Feargal Logan 'refreshed' by Queens role
Pictured at the draw of the Electric Ireland GAA Higher Education Championships at Croke Park today is Queen's University Belfast football manager, Feargal Logan. Through its #FirstClassRivals campaign, this season Electric Ireland will continue to celebrate the unique alliances that form between county rivals as they come together in pursuit of some of the most coveted titles across Camogie and GAA. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
When Feargal Logan got his hands on the Sigerson Cup at the Electric Ireland Higher Education Championships launch in Croke Park in December, he was briefly overcome by introspection.
Back in 1990 he’d lifted it as captain of the Queen’s team that had won it that year. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and now Logan finds himself as the Queens team manager for this year’s Sigerson Cup campaign.
At the Croke Park launch he couldn’t help but reflect on the passing of the years and how Gaelic football has been the constant current of his life.
“When I lifted the Sigerson down there in the dressing-room I thought back to 1990,” Logan told GAA.ie. “I thought back to my own parents and bringing it home to the club as a captain.
“Collie McGurk scored a goal in that final for us. Poor Collie's dead and buried now. A great hurler and footballer with Lavey and an All-Ireland winner with Derry.
“Jodie Gormley was a big Jordanstown man who were our big enemies back then and poor Jodie’s dead a year.
“With the the benefit of age, I now begin to understand where it all fits.
“You know, football's football. I think it was Klopp who said that it's the most important of the least important things. But when you're in it, you're in it.
“I've had a reflective day anyway, standing about Croke Park and in the dressing rooms where things happened, you know, for better and for worse, and thinking about it all.
“Maybe it's old age, but today it kind of means something to me because 35 years ago, I lifted that Sigerson. So, if you said to me, what does football mean to your life, Feargal, I'd say, 'well, it's just been a constant'.”
It's hardly surprising that Colie McGurk and Jodie Gormley came to Logan's mind because he suffered his own serious health scare reacently when he suffered a stroke in February 2024 that the then 55-year-old initially thought was nothing more than the after affects of a strenuous work-out at the gym the day before.
The Queens team captained by Feargal Logan celebrate after winning the 1990 Sigerson Cup.
That's why he knows better than most there are more important things in life than football, none more so than your health.
He has since made a full recovery, but being faced with your own mortality like that has a way of putting things in perspective.
“I presumed my health for 55 years every day,” says Logan. “I just went, yeah, tickety-boo, what's on today? And I was 55 going on about 30.
“I quickly went to 55 going on about 80. But, in the general world, I have nothing to complain about.
“There's people dealing with serious illness that haven't even told anybody yet. So, I kind of get over-sympathy at this stage, I think, so I'm just glad to be as well as I am and I don’t sweat the small things now.
“Certainly a life event that leaves you where you're at the back end of it and you're feeling OK, you know, you appreciate it's good to be out and having fun and craic with football again."
He experienced the ultimate high as a football manager when he and Brian Dooher guided Tyrone to the 2021 All-Ireland Final but it was a stressful existence at times too and when he came out the other end of it he admits he wasn’t sure he’d ever want to be on a sideline again.
But, ultimately, the lure of both the game and the university he both loves so much proved irresistible and so he'll be back on a sideline this Wednesday when his Queen's team play University of Galway in the first round of the Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup.
How did he go from wanting a complete break from the game to finding himself in the thick of it again?
“Over our last decade or so, Queen's guys have contacted me the odd time, and I was just way too busy, flat out busy to do anything,” says Logan.
“I suppose I always had an affinity with Queen's GAA, and then about a year or so a few Queen's guys, Aidan O'Rourke, John Devaney and these guys asked would I help out with Queen's.
“I said, ‘lads, no’. Usually you go through about three or four, no, no, no, no’s, and then you make the fatal comment, which was, 'well, if you get people who care about Queen's GAA, I'll do something, I'll lift the jerseys or do something.'
“Once there's a bit of an opening at all…and they’ve got a good band of people involved now with the likes of Daniel McCartan and Mark McCartan I think the idea is just to get a wee bit of pride into the university football again because Queen's has a great tradition in Sigerson, obviously.
“A couple of conversations later, and then before you know it, and that's the danger in these situations, you end up on the bloody sideline again!
“Like, I wasn't sure I'd ever be on a sideline again, never mind, you know, deeply involved as such, but it's refreshing.
“I suppose, coming out of the county set-up, there's a lot of noise, a lot of stuff goes on, as you know, and, you know, Queen's is refreshing. Being about the younger students, being about all the sports, Queen's have good, super facilities up there, it's a super set-up up at the Dub, and I suppose the obvious word that comes to my mind is refreshing.”
The 1990 Queens Sigerson Cup winning team pictured at their 30 year reunion in 2020.
Logan has no doubt he wouldn’t have become the top inter-county footballer he did were it not for his time playing in the Sigerson cup with Queen's, and he believes it remains the best proving ground for young footballers who want to succeed at the highest level.
"Stewartstown Harps was my club and I wasn't anything like a standout and then I come down to Queen's, and if you're in a smaller club too, you know, the college scene offers you an opportunity to play at a high level and meet other lads from other counties," says Logan.
"You realize that they have the same worries and insecurities as you have as well, so there's a lot of learning off each other. You get into a community, you have to run a committee yourselves, from a fresher to being an elder is like three years or four years in your life, and it teaches you a lot around the whole football arena.
“But for the serious ballers who want to do big things out here in Croke Park on big days, I think it's absolutely the perfect breeding ground for that.
“It gives a player the opportunity to build his own belief and his own confidence, and go in and play against the best county players playing for other colleges. That's how you develop really your own confidence. So then if you land in the middle of a National League game, you land in the middle of Croke Park, you know, you're road-tested.
“It's a brilliant opportunity for that, and that's why I hope the county managers see that, because it's a chance for players to develop themselves, develop as footballers, and then really begin to believe in themselves.”