1 week Ago
- Kevin O’Brien, Reading that quote shortly after Mick O’Dwyer’s death in the early hours of Thursday morning was poignant. A year on from uttering those very words, Kevin O’Brien is sharing memories again of the Kerry legend. The pair worked together during Micko’s time at Wicklow, and O’Brien is happy to fondly recall his experiences and stories of that time.
When calls on Friday afternoon and shares that quote, you can almost sense O’Brien smiling down the phone. “Ah, you know the long evenings, the smell of cut grass, it’s like he kicked into another gear,” he says. “All the hard work over the winter would be done, and he just played football, football, football.
“He’d be there in the middle of the field with the whistle around his hand, rolling it around with the string. There were no frees, he just let it on. The players adored him.
They played above themselves for him. “He made us all try harder in life and in sport with the energy he brought, it was unbelievable. He made us all try harder to be the very best you could be in any walk of life.
I was very privileged to be part of it.” ***** The journey together began with a phone call, six weeks before O’Dwyer was announced as Wicklow manager in October 2006. They had first met on an All-Stars trip Stateside — more on that later — but O’Brien never would have envisaged this conversation.
“Kevin, Micko here. I’m thinking of taking Wicklow, what do you think?” “Would I get good buy in and commitment from the players?” “If I go in, it’ll take me two years to stop the indiscipline and all that..
.” “Six weeks of hell” followed as the incoming selector tried to keep the news to himself, not that many would believe him anyway, but soon it was official. The buzz around the Garden county was on another level.
127 players turned up to the first training session. It had to be abandoned, O’Brien recalls, with district matches used as trials instead. “It was just crazy.
Everyone made themselves available. We had to go looking for nobody. Lads were coming out of retirement.
It was all him, I’m telling you. In Wicklow and teams like Wicklow, you have to chase players. Not when he arrived.
It just got such a bounce. “When he walked into the dressing room, everyone stood tall. He had a magical touch of making an ordinary footballer or an ordinary person feel good about himself, believe in himself and be confident in himself.
” Micko’s impact was instant, and what followed in Wicklow was magical. Aughrim was packed to the rafters for three O’Byrne Cup matches, which were also broadcast live on television. “It was just incredible.
These players would not be used to that. Junior footballers scoring goals against Dublin and their clubs still talking about it,” says O’Brien, Wicklow’s only All-Star. O’Dwyer led the county to the Tommy Murphy Cup in his first year in charge in 2007.
The following season, they beat Kildare in Croke Park for the first time in their history. In 2009, they famously reached the last 12 of the All-Ireland senior football championship. On three successive July Saturdays in Aughrim, they beat three Ulster teams — Fermanagh, Cavan and Down — without once using a substitute.
Away from the big days and bright lights, the mundane memories of working together endure for O’Brien. “I got on really well with him, he was like a father figure at times. The two of us would be in the car going places, and he’d be telling me stories here and there.
Of course, there’s a lot of stuff we can’t say! He was great craic, he was funny. The stories he told me (from) over the years were just brilliant. “I used to try to prove him wrong; things on the pitch or in training.
It was like your son trying to prove your father wrong. Micko was never wrong. He was always right, and it always worked out that way.
“He was just a pleasure to be around. He was real good company. Outside of football, he had so much patience for people, whether it was young or old, went to dinner dances and funerals, gave everyone time and patience.
Some energy.” O’Brien can’t help but laugh when he thinks of that All-Stars trip to New York, and a round of golf shared with O’Dywer, Mickey Linden and the late Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. “Talk about a very competitive man over $20! “Mícheál, of course, used to be winding him up on the 18th when we couldn’t find Micko’s ball and Micko was going to climb a tree when Mícheál told him it was nesting up there.
Mícheál and myself won the money, but it didn’t pass hands, because he was so upset that he lost to us!” That winning mentality. The stories could keep coming. And they will forever more.
An extraordinary life and legacy. On and off the pitch. “He was a true gentleman, and I mean that,” O’Brien concludes.
“I’m not just bluffing, because you’re saying the right things here. He was a remarkable man. “He did make us all try harder in every walk of life, and it was a pleasure to be with him.
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