology they use and I often wonder that but that is not my place to call it. Everyone has to reflect on what they write, everyone has to reflect on what they say, all of us. We all have a duty to do that at some stage and I think if you can see that and if you can see someone it will reflect in what they say and change what they say and the same way in what they write, I am happy with that. I would like them people, no matter what they write or what they say, to reflect on it and if that is what they believe, and it is not just copy and paste, I am happy with that.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that many managers in the GAA do charge money for their services. What do you think of that practice?

Keith Ricken: I have a masters in guidance and a masters in counselling. I love it but I never charge for it. For me it has always been about you give because it’s the right thing to do. The man above seems to always look after me, I always seem to have enough food in the fridge, there’s always love in the house and always enough to pay the bills and that’s it, I’m happy enough with that. That’s my nature, I’m not saying people shouldn’t charge, that’s my nature, I like to give, I like to give freely. I would be vocational, that’s my nature.

Some other people are not and that’s fine. It’s not that I’m overly kind or kumbaya or a tree hugger or anything like that, but I like to give. I spent ten years travelling the roads with Eamonn Ryan, just two of us in the car. That’s a lot of precious time, I’ve got the best mentorship from the likes of Eamon and others over the years. And I see how happy they were and content they were in their life by giving, not at looking at how much they were worth or how many thumbs up they got on Facebook or how many likes or whatever.

They were just happy to give and be getting on with it. I felt I’ve got that in abundance, I’m happy to have that. I don’t want to be out of pocket, I don’t want to be a martyr or anything like that, but if you are involved with people, if you love children no matter what happens when you go down to the pitch on a Saturday coaching the kids it is going to cost you money, like. You are going to go to the shop, you are going to buy something, ice lollies on a hot day or whatever.

Why am I doing that? So I can get something back? No, because it’s the right thing to do. When I say I love my sport I genuinely love it, and I love the people. I don’t mean I like them all, but I do love them all. There’s a big difference. Love is a choice, and it’s my choice, it’s my choice I’d like to do it and give my time to it. It’s not that I’m going to compare myself to somebody down the road or up the road, that’s their choices. This is how my conscience works, this is how I work, it’s how the value of the GAA works - for me that’s how it works. I’m not naive, I’m not stupid, I know there are people who get money from doing it. I wouldn’t judge them, that’s not my place to do that. I just know why I do stuff.

What’s your message to Cork football supporters?

Keith Ricken: My message for them is that, first of all, I can assure you that the lads are doing their utmost best to get better. That’s the first part of it, and they are committed to it. They’re not dragging themselves through and they’re not being disrespectful to their clubs, which is the most important, they’re not being disrespectful to the Cork jersey. From what I’ve seen so far, I haven’t seen any of that. They’re training and they’re making an effort. That’s the first thing I would say.

The second thing I would say is that it takes time for everything to grow at the rate it is allowed to grow. You get a faster rate of growth, a great rate of growth in relation to young people, so they’ll grow a lot quicker and as you get older the rate of growth is slowed so we have to be patient. But at the same time, we also want to have a standard and we want to have a standard that when they come off the field that they have sweated everything and they have given everything. That’s as much as I can say.

The third thing is that when it’s very heart-warming when you come off the field, even after being beaten last week by 12 points, and people saying, ‘You’re doing ok, well done, it’s good to see the young fellas out there, can you stand in for the photograph’ with their young children and stuff like that. It’s lovely to get that bit of support. I suppose we’re here… I suppose the best way to say this is, we were locked down for two years and what did we really miss?

We miss going to bloody matches. It was lovely to see 6,500-7,000 people down in Killarney last Saturday. It was lovely to see all the people getting back to that and enjoying that part of it. I know they will want more as they go along and we will try to give them more as we go along but it’s going to take time. That’s about the long and the short of it.