Dublin in Division 2 may be hard to fathom, but whatever happens over the next two months, it won’t be half as weird as the last Sky Blue detour to the Allianz Football League’s second tier.
Bonkers,” recalls Pillar Caffrey. “Absolute bonkers.”
The former Dublin manager can’t be accused of overstatement, but in case you doubt him, here’s a quick refresh of 2008. Call it a shorthand synopsis of the surreal …
This was the year when (a) three Dublin fixtures didn’t take place on the appointed date; (b) one of those games never even materialised because of a player strike in Cork; and (c) it never rained but it poured for Pillar as he was left firefighting on several disciplinary fronts, including everything from a banned stats man to a weaponised cup of tea flung at one of his midfielders during the ‘Battle of Parnell Park’.
Fifteen years and eight All-Irelands later, Dublin once more find themselves outside the league elite, this time managed by another Na Fianna man, Dessie Farrell.
It all starts against Kildare this evening. The last big Croke Park match involving a team from the capital - Kilmacud last Sunday - didn’t exactly pass off without controversy, and Farrell will crave something far more straightforward.
It’s safe to surmise, though, that nothing will surpass the tale of the bizarre that was ’08. “Mad memories looking back on it now,” says Caffrey.
“People would have thought it would have affected us going into our championship but no. That was the year Tyrone finished my four years, just as they’d started. But we’d our best win in a Leinster final of the four we won (blitzing Wexford by 23 points), so you couldn’t say we were on a negative tailspin post the league.
“It wasn’t helpful at the time, but in ways, it bonded us together too. I still say it was the big delay between the Wexford victory and the Tyrone match that really caught us.”
Long before that, Dublin’s roller-coaster league had a mundane start, edging Westmeath by two points.
There followed a ‘pre-season sequel’ in the guise of O’Byrne Cup final drama on a Friday night – Dublin coming from five down after 68 minutes to stun Longford via two controversial Jason Sherlock goals, cheered on by a Donnycarney crowd of 7,000.
“Great excitement for an O’Byrne Cup game. Jesus, when you look at the depths it’s sunk to this year, it’s hard to fathom,” Caffrey remarks.
The contemporaneous take of Longford’s then-manager was somewhat more pointed. Disputing the legality of those two late ‘Jayo’ goals after his team had dominated in vain, Luke Dempsey raged: “These matches are made for Dublin if that’s the officialdom we’re going to see here.”
A week later, it was the turn of Dublin chairman Gerry Harrington to be left fuming that “we haven’t been consulted or asked” after their Saturday night league tie away to Cork was called off just the day beforehand.
A three-month dispute between Cork’s two senior squads and their county board – sparked by the appointment of football boss Teddy Holland – was edging towards resolution following binding arbitration the night before with Labour Relations Commission CEO Kieran Mulvey.
But it all came too late to salvage the fixture – ultimately, the points were awarded to Dublin.
It all meant Dublin’s next league tie, a five-point win in Cavan, came a month after their first. And after their original Parnell Park date with Banty McEnaney’s Monaghan was rained off, it meant St Patrick’s Day came and went with only two actual games played.
And then it all turned rather chaotic. The Farney refixture finished in deadlock, but subsequent coverage was dominated by a flashpoint that culminated in Dublin performance analyst Ray Boyne accepting a 16-week suspension for his ill-advised ‘tete-a-tete’ with star Monaghan forward Tommy Freeman.
Within days, Caffrey and Boyne had travelled to Monaghan offering in-person contrition. “We went to Banty’s kitchen, as the fella says, up there to meet Banty and Tommy Freeman and shake hands and offer our apologies. Yeah, a lot going on behind the scenes!” the former boss remembers.
The next few weeks brought further frustration in the guise of an 11th-hour postponement after Crossmaglen was deemed unplayable following heavy showers, then a heavy defeat in the refixture.
In between those two Armagh misadventures - as if to show some counties had far bigger problems - Roscommon came to Parnell Park soon after manager John Maughan had walked and, with Paul Earley in caretaker command, lost by 22 points.
Thus, the scene was set for ancient Dublin-Meath enmities to boil over in a Donnycarney ‘Donnybrook’. Two players from either side were sent off early on following a mass melee; Dublin’s Ciarán Whelan soon joined them but not before having a hot cup of tea flung in his direction from the stand.
Dublin won the battle (by a point) and promotion with it, but you might call it a Pyrrhic victory: the CCCC threw the book at both counties, proposing bans of four to eight weeks for 16 players, eight from each county. The suspensions all stuck, despite five Royals going all the way to the DRA.
An understrength Dublin still had a Division 2 final to play against Westmeath in Páirc Tailteann the following Saturday evening. In between, Caffrey didn’t hold back. Speaking at a league final press conference, he accepted that “things happened which shouldn’t, but I think we’re being hung out to dry”.
Almost 15 years on, he now reflects: “You’d think it was the first schemozzle ever in the GAA – that was my point. It looked as if they were making an example of us, despite all the bits and pieces that had gone on previously and since. There was never 16 people cited ... the CCCC, sure they did a ferocious job.”
All told, it had been “an incredible couple of weeks, the way things were spinning. I suppose that’s when you realise how important it is to have a good relationship with your CEO – like, John Costello was brilliant to us behind the scenes.
“And also, I probably had the smartest guy in the GAA as my sidekick – (the late) Davy Billings. You know, he knew the rulebook inside out.
“But it was a quagmire, and it certainly took away from … there was a sense of annoyance and there was a sense of bemusement. We’ve to put our own hand up and say, yeah, absolutely, we’d cases to answer. But it just snowballed into this huge media backlash.”
It all ended in defeat to Westmeath, by 0-15 to 0-10. The game itself was far less enduring than the snapshot of nine suspended Dubs (Alan Brogan, red-carded in Crossmaglen, joined the Parnell Eight) watching on from a grassy knoll in Navan.
“The famous picture of the lads with the baggy jeans on the terrace,” Caffrey muses – the abiding image of a spring like no other.
