Kieran Shannon: John Tobin continually looking to broaden football’s scope, debate and ideas

Think about it. In the past you’d regularly see a ball kicked in, intended for a corner forward, contested by the corner back. The corner back would get a fist to it, the ball may or may not have broken off the forward, and the linesman would adjudicate accordingly. Now teams rarely risk playing in that ball.

So think about what that means. Tobin has. “Sure what’s the point of a linesman?! Sure we have to have them doing something else!” 

Broaden their scope, broaden the current debate, broaden our minds.

We’re having this particular conversation in his house in the heart of Tuam, the one town in the country where when they refer to someone as a Sham – it’s a term of affection, even brotherhood, rather than abuse. It’s where he grew up, taught in his alma mater, still lives and always will. There’s no mystery why he has spent his life devoted to football and the virtues of getting and giving an education: sure he’s a Sham.

Growing up, the club won seven counties in a row. Then Galway won three All-Irelands in a row. “You’d be waiting for them to come home with the cup. We’d go into the stadium to watch them train. Leydon! Mattie! Donnellan! Just looking at them. Kids can’t do that anymore.” 

They were merely heroes though. On his own street resided two gods. Frank Stockwell lived just across the road from the house here. And then at the top of the street you could find Seán Purcell.

“His family had the Connacht Tribune shop and you’d always want to go for the paper because there’d be chance The Master would be there.

“He was called The Master because he was the principal of the school out in Strawberry Hill (near Dunmore) and he did have this presence about him: he was a big, strong man. But he was also the most caring and sensitive man and most humble and modest person I’ve ever met in my life.

“He didn’t have any coaching qualifications or training but looking back he was way ahead of his time. He was so positive, wise, philosophical. Back then most people would concentrate on mistakes: what you did there was wrong. The Master cultivated you as a person. When you’d be beaten or didn’t play well, The Master would be down to the house the next day. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. Just learn from it. You’re on a journey, like all those fellas who played yesterday. It’s a long journey.’ He became a great mentor and friend to me.” 

Their bond went beyond football. They shared a love of the dogs, racing and books. As we speak on Tobin’s coffee table, alongside books on sport psychology and sports nutrition, lies a copy of That They May Face The Rising Sun. The first inside page is personally signed by John McGahern. Just as it said a lot about Purcell that McGahern would give him a signed copy of the book, one artist to another, it’s a measure of Tobin too that Purcell would entrust him with it.

Looking back you could say that Purcell for a while was the Galway manager, although that particular M word only entered the GAA lexicon after the man presiding over the opposing dugout in the 1974 All Ireland final, a certain Mr Heffernan, emerged victorious that day.

It was Purcell who gave Tobin his first game for the Galway seniors, even drove him up to it. “It was January 1971, a challenge game up in Derry. I was still doing my Leaving Cert but they were having trouble getting numbers. The Troubles had started and we had to play the game in the Brandywell. I was fascinated from hearing about rubber bullets so a few local shams went away and came back later with a few rubber bullets to sell us!” 

By the late summer of 1973 Tobin was one of the main players on the team. He was the holder of an All-Ireland U21 medal to go with the minor one he had won in 1970 and then in the senior All-Ireland semi-final he kicked eight points to defeat an Offaly team that had won back-to-back All-Irelands.

He was also a student, being a member of the first class to enlist in Thomond College, and to make a few quid he was working for his brother Jimmy in Birmingham. There was a six-week gap between the Offaly game and the final against Cork. His plan was to come and stay home four weeks out from the final. In the interim he was persuaded to play with the local John Mitchels club in the Oxford Sevens. Tobin covers his face with the palm of his hands recounting what followed.

“Jimmy had warned me, ‘Don’t be going with them now, you’ve an All-Ireland to get ready for.’ But on the Sunday morning I snuck out his backdoor with the gearbag. About eight minutes into the first game I had already scored three goals; I would have been very fast back then. And the next thing I was waking up in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham with my jaw broken in four places.

“I’ll never forget the feeling of waking up and not being able to open my mouth. In those days they still wired your mandibles. I’d get the wire off before the final. And in fairness to Seáneen, he brought me along as a sub.” 

A year after that defeat to Cork, Galway and Tobin were back in the final, 2-6 Tobin kicked against Donegal in the semi-final. But again they were beaten in the final, this time by Dublin. In 1983 Dublin beat them in another final. Tobin came on as a sub that day in the last quarter. It would be his last championship game for the county. He’d never win that All-Ireland that as a child he assumed was his birthright as a son of Galway.

“There’s naturally a sense of regret. You can’t imagine the dejection of losing a final, once, then twice, then a third time. Because you’re very conscious of all the people who have helped facilitate your dream. But all those occasions were fantastic. It’s just that when the balloon would keep getting blown up, someone would stick a pin in it. But you became more resilient.

“I often say to kids, mistakes are not just an arbitrary element of the game; they’re a biological necessity. You have to make mistakes. Who is the person we tend to admire the most? The people who get knocked down, suffer, but get back up.” 

His club career almost followed the same pattern as his inter-county’s. In 1972 he played in a county final, thinking it would be his first of many for Tuam Stars. In the opening 10 minutes he’d already scored a goal and a string of points. Then he was through on goal again. Find the net and the game was over. His shot crashed off the crossbar and the opponents swept the field to score the first of their four goals. Tobin would have to wait until 1984 to win his first county medal. The day after it arrived, a friend knocked on the door.

“It was The Master. He used to call me Starry, and he said, ‘Starry, you know what’s the best thing you could now do? Retire.’ “Well, he could have knocked me off my chair. I was still only 31, in great shape, captain of the team. But I took his advice and looking back it was the best advice anyone could have given me.” 

Purcell could identify he was already on the start of another journey, coaching, and one that should no longer be compromised by being a player.

He’d been taking teams in his alma mater Tuam CBC since he returned there in 1976. Along with Tony ‘Horse’ Regan he ran what was basically a precursor to the Cúl Camps. For a couple of years he even coached the same Galway senior team that he was trying to play for; with him sometimes injured and no-one lining up to look after a team that would likely be beaten by Roscommon’s finest-ever side, the PE teacher right in front of them was as qualified as anyone.

Tobin duly compiled quite the CV. In 1986 he coached the Galway minors to an All-Ireland. By 1994 he’d for a third time coached Tuam Stars to a county title and a Connacht title, honours that have eluded the club ever since. In 2001 he’d revitalise Roscommon football, managing them to their first Connacht title in a decade.

That though is being superficial and selective about the journey. “I hate singling out the ones we won because I’ve coached a load of teams that lost!” he laughs. He reminds you of the old baseball line: no matter how bad you are, you’re going to lose a third of your games. No matter how good you are, you’re likely going to lose a third of them. It’s not even about how you fare in that other third. It’s how much you learn, teach, improve; who you meet, help, are helped by.

He thinks back on some of the teachers he had back in CBS; it’s no wonder, he reckons, other contemporary classmates like Brian Talty and Liam Moggan became leading coach educators. When they were students a Brother Morgan transformed the school into a national basketball powerhouse. For football then there was Brother Seán McGillick.

“In the evening we’d still go down to him and every evening he’d bring us out. We talk a lot now about conditioned games. Well back then in the schoolyard he introduced a conditioned game to us called Combo. We’d play four or five a side. You were allowed three solos. You’d score by fistpassing the ball into the goal. The Christian brothers that I knew did so much for our community. A lot of people who couldn’t have afforded to be educated were looked after by the Christian brothers.” 

In 2002 Tobin finished up with Roscommon and more importantly teaching in the CBS to become full-time games manager of Connacht GAA, the first such position in any of the provinces. Initially he worked out of a small office in Ballyhaunis, across a desk from full-time secretary John Prenty.

“Our workspace was so small but it was brilliant because you were constantly alongside each other, asking, ‘What can we do to make things better? It’d be the same on the phone to Pat Daly [in Croke Park]. He was a complete visionary.” 

It was from a thousand such little conversations that we have what kids take for granted today. Go-Games. Cúl camps. GAA transition year courses. In-service coaching courses for teachers. The Centre of Excellence in Bekan (“From coaching school teams you wouldn’t believe the amount of times you’d be on the bus to a game and get the call that a pitch was unplayable”). The Dome now in Bekan. Making coaching and safeguarding courses as customer-friendly as possible for the volunteer, “the liquid gold of our association”.

He’s served on multiple committees over the years. Like the football committee of a decade ago, chaired by Eugene McGee, that led to the introduction of the black card; for a few years afterwards they’d take the odd hit when there might be a debatable black card shown in a big game but the evidence now and even then has shown the game is more fluent, less foul-prone and higher-scoring for that intervention.

More interventions though are necessary. He could see that in his time as chair of the national games and coaching committee during Larry McCarthy’s presidency. Early last year the committee commissioned Carroll to provide empirical data as to precisely how the game was trending. Those findings are in the public circulation and are likely to inform Jim Gavin’s committee that is looking to make ‘enhancements’ to the game.

Tobin is an impressed and intrigued observer of how Gavin and his group are going about their business.

“I’m excited that we have recognised that the present state of the game requires change and that we’re getting the opinion of the people that matter: the game’s stakeholders: players, managers, officers, the public.

“I’m going to be very interested in the feedback of the players. All the players we went to watch – Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Mickey Linden, Pádraic Joyce, Gooch – all of them played when it was always or usually 1v1 and we’d be thinking, ‘God, there’s going to be a bit of magic here!’ But how does Shane Walsh feel now? Because he’s playing a different game because of the patterns we’ve allowed to be adopted.

“Now, I’m from an older generation. And at times I find myself when I’m trying to be objective saying to myself, ‘John, you could be in a minority here!’ How are you going to weigh the opinions of people who never saw Dermot Earley, Jack O’Shea, the airplane from Belmullet (Willie Joe Padden) in midfield go up and pull down a contested kickout? Sure there’s a generation now who haven’t seen it!

“But I’m sure Shane Walsh would love to be scorching people. And be able to take on someone. But that’s very hard to do these days. You invariably recycle. Because there’s five fellas, an army, a wall, in front of you.” 

He’ll be in Croke Park for all of this weekend. The Dublin team of ’74 may be coming down to Galway for the weekend for some golf with their former adversaries, having made their plans long before Monday’s draw on Morning Ireland, but Tobin reluctantly will pass on it and instead represent the group at headquarters. And when he’ll be there, he’ll find himself invariably conflicted at times.

“There are a lot of sterile periods during our game. Now, as a coach I’m fascinated by it. How are they going to get the key to unlock this [massed defence]? But I accept a lot of people won’t see any entertainment in that.

“In baseball they recognised they had to take the idle out of their game. That is how they phrased it, and that led to more pitches, more strikes.

“My friends in Australian Rules have said to me, ‘For a period the coaches had hijacked the game – and we took it back off them.’ Coaches keep challenging the keepers of the game, because they’re trying to win. But the keepers of our game are meant to challenge the coaches to protect the integrity of the game.” 

In Tobin football has both.