McCabe, Joe
August 07, 1992
Longford's Joe McCabe
Long Serving Joe Mc Cabe
A ROLE MODEL FOR ALL YOUNG ASPIRING FOOTBALLERS IN LONGFORD
Even with all the hype that invariably tracks the leaps and jumps of attacking forwards in gaelic games, ask any mentor, rookie or not, which sector he builds his team upon and nine times out of ten he'll point a learned figure in the direction of his trusted rearguard.
More often than not underrated as a building block on a successful team and part of a unit rarely credited with that to which they are entitled to, a defender's lot is not one which easily breeds egotism. In Tour de France terms, the man behind the midfielders are your domestiques, the man servants for the polishers on the team.
This season, however, perhaps more than any other season which has gone before it, the spotlights and credits, following championship football set-to's across the country have begun to roll more easily in the direction of defensive berths. It would appear that, belatedly, full and due recognition is being attributed to the men who artfully negate the best efforts of the much-vaunted frontmen.'
Dublin's half back line, the inspiration behind their team's success over Kildare and their Donegal peers in the shape of messrs. Reid Gavigan and Shovlin, have rightfully earned several curtain calls this year. Sure in the knowledge that the men behind them in turn are fit for the task all six aforementioned artisans have stamped their own indomitable mark on proceedings in Ulster and Leinster over recent
months. Both respective formations comprise the best of defensive operative. Longford's Joe McCabe would likewise be entitled to a paragraph or two in any manual listing the best around in the same sector. Even as he approaches the twilight of his inter-county career, Ballymahon's sole ambassador on the Longford county team would doubtless be welcomed aboard by Paddy Cullen or Brian McEniff if the Longford half back decided (sometimes comer back) to switch allegiances at this late stage. Now thirty three years old but still rarely skinned, the Castlebar- based Physical Education teacher is an unlikely candidate to take advantage of the opportunities afforded a free agent n the world of gaelic games. McCabe is too much a dyed-in-the-wool son of Longford to make the break, even if he wanted to do so.
Retirement rather than any yearning for the brighter football lights would be more in tune with the Me line of thinking. He admits that rumours as to his imminent departure from the senor inter county stage aren't that far removed from being on the ball, so to speak. Reflecting on Longford's Leinster championship defeat to Wicklow this year, the long serving county ace makes no bones about his likely future commitment at the highest level.
"As time goes on and the more I consider my situation, it looks increasingly likely that the Wicklow match will have been my swansong with the county. More than anything else, the travelling involved in driving a round trip of 150 miles from Castlebar to County training sessions every week has been taking it's toll of late".
Over fourteen years ago, a bus took a young impressionable Joe McCabe out from the confines of his native Ballymahon and across the water in search of an educational qualification. An 'erstwhile pupil of Ballymahon Convent School, he was the star of the local . club's county minor success in 1977 and later that Autumn broadened his educational and sporting knowledge by continuing his studies at the famed Saint Mel's College, Longford. With Saint Mel's, McCabe's star rose in both the academic and football fields, albeit without the benefit of any silverware. Moate, of the Carmelite 'ilk, denied the strapping Ballymahon student a College football winners medal. He enjoyed his days on the College football scene nevertheless and remembers competing against the likes of then Mayo minor and now Clare team manager John Maughan, Oilie Bracken, the Offaly starlet and later the winner of a soccer scholarship to the United States and county colleague Danny Owens.
Starting your football apprenticeship in a favourable breeding ground helps shape the sportsman and Ballymahon represented a fine nursery for Joe McCabe and his peers. The club's minor success in '77 marked the ending of a nineteen year drought for the area. The victory also signalled the beginning of a resurgence of underage football at Ballymahon. Players like Paddy Flynn, Tom Farrell, John McGrath, and Jimmy Canavan were all to benefit in behind the slipstream of Ballymahon's underage renaissance.
Almost inevitably, Ballymahon's domination of the minor scene would bring with it representative honours for McCabe among others. A county under 16 berth on the Fr. Manning Cup side was a matter of form (and ability) so
too was his elevation on to the county minor side. Big for his age, and the strength to match, the young Ballymahon tiger soon found that playing out of his age-group presented new challenges. His progression onto higher plateau's in the game came with natural selection. The key transfer and progression from minor ranks to under 21 and senior county level is stamped all over with the "survival of the fittest" adage. Joe McCabe didn't simply survive, that testing graduation period, he blossomed to the extent that he virtually carved his name out for every household in Longford to take note.
Under 21 county selection ran simultaneously with a call-up to senior ranks. McCabe was blooded against Sligo in a National League Senior match in the Autumn of 1977 and so began an almost unbroken fifteen year rollercoaster journey of high and lows with his native county. Save for a four month period in 1985 during which he was sidelined with knee ligament trouble, Ballymahon's best known player has been an ever-present on the county team since making his debut. That statistic and the fact that few players in Longford command as much respect nationwide as the Ballymahon ball-player.
A 1984 Longford Intermediate Championship medal winner with Ballymahon alongside the likes of men like Paddy Diffley and David Canavan, returning from London's Strawberry Hill College as a qualified Physical Education teacher in 1984 realised a dream come true for him and represented a timely boast for his home club and county. He's been on the road practically every week, every year since in the cause of both camps and his total dedication in doing so has not gone unnoticed on the domestic front. Joe McCabe has long since been recognised as a role model for young, aspiring gaelic footballers in Longford.
As an aspiring footballer himself in the early seventies, the heroics of men like Ballymahon and Longford star John Heneghan did much to inspire the local underage up and coming starlet to go the same road as his then idol. In years to come Ballymahon's best, along with clubmate Sean Q'Shea would likewise do their club proud, just as Heneghan had done before.
Nowadays a valuable member of Saint Gerard's College teaching staff in Castlebar, his extra-curricular activities to a large extent revolves around coaching youngsters under his jurisdiction in Mayo and Longford. The 1st year team coach at St. Gerards, Joe McCabe may have switched his place of residence many moons ago, but home is where the heart is, and for the six foot, twelve stone ace midfielder, Ballymahon is still the number one spot.
Selected to represent the Rest of Ireland for a Goal challenge match during the 'era of the Meath-Cork domination of the sport, Joe casts an appreciative eye over the specific talent available to other counties at present.
He admires people like Wicklow's Kevin O'Brien, Kerry's Jack O'Shea and Meath's Martin O'Connell. Class acts are perhaps quick to recognise their minor images. In addition he particularly forecasts great things from Derek Duggan of Roscommon, a player he has taught at school in years gone by.
Unlucky enough to have been part of a Ballymahon side beaten in two successive Intermediate County Championships finals ('90 and '91), Joe McCabe is a regular commuter back home to Ballymahon from his base in Castlebar. Later this month, he'll take the juveniles of his home club for four solid days of hard coaching, two hours per day. The players that recently cooped the Feile na nGael All Ireland title will form the backbone of the squad to come under the club's veteran's tutelage. He'll supervise and run the coaching course almost as if by way of repayment to the club arid to those who had overseen his own development at the club as a raw recruit to the game.
Peripherally involved with the workings of Ballymahon's hugely efficient underage Committee, Joe McCabe is definite management material. His record to date,- on and off the field, would be welcomed as a listing on any of the best management curriculum vitae. "I don't know what shape or form my involvement in football will take in the next few years but I'd certainly like to stay involved in the game some way or another", he confessed.
With the success of Clare recently, (the team that beat Longford in the 1991 All Ireland 'B Championship), Joe is confident that the talent is there, and coming up, in the county to take a leaf out of the Munster -county's book although he insists he's unlikely to play any part in then- bid. For someone reared during the county's successful days of the '66 and '68 eras, he confesses that he'll miss the Longford county scene. But then again there's still Ballymahon ... and their quest for an Intermediate Championship title.
Taken from Hogan Stand magazine
7th August 1992
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