THE LAST POINT: PJ's spark grew into a fire in 1994

Fate is one of those things that is impossible to quantify - we all recognise a twist of fate  that can turn a sporting contest but I've often wondered at the confluence of events that brought me to the Leitrim Observer just when the Green & Gold were about to experience its greatest ever era.

PJ Carroll's passing last Tuesday week October 29, brought memories flooding back of a glorious era for Leitrim football, a dream-world that many never thought possible and the stirring of something deep and primitive in the souls of Leitrim people all over the world, a movement that reached it apogee on Sunday July 24, 1994 in Dr Hyde Park when Declan Darcy and Tom Gannon lifted the Nestor Cup.

The excitement of those days were a long way away when PJ Carroll took on what must have been the most unglamorous job in Gaelic football in December 1989. Actually, he didn't formally take on the role until after the final League game before Christmas,  delivering an ultimatum before the game to Leitrim's troops - unless they beat Longford, he wasn't going to take the job and that was that.

If anything ever sums up PJ Carroll and his effect on Leitrim, that surely is it - I only joined the Observer on January 2, 1990 so I have to rely on the recollection of Willie Donnellan, recounting the horror show of a shellacking Leitrim endured in Salthill as Galway thumped home six goals.

Willie still talks of the anger of Leitrim fans that day visited upon the late Tony McGowan, Chairman of the County Board, and Tony's blind faith that Leitrim would eventually win a Connacht title. Nobody believed him but Tony was right and he played a big role, starting first with persuading PJ Carroll to take on the job.

THE LAST POINT: Calm finally descends after the storm

Curiously, Leitrim didn't win that day against Longford, a 1-10 apiece draw but PJ saw something that nobody else did, taking on the job and confidently predicting that Leitrim would beat Roscommon in the championship - I remember it vividly because my first big interview for the Observer was a chat with PJ after a Hastings Cup win over Cavan in Ballinamore.

Naive young reporter that I was, I thought nothing unusual in PJ conducting his interview   with Tommy Moran, Brendan Gormley and Eamonn Tubman listening in at the far end of the table and, doubly naive, I saw nothing weird in PJ proclaiming that Leitrim were going to beat the Rossies in 1990 - needless to say, the Rossies in the Observer weren't long in letting me know how preposterous that idea was!

Looking back through the lens of time, I was too inexperienced and probably too enthusiastic to understand that what PJ was suggesting bordered on the almost delusional  but here's the thing - PJ's proclamations riled up the Rossies but they also got the blood up of Leitrim folk, first the players buying into his messianic zeal and then the public in an explosion of support that had to be lived through to be believed. 

My first League game was a trek across the Curlews to Ballymote and on a dank day in February, Leitrim won a horrible battle and suddenly Leitrim were a different beast. A miracle comeback to beat an Offaly side still featuring some of their 1982 legends in Cloone was a pivotal moment  and with each win, more and more fans flocked to the Carroll banner. Offaly were beaten again in a playoff in Division 3 north and barely a few months after the humiliation in Salthill, Leitrim beat Wicklow to secure promotion to Division 2.

Every day, it seemed Leitrim climbed new heights - the U21 side, also under Carroll, contested a Connacht Final against a Galway side featuring Kevin Walsh & Niall Finnegan, and somehow threw it away but that only added more momentum to the bandwagon and Carroll was  barely a year in the job when Leitrim hammered Sligo to win the All-Ireland B title in Hyde Park, a world away from the side they had barely beat in the League.

One of the most memorable days of Carroll's reign was the B Semi-Final up in Casement Park - thousands of Leitrim fans descended on west Belfast at a time when the situation up north was quite fraught. They came by bus, train and car, from all points and in numbers so vast that the barman in the Casement Park bar was frantically calling for reinforcements, both manpower and supplies, as busload after busload burst through the doors of Casement Park.

Carroll's unbridled passion lifted all boats - the Fr Manning Cup was won in 1990, the Minors reached the Connacht Final after winning the League and the U21s won the Provincial title in 1991. It helped that three enormously strong club teams in Aughawillan, Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins and Gortletteragh were fighting to the death at the time for supremacy and the emergence of Allen Gaels and St Mary's Kiltoghert was certainly timely but PJ provided the initial spark that grew into the flame of 1994.

I had my run-ins with PJ, of course I did - PJ worked as a type-setter with the Anglo Celt and was known to turn his hand to columns and reports and if he disagreed with you, he wasn't slow in letting you know. I once got a phone call from an irate PJ after a report on a League Final involving St Mary's and Aughawillan, I can't remember if it was 1991 or 1992 but PJ let me have it with both barrels!

My crime? I wrote that the Leitrim manager should be looking at some of those St Mary's players for the Senior team and PJ wasn't happy - maybe it was the pressure of the job at the time, maybe it was PJ's apparent preference for the country club players, and the Willies in particular, rather than townies but we battled over the phone line and then it was over.

But that argument was only a by-product of  his almost overwhelming passion that drove his antics along the sideline that anyone who followed Leitrim at that time now remembers fondly.

His passion was all encompassing - at the time he was managing Leitrim, PJ  managed clubs teams seemingly from every part of the country and I marvelled at how he did it given the overlap between club and county seasons back then but one of his greatest achievements was leading Aughavas to a League and championship double in 2000 - another job where he took a team from the depths to heights they never imagined!

THE LAST POINT: NO URGENCY IN NEW RULES DEBATE

PJ never did beat Roscommon as it turns out - the Rossies were a formidable outfit but what he did in publicly setting his sights on the 1990 & 1991 Connacht Champions was to suddenly broaden the expectations and ambitions of a new breed of Leitrim footballer, one that didn't expect the hammerings the county endured regularly in the 70s and 80s.

He never got to lift the Nestor Cup but it is not hyperbole to suggest that without PJ Carroll, 1994 would never have happened. The late great John O'Mahony got Leitrim across the line two years after Carroll left the job but without the job PJ did, 1994 would simply have never happened.

O'Mahony, just as driven and as passionate, was more a tactician and technician, putting  the finishing touches on what PJ started - 1994 overshadows all else from that era but it was the foundations the Cavan man laid that allowed Johnno to deliver the Holy Grail to Leitrim and it is sad beyond belief that 30 years later, neither PJ & John are with us.

To PJ's family and many, many friends, I can only offer my deepest sympathy. When they say 'we'll never see his likes again', never a truer word was spoken when it comes to PJ Carroll.