Back in 2014, Tyrone were let off the hook in Celtic Park.
Derry charged from seven points down in the Division One opener and kicked three late scores to tie the game. Had there been 30 more seconds on the clock, they would’ve beaten them.
It was an insignificant enough battle in the grand scheme of over a century of war between the two counties but, afterwards, you could see the regret and disappointment etched on the faces of Derry men lying across the turf, unfulfilled.
It took a returning Fergal Doherty to physically lift his team mates from the ground and drag them into a huddle afterwards to shout more aggressively over the vocal anger a draw had left amongst the team. “Listen to me,” he roared with menace. “I’ll tell you now why this is a good thing. Because we’re going to f**king use it.”
Derry weren’t struggling to deal with the point they had just lost in the first league game of the season. They weren’t targeting fixtures to gain enough wins to stay in the top flight or any of that nonsense. Their hurt, their anguish, their boiling blood was purely down to the missed opportunity to beat Tyrone and send them packing, back over the Derry border.
They had their enemies by the throat ready to finish them when a referee from Cavan, with no concept that a share of the spoils wasn’t an option for either side here, called time and told them to leave the battlefield with their issues unresolved.
Derry were rueful purely because they missed a chance to put those b*st*rds from Tyrone firmly in their places.
It’s always been like that.
I remember sitting in Clones in 2003, four of us surrounded by Tyrone supporters behind the same posts that Paddy Bradley kicked 1-4 into in the second period. I’ve never been prouder to be a Derry supporter, never more fearless as the Red Hand defence were torn asunder by the full forward who kicked 1-6 of Derry’s 1-9 that day. “Where’s this great Tyrone team?” we gloated the white jerseys surrounding us. “They’re for nothing.”
Of course, Tyrone would hit four points in a row in the last 10 minutes to draw the game before hammering Derry in the replay and going on to win the All-Ireland. But that’s not the point…
It doesn’t actually matter where either side is in their progression. It doesn’t matter about injuries, or momentum, or whatever the experts are saying. For 70 minutes, a football pitch becomes a battle field where very little is off limits. For 70 minutes, winning by whatever means necessary is expected, not just accepted. For 70 minutes, it’s just 15 men from Derry against 15 men from Tyrone and whoever wants it most is often the divider.
Whoever hates each other most.
Hate is the one word that Peter Canavan shied away from in his Independent column, whether he was being diplomatic or not.
“Bitter experience has taught me – as well as every Tyrone man, woman and child – that Derry must never, ever be taken for granted,” Canavan wrote.
“Some say it borders on naked hatred. To me, hate is too strong a word, but no question, it is full of spite. Why so? Probably something deep in the DNA, because there is no sweeter victory for a Tyrone footballer than one over Derry and I am sure that applies vice versa as well.”
It does. Through hatred. Pure hatred.
It doesn’t mean both counties want to extinguish each other. It doesn’t mean the natives are going to be fighting in the stands but, when it comes to football, when it comes to Derry, there’s nothing as surer that Tyrone are the enemy and that the enemy is hated.
Losing to Tyrone is unacceptable. The thought alone would keep you awake at night and that thought is what gives Derry a fighting chance on Sunday. It’s not in the DNA to surrender to the Red Hand however superior their outfit might be at this point – going down isn’t an option. In this clash, you have to be put down.
For God’s sake, only Derry and Tyrone would have a manager sparking a melee in a bloody McKenna Cup game. Damian Barton has played in these fixtures, he’s dominated these fixtures and he’ll be damned if he’ll have any Tyrone man coming to Derry’s home this weekend in front of a packed stadium puffing out his chest.
Tyrone might be All-Ireland contenders but, on Sunday, that won’t matter.
We sent @ConanDoherty to Croke Park yesterday and he hasn't shut up about Tyrone all day https://t.co/ZJkpzjj9nD
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 25, 2016
On Sunday, they’ll have to cope with the white heat of a hate-fuelled derby and they’ll have to cope with 15 Derry men who’d jump off a cliff before surrendering to them. If Mickey Harte’s side really are what they look to be, they’ll have to prove it first with one of the toughest tests they’ll face all year.
Because Derry and Tyrone sure as hell aren’t going to hand each other an inch.
“I had got the Derry blood boiling and would pay with my own six weeks later,” Peter Canavan recalled the two 2001 meetings between the two in the Independent. Tyrone won the Ulster clash, Derry won the All-Ireland quarter-final.
“As the Derry bus reached the outskirts of Clones, Eamonn Coleman put on a video-tape of my clash with McFlynn. And he replayed it over and over, and over again. Before the players (and it was they who later told me) got off the bus, the Derry manager turned around and bellowed: “Are youse boys going to let that wee baldy bastard bully youse again?
“Every Derry player wanted a piece of the action. No matter where I went, I had a Derry hand on me. I couldn’t move, and I retaliated at the end of the first half. I saw red, and we saw the end of our championship.”
Derry midfielder needs 14 stitches after suffering injury seconds into Dr McKenna Cup final https://t.co/3cr7QkOnFx via @sportsjoedotie
— Live Gaelic Scores (@LiveGaelicScore) January 25, 2016
Derry’s team might not be as good as Tyrone’s right now. Tyrone might have beaten them four times already this season. Mickey Harte might well be looking further ahead at how they could take down Dublin later in the year.
But for 70 minutes this Sunday, all that will matter is if his side have the balls to implement their technical superiority. For 70 minutes, all that will matter is whether or not they can cope with the bad blood simmering in the stands and bubbling on the pitch.
For 70 minutes on Sunday, Tyrone can’t have even one eye on Dublin or Donegal. Because, for 70 minutes, they’re going to have 15 ravenous Derry men looking to remind them exactly where they are.
And for all the football and organisation that Tyrone look to have in them this year, all that will matter on Sunday is standing up to the hate.
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