Michael Martin's intercounty career is over - or is it? - for Leitrim's best player since Packie McGarty asks Ronan McGreevy In June 1973, a 17 year old blonde haired youngster made his debut as a second half substitute for Leitrim in a championship tie with Mayo in Castlebar. On reflection, the entrance of Michael Martin into the field of play was more than a simple substitution, in many ways it symbolised the passing of the torch of footballing excellence from one generation to the next. On that field of play the 41 year old Packie McGarty was playing his last championship game for Leitrim. Michael Martin was playing his first. It would be the only time that both players would appear together on the same football team. Both were outstanding Leitrim footballers of their generation and perhaps of all time. Where Packie McGarty's career spanned three decades, from the early fifties, sixties and seventies; Michael's career spans the seventies, eighties and nineties where now, at 35, his presence on the field can still inspire the most humdrum of matches. Quiet and undemonstrative off the field, Michael Martin had the demeanour of a raging bull on the field. Martin was one of the rare breed of footballers who combined a powerful physical presence with an outstanding football brain. His pace was his single greatest asset. His reaction to a breaking ball was almost reflex-like while his speed took him past defenders with breathtaking ease. His gifts in possession of the ball were equally substantial. Martin displayed great peripheral vision with an ability to deliver a pass that could tear the heart out of any backline. He rarely wasted a pass and played the game with an intelligence and a perceptiveness few players could match. Although finishing was never his strongest point, the sheer momentum of his play took him into many scoring positions. Many people feel a point he scored from 60 yards to draw a Connacht championship tie against Mayo in 1975 to be their most outstanding single memory of Martin's football career. Perhaps most importantly Martin showed a temperament for the big time with a series of outstanding championship displays which would have yielded better dividends if he had played on better teams. His contribution to Leitrim football full back and former captain Ollie Honeyman. "Martin was a great championship player. He had some great games with a lot of mediocre teams. He has set very high standards for Leitrim football. "He thinks a lot about the game and talks intelligently about it. I think he was widely respected not just in Leitrim but throughout the game. He was probably one of the best footballers in the country at one stage." After 18 years as a senior footballer, Martin was dropped off the county panel for the first time this year. For many it was the end of the natural life of an outstanding football career, but others were puzzled and some angered by the decision, particularly in the St. Marys club in Carrick-on-Shannon - the club Martin has played with all his life. Says Joe Flynn, an official of the club who raised the issue of the dropping of Martin at the County Board Convention earlier this year. "We feel Mickey has still a lot to contribute to Leitrim football. We feel his experience is no weight to carry, especially with some younger players on the team. The way he was dismissed without a thank you left a lot to be desired." Despite the outstanding nature of his contribution to Leitrim football, Martin has few tangible rewards from a lengthy inter county career, which has spanned all of 20 years. There was a number of individual achievements including a replacement All Star award in 1977 (when he replaced Pat Spillane on that year's trip to America), and a place on the first Irish team to play a compromise rules series in 1984, where he was regarded as being one of the best players of that historic first series, despite having his nose smashed by Australian goalkeeper Gary McIntosh in the second game of the series. Despite these achievements and the acclaim and respect afforded to an outstanding footballer, many people still regard Mickey Martin's career as a hard luck story and reflect on his career with a sense of sadness for what might have been. Put bluntly, he played on too many mediocre Leitrim and St. Marys teams for his own good. Yes, there was a Connacht Under 21 medal in 1977 and an All-Ireland B medal in 1990 but many feel he would have won provincial and All-Ireland medals if he had played on teams worthy of his talent - like the four in a row Kerry team or even the Roscommon team of the late seventies, early eighties that Martin could have played for if he had lived the other side of the bridge in Carrick-on-Shannon. Michael Martin is now 35 and though he maintains he has no regrets he admits his football career is tinged with the promise of what might have been. "When you play in a team game the thing is to be on the winning team and it didn't come off for me. You don't achieve anything until you play at the highest level and I didn't play at the highest level with Leitrim. I'd have liked to have played on a bigger stage but it wasn't to be. "There are other players who play on teams like Fermanagh, Longford and Tipperary who are just as good who didn't make the headlines and that's the way it is in football," he says. His reflections on his 20 year playing inter county football with Leitrim are edged with anger when he considers the manner in which he was dropped earlier this year. "It wasn't so much being dropped that got to me but the way in which it was done. All I got was a letter saying I was dropped. It was done very badly. That's the lack of respect you get for 20 years training and playing with the county," he says. Martin sees the under 21 team who won the Connacht Championship in 1977 as the outstanding Leitrim team he has played on. Having beaten Roscommon in the Connacht Final, Leitrim were unlucky to lose to a Kerry team that included Charlie Nelligan, Ogie Moran, Jack O'Shea and Eoin (The Bomber) Liston - perhaps the most outstanding team ever to have played at that grade. "We were unlucky not to win the All-Ireland that year because we came up against one of the best teams ever to play football. I feel Leitrim should have got better results after that year than they did," he says. The promise of championship breakthrough never materialised. Leitrim came close on several occasions including 1975 against Mayo, 1983 against Galway and in 1990 against Roscommon of breaking the championship deadlock but Martin has even yet to play in a Connacht Final. In latter years, however, there has been a marked improvement in the fortunes of the Leitrim team and Martin believes Leitrim are capable of beating Roscommon next summer and winning a Connacht title. "Any team is capable of winning the Connacht Championship. It is the most open championship and the standard isn't as high as it is other places. I think Leitrim have the players but they have to get the attitude right," he says. Reflecting on 20 years of intercounty football, Mickey Martin laments the onus teams nowadays put on fitness to be detriment of everything else. "I think the emphasis on fitness has gone too much to one side. Players need to be coached right and get the basics right. I think the coaching facilities in the county and in Connacht leave a lot to be desired," he says. His inter county career almost over, Martin will concentrate in the next couple of years on the one cherished ambition remaining in his career - to help his club side St. Marys of Carrick-on-Shannon to win a senior county championship. Mickey's club career has run along paralleled lines with his inter county career. In 1974 he became the youngest ever captain of a team to win a Leitrim senior county championship. At the age of 18 year he captained Sheemore Gaels - an amalgamation of St. Marys Fenagh and Kiltubrid - to a county champion and played a huge part in defeating Ballinamore in that year's county final. That amalgamation split up the following year and St. Marys have struggled continuously to make any impact in the Leitrim county championship and despite being the biggest club in the county and having produced some of Leitrim's most outstanding footballers, St. Marys have only one county title won back in 1955. In latter years there is high hopes within the club that the outstanding youth success of recent years will pay off at senior level for the club. Despite a virtual monopoly on all the underage grades in the county, the St. Marys club have found the transition from juvenile success to senior painful. Last year they were beaten by an ordinary Gortlettragh team in the first round and the previous year were handed a salutary lesson by a rampant Balliamore team in the county semi final. There are signs however that the breakthrough could come this year or in the very near future. Already a number of the younger St. Marys players have made it onto the county team, including Donal Smith, Brendan Guckian and Brian Duignan and the club have qualified for the league final, which will be played next month. Martin believes the present St. Marys team have the talent to win the county championship but said it will all come down to attitude and application if they are to make the big breakthrough. In the meantime, Michael Martin has taken the opportunity afforded by being dropped off the county panel to return to his other sporting love - soccer. 15 years ago Martin played with Athlone Town on a team that included another footballer, Tony McManus whose sporting talents could grace any code he played. After 25 years of a career where great personal talent did not bring great personal rewards, Martin remains philosophical. There was more disappointment than triumph but the bottom line was a great love for the game. "I have no regrets as such. There's been a lot of joy and it's great to get a platform to express your love of the game," he says. Taken from Hogan Stand magazine 21st February 1992 Tweet

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