Armagh success is allowing fans to bring colour to the Championship again

Declan Bogue

Rian O’Neill with Armagh supporters

©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

Rian O’Neill with Armagh supporters

June 22 2022 07:30 AM

One of the most impressive GAA sights I have ever witnessed was the reaction of the Armagh fans after their team crushed Down in the 1999 Ulster final.

Looking back now, there was barely any difference in what happened that sunny day in Clones to how the Derry fans reacted a few weeks ago after their thrilling extra-time win over Donegal.

For Oak Leaf fans, the wait had been even longer than Armagh’s 17-year famine, their gap stretching out to 24 years.

If there was a difference, it’s because I was looking at it with a fresher pair of eyes and was more impressionable.

Growing up where I did, Clones was an easily accessible ground, a mere 23 miles away. As a result, I got to see a golden period for Ulster football in the early 1990s, though you never realised it at the time.

But on the final whistle that day, the Armagh fans flooded the grass. Long before referee Paddy Russell brought an end to proceedings, the pitch was ringed with fans in orange.

It is almost unnoticed about that game, but joint managers Brian McAlinden and Brian Canavan sent on Ger Houlahan for the last three minutes, reward for the 15 lean years he had spent in the county colours that almost stretched right back to their last Ulster triumph.

From that launchpad, the Armagh team took off for their most successful decade ever.

On the pitch, the talents of Oisin McConville, Diarmuid Marsden, the McEntee twins and the leadership of Kieran McGeeney blended perfectly. The appointment of Joe Kernan was the tipping point for them to win an All-Ireland.

As good as they were on the pitch, the large travelling jamboree that followed them brought some incredible colour.

It’s fair to say that a lot of that colour has been absent from Armagh games in recent seasons. The win over Donegal showed that it was most certainly back. Fermanagh Street in Clones hummed with the rattle of the various accents from the very different corners of the county.

Some are sniffy about it and don’t like, say, the booing of frees, as if it is an entirely new concept and that there hadn’t been someone with a whistle stationed on Hill 16 for years.

Embrace the orange crush!