There’s something to like about taking on London
Mayo's Cathal Carolan is tackled in Ruislip back in 2016, the last time that the team has travelled to play the Exiles in the opening round of the Connacht SFC. Picture: INPHO/Gerry McManus
As a player, Andy Moran featured four times for Mayo against London in championship. In three of those years, 2006, 2013 and 2016, the season ended with Mayo in an All-Ireland SFC Final. The other, 2011, took them as far as the semi-final.
Factor in Mayo’s run to the 1996 All-Ireland SFC Final – Moran was only 12-years-old at the time – and of the last five times the Green and Red have played London in the Connacht championship, four times they have finished the year in Croke Park fighting to lift the Sam Maguire Cup.
That exception, in 2011, has almost gone down in folklore for how close London came to pulling off what arguably would have been the championship’s greatest ever shock, with Mayo, in James Horan’s very first championship match in charge, scraping their way to extra-time in Ruislip thanks to late, late points by Trevor Mortimer and substitute Kevin McLoughlin, and eventually, to a three points win.
“It was bordering on out of control. The players weren’t sure what was happening either and we were just hanging on, hoping. There was a kind of a ‘this can’t be happening’ vibe to it. Very unusual,” James Horan would later reflect, believing that had Mayo lost in Ruislip that day, his career as manager would have been a short one.
“It would have been over, no question. I would have picked up that vibe from officials that might have been there, make no mistake about it. It was fairly clear.”
And yet a month or so later Mayo were Connacht champions, after which they knocked the defending champions Cork out of the All-Ireland race at the quarter-final stage, holding the Rebels to just one point for the entire second-half – hardly a shabby achievement given Mayo had exited the championship 12 months before after back-to-back defeats to Sligo and Longford.
It’s fair to say so, that encountering London in championship has carried more good than bad omens for Mayo.
Like Horan before him, Andy Moran’s first championship game as Mayo manager will be against London next Saturday. He’ll be hoping for a much smoother ride than his ex-boss, that’s for sure.
“That game in 2011 was just a rollercoaster. But that was a really good London team. They had a few Kerry lads playing at the back,” recalled Moran at the official launch of the 2026 Connacht SFC last Thursday.
“It was a scary proposition. I remember the thought going through my head that day in the second-half: ‘Will we go home at all?’. But we got through it and we went on to have a few great days with James over the next four years after that.”
Andy Moran had been the top scorer for Mayo that day with six points. A much fonder experience, however, was his return visit in 2016. Recovering from a minor knee injury, the Ballaghaderreen clubman came off the bench and scored two points in a 2-16 to 0-9 win, the much bigger story being that in doing so, he became the most capped Mayo footballer of all time, surpassing James Nallen’s previous record of 132 league and championship appearances.
I remember speaking to Moran about his accomplishment on the West London pitch after the full-time whistle. He was posing for more photographs than Taoiseach of the day, Enda Kenny, another Mayo man, who was also in attendance.
“I’m very, very proud of it. I was a bit of a wild card when John Maughan brought me in, in 2003, and today I’ve passed out my hero in James Nallen,” declared Moran, adding that he was looking forward to spending the remainder of the week ‘in camp’ in London.
That was the launchpad to another whirlwind summer for Mayo, one that saw them take Dublin to the wire in an All-Ireland SFC Final replay – and Moran believes it no coincidence that the county team has so regularly enjoyed lengthy championship seasons when beginning its campaign in London, or in New York for that matter.
“100 per cent. We noticed it in 2004. We were probably going nowhere that year; we had good players, we had a good team, we had a brilliant manager in John Maughan, but we were only going okay. Then we got five days in the Catskills and came home and all of a sudden the team was together, the team was united. There’s definitely something in it.
“Roscommon go to New York, we go to London. Boys being together, enjoying each other’s company, it’s huge and that’s the reason you see Donegal, Kerry, Galway all going away this week to get that time together.”
The man who has since not just surpassed but obliterated Andy Moran’s record as Mayo’s most capped player, Aidan O’Shea, was also playing against London in 2011 and 2016. In fact, in his 18 years as a Mayo senior footballer – he debuted as an 18-year-old in 2009 – O’Shea has only ever missed one championship match, and even that was simply on precautionary grounds against Leitrim in 2012.
If he plays on Saturday – and it’s almost certain he will – it will be the 36-year-old’s 212th time to have played league or championship football for Mayo. No outfield inter-county player in GAA history has ever played more, with only former Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton having made more championship appearances (128) than O’Shea (97).
“It’s not something that’s driving me to play on, put it that way,” said O’Shea last week about his remarkable set of statistics. “And I’m well used to the questions about retirement. Sure they’ve been retiring me since I was about 29,” he joked.
“Obviously the fact that we’ve had pretty long campaigns throughout that period has added to that number. And missing only one championship game in those seasons so far, there’s a bit of luck involved in that.
“But I say to the squad you can be as talented as you want, but you’ve got to be available. And that’s something I live by, in terms of league games, championship games, whatever. You’ve got to be available to play.”
And there would seem every possibility that the Breaffy colossus won’t just play on Saturday, but start. That’s because Andy Moran has confirmed that neither of his teenage stars, Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne, who lit up Mayo’s attack on the way to a third place finish in National Football League Division One, will feature against London. The match falls between a pair of crucial fixtures for Mayo against Leitrim and Galway in the Connacht U20 Championship this Wednesday and next – and preference is being given for McDonald and Beirne to be made available for those instead.
“Obviously we have internal goals within the team, but this is all about London for us and about getting fellas right, getting bodies right,” said Moran when pressed on whether winning this year’s Connacht SFC – and stopping Galway’s quest for five-in-a-row – has been set as a definite target for his team.
“We’ll chase that (London) game and whatever comes after, we’ll go with it.
“Galway are obviously the standard setters, they’ve really lifted the ceiling, so it’s up to everyone else to chase them down, like when we had our five in-a-row when I was playing.” The first of that Mayo ‘five’ was won in 2011. Perhaps Saturday will be another new beginning.
