Elaine Harte calls time

 

Evening Echo’s Mary
White met up the Cork net minder Elaine Harte who after 8 all Ireland
medals has decided to call it a Day

 

It was December 2003 and Elaine Harte stood up at the back
of the function room in Murray’s Bar in 
Macroom. What she would do next changed the course of Cork ladies
football. She posed questions to the county board  about the future of the senior inter-county
set-up and, as a player representative, did so in her typical diplomatic style.

Harte is a people’s person. She doesn’t like to see others
done wrong, and raising her head above the parapet wasn’t something she did
either. But she did. For seven years the previous management team were unable
to bring glory to Cork. Change was needed and Harte was just the messenger. “I
remember thinking, was I making an awful, awful mistake, but I knew I had the
backing of the players. “It was a very difficult position to be in because at
the time I had huge respect for the management that were there, but we needed a
change. “At senior level we needed to step it up another notch, to be more professional,  and the players at the time felt that
couldn’t happen without a change of management,” said the 33-year-old, who
today  spoke exclusively to the Evening
Echo on her retirement from inter-county football.

Her career began in the school around the corner from her
home at Upper Glanmire NS, where teachers like Donal O’Sullivan, Bríd Bagge and
Murt Cronin strongly instilled a sporting ethos. Back in the day Harte, a mean
sprinter,  ripped up Páirc Uí Chaoimh at
the City Sports, but alas playing on the hallowed turf of Cork GAA is something
that never transpired during her 11-year inter-county career — despite winning
eight All-Ireland finals, and playing every minute, of every final. St
Michael’s school was a sporting hotbed that produced soccer star Billy Clarke
and former TG4 Underdog Murt Kelleher, but Harte was the golden girl and soon
her speed saw her become the first girl to play on the boys’ Sciath na Scoil
football team. Her soccer skills took her to Wilton FC and yielded caps for
Ireland underage before winning intermediate and junior All-Ireland club titles
with Rockbán both as a forward and as a goalkeeper. In 2001 she was sensational
during Rockbán’s junior All-Ireland quest, hitting 1-1 in the final against
Grangenovlin of Kildare.

The following year, they would win the intermediate crown,
defeating Roscommon’s Clann na Gael and the final would be her first start
between the posts in GAA. The rest, as they say, is history and 2013 would be
her last chapter. It was a year speckled with injury and absence as protruding
bones in both her ankles painfully rubbed off her achilles, forcing her to sit
out much of the league, while an overdue trip to Australia  saw her miss the bulk of the championship.
And although she knew her time was running out in Red, she relished it that
little bit more. “For the last few years I’d be thinking about whether I should
go and what I had left to offer.

 But last year I knew
my legs weren’t able. “I knew going into Croke Park it would be the last time
I’d be there and I took it all in. “I remember in the dressing room listening
to Eamonn’s words, really listening to them, hearing every single word,” said
Harte, who now resides with her husband John in Moyne, outside Thurles. There
had been many friendships over the years, and that’s the very thing Harte tells
you she’s taken from this incredible journey —friendship. The likes of Juliet
Murphy, Nollaig Cleary, Valerie Mulcahy and Deirdre O’Reilly were the ‘old
crew’, but at the final whistle, she shed a tear with one of her closer
comrades — Murphy. “I was very emotional at the final whistle. I remember
turning to Juliet and I bawled!

 I wasn’t sure what
she was thinking, whether she was definitely done, but I had an idea. “I
couldn’t say it was the sweetest win, but it was very different to  the others because I knew it was the last
time I’d savour those euphoric minutes after winning an All-Ireland.”

But, it may never have been her last All-Ireland had coach
Eamonn Ryan not opted for her as his first-choice keeper. Harte had only played
one game of the championship all season — the opener against Kerry in
Caherciveen. She’d missed Clare in the second round, Kerry in the final, Armagh
in the qualifier, Dublin in the quarter-final and Kerry in the semis.

It was to be Harte-ache for Clonakilty’s number one, Martina
O’Brien, as Ryan announced the team in the dressing rooms down the Mardyke the
Wednesday before Cork were to face Monaghan in Croke Park. “How did I feel?
Honestly? I was happy.  But I had very
mixed feelings — selfishly I was delighted, but in the back of my mind I was
very conscious of Martina. “We’re good friends off the field, and I felt guilty
in a way. She had been brilliant all along and had justified herself, and now
she wouldn’t get a chance to start on the biggest day in ladies football. “But
she took it so, so well; she was unbelievable. I remember talking to her
afterwards, not knowing what to say really, but she was so positive.

Her attitude was at the end of the day it’s about the team
and that’s the kind of person she is. “She could easily have gone the opposite
way and people probably wouldn’t have blamed her, but the manner in which she
went about it says so much about the person she is.” It’s a huge relief she
admits to leave the lie of the land in the hands of O’Brien and Liscarroll’s
Lisa Crowley. It’s not an easy role, but she knows they’ve the character to
carry it off. “Having played in other positions outfield, playing in goal
brings a lot more pressure. Maybe not pressure per say, but you have to make
the right decisions. “You have to be of the attitude that if something goes
wrong you have to pick yourself up straight away and go again. “You’ve to be
thick-skinned.

Personally I was very negative towards my own performances
after a match, but over time I learned not to be, but to adjust things and see
what I could do better to minimise errors.” There have been ‘eight highlights’
she says referring to Cork’s raids on the Brendan Martin Cup, although she also
holds seven National League medals, nine successive Munster senior medals and
two All-Stars. The memory bank is too loaded to single out any particular save
or moment she savours, but the low point is reeled off faster than you can bat
an eyelid. “Tyrone,” she says. “It was horrendous,” referring to Cork’s 2010
All-Ireland quarter-final loss to the Red Hands in Banagher, Offaly. “I
remember it like it was yesterday.

 I walked off into
dressing room and I didn’t want to be there. We were crying on the pitch,
crying in the dressing room. “I’m not being cocky, but it’s not that we love
winning, it’s that we hate losing, seriously hate it. “It was definitely the
low point of my career. We were out, there was no coming back. Down the line,
it definitely made us stronger.” It was perhaps the rock that Cork stood on to
win their second three in-a-row last year.

That day in Banagher not only taught them a lesson about
losing, it taught them about living in the moment. Geraldine O’Flynn and Ciara
O’Sullivan had both limped off with cruciate injuries to add to the heartache
of losing their bid for six in-a-row, and for Cork it was a defining moment.
“It made us live in the here and now. Losing that game really instilled in us
that we had to appreciate every game, enjoy it, and do our very best to win.”
Now teaching in Scoil Bhríde in Ballyragget, Kilkenny, life has carried on
after football. Presently the plan is to play junior B football, depending on
how the legs hold up, but to fill the void of inter-county territory, she’s
taken up a selector’s role with the Tipperary minor ladies footballers. “I
didn’t realise how busy managers and selectors are, you’re constantly on the
phone!” laughs the two-time All-Star winner.

Approached last June, Harte officially took up the role in
September and has just recently narrowed down the panel to the final 30, with
twice weekly training commencing this week. “It was probably the hardest thing
I’ve done in my entire life; to ring people and tell them they’re dropped, it’s
horrible, but I’m enjoying the new role.” You could say there’s a new-found
admiration for coaches, but that was always there when it came to the man
himself, Eamonn Ryan. “He’s a deep thinker, a very educated man, and everything
he says there’s a meaning behind it, every word. “He’s an extraordinary man,
and I don’t know how he does it,” she adds, not realising just how
extraordinary she is herself.

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