By John Harrington

Trevor Giles will find himself back in the limelight on Saturday, a place he has never been entirely comfortable occupying.

The former Meath Football star will host the first of this year’s Bord Gáis Engergy Legends Tour series in Croke Park and bring supporters on a guided tour of the stadium and museum. When he’s introduced to the crowd as a ‘Legend’ there’s a good chance the Skryne man will give an involuntary wince, because that sort of acclaim has never sat easily on his modest shoulders.

“No, it doesn't,” says Giles. “And there's been a lot of stuff lately. There was a Laochra Gael programme on TG4, Captain's Live did a thing last year as well. There's been a few things now dragging me into the limelight alright! It's nice to get them though, absolutely, but I would have always preferred to stay under the radar a bit.”

Staying under the radar was never going to be a possibility for a footballer as gifted as Giles. It’s a testament to his ability that he remains the only player to have been crowned Gaelic Footballer of the Year on two occasions.

By the time he won the second of those awards along with his second All-Ireland medal in 1999, his career was at its absolute zenith. It’s surprising to hear then that the crown hung heavy on his head. So much so, that he believes his game suffered for the rest of his inter-county player career.

“I'd say after that I probably put pressure on myself to try to be Footballer of the Year after that the following few seasons,” says Giles. “If your form wasn't up to that level I would have been hard on myself. It's one thing I would have changed if I could - 'Listen, you don't have to be the best player on the pitch every time you go out. Just play to a good level.’

“I would have been hard on myself. Obviously you'd be getting marked very tightly and teams would have strategies to stop you. The game I suppose became a bit harder after that for me to be influential and if you're not playing to the level you used to, then I suppose it's less satisfying. But that's life.

“The media would have said he's not at his best or he's well below his best today. Or the supporters might say he's not as good as he used to be. There are certain things that go with it, and that can be hard to absorb. Whereas I should have just thought, 'That was great, I got those awards, the pressure is off now, just go out and play because you've nothing to prove now'.”

Before he put so much pressure on himself to perform, it all came easily to Giles. From a young age he was marked out as a special talent, and his love and natural flair for the game was fostered by both his family background and surroundings.

“Dad hurled with the Meath senior hurlers for 10 or 12 years and would have played football for Navan O’Mahonys and then managed club teams,” says Giles. “His Dad, Ned, played hurling with Meath as well. My other Grandad, Packie Mooney, played football with Meath, in the 30s. Both Grandfathers were what you'd call great club-men. They would have taken a lot of underage teams.

“Packie Mooney would have had a lorry back in the day and would have transported most of them to games. I would have spent a good bit of my youth with him and he'd be down marking the pitch and sweeping out the dressing-rooms. The two Grandads would just have been two really good club-men.

“My uncle Ronan would have captained the National League winning team of '75. He was in the goals. So, yeah, I was very much brought up in a GAA environment. I was very lucky too to grow up in Skryne in the '80s when you had Colm O'Rourke and Liam Hayes on the Meath team. Padraig Finnerty was there for a few seasons too on the Meath team so I had plenty of local heroes that I would have grown up watching in Croke Park.

“You don't know it at at the time, but it probably seeps into you that if you're one of the best players in Skryne then you've a chance of getting on the Meath team. And if you're on the Meath team you have a great chance of winning an All-Ireland. It all helps, definitely.”

Skryne played in five Meath County Finals in the 1980s, but lost five of them. When Giles came of age, he helped transform them from nearly-men into winners. In his debut senior campaign in ’92 they won their first county title in 27 years and the promptly won another in ’93.

The following year, just out of the minor grade, Giles made his Senior Championship debut for Meath. He was hailed as one of the brightest young things in the game after victories over Laois and Wexford, but then hit his first bump in the road when Meath were beaten in the '94 Leinster Final by Dublin.

Giles was given the responsibility of kicking the frees, but missed two into a jeering Hill 16 before the job was given instead to PJ Gillic. The teenager Giles was also buffeted about the place in general play by a very physical Dublin side, and came away from the experience bruised physically and mentally.

“Yeah, it was tough,” he says. “You go away from that saying, right, okay, I need to get fitter here. I need to get stronger. I need get rid of the ball that split second quicker and so on. You just go off and you work on these things and you come back the following year and hopefully you'll have improved.

“I came back the following year and Brian Stafford was taking the frees and he got injured in the first half of the '95 Leinster Final and had to go off. I had to do the job that day. Now, we were beaten by ten points, but I scored two or three into the Hill in the second-half.

“It mightn't have been noted at the time but for me it was a big thing that, you know, I had at least done my job with the frees into the Hill. If you don't, it gets thrown at you that you buckled under the pressure or whatever. So you need to get that right first.”

By the following year, the now 21 year old Giles was ready to prove he had matured into one of the best footballers in the country. Reigning All-Ireland Champions Dublin were hot favourites going into the Leinster Final, but with Giles to the fore, they were edged out by a new-look Meath team that had been widely written off before the game.

“Yeah, absolutely,” says Giles. “Because Colm O'Rourke was our best player along with Colm Coyle in 1995 when we lost to Dublin and then Colm retired and it's natural to think, well, right, we'll be gone for a few years.

“In fairness to Sean he picked a few fellas like Mark O'Reilly, Darren Fay, Paddy Reynolds, Barry Callaghan, that had played underage. And Sean obviously saw a competitiveness in them and an ability as well. Probably we had to change our style of play. You couldn't just kick everything into Colm O'Rourke anymore and hope he'd win the ball or a free.

“We had to use the ball better, more cleverly, hold onto the ball. We just changed our style of play. I'm sure Dublin were slightly caught on the hop that year as well by us. I suppose we had a good hunger, I certainly had it. We had lost two Leinster Finals in a row and the question was being asked are you good enough to compete at that level. You might be a grand player, but until you've beaten Dublin in a big game you haven't proven yourself.

“That would have fuelled a lot of us, certainly me anyway, to produce a big performance that year, and we did. Even saying that, a ball went sliding across the goalmouth in the last minute and any touch at all would have been a goal for Dublin. So it was a very close-run thing. I suppose that victory was the launch-pad for us then.”

A victory over Tyrone then set up an All-Ireland Final against Mayo that will always be infamous for Mayo’s inability to close out the first match that ended in a draw, and the replay that featured one of the biggest brawls ever seen in a major Championship match.

“Ah yeah, and when you look back on it, it was Mayo's best chance to win the All-Ireland. Out of all their attempts it was the one they came closest to winning. They'll have regrets on that one. Sometimes you win one early and you could get another one somewhere. It's certainly easier to win the next one.

“We played well against Tyrone in the semi-final. We scored 2-15 and about 2-13 from play. There was controversy in that match which overshadowed it, but we actually played some really good football that day.

“The first day then against Mayo I'd say we were a bit on our best behaviour and a little bit cautious because of the fall-out from the Tyrone game and Mayo were well up for action and kind of surprised us. We probably upped that side of our game in the replay and then the row happened. In fairness, when you look back on it, it was terrible looking.

“There hasn't been a row like that for a long time in Croke Park, which is good. It doesn't tend to happen much nowadays. Once the row was over there wasn't any hassle at all in the game. I think everyone had gotten everything off their chest and no-one had any interest in throwing their weight around. It was all football after that.”

Meath recovered from a six-point deficit in the first match to force a draw, and then won the replay by a point after coming back from seven points down in the first half. Just like the Meath team of the 1980s and early ‘90s, the new generation had proven they never knew when they were beaten.

“Yeah, which is all down to Sean Boylan,” says Giles. “He brought that value into county with the team in the '80s. Obviously then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

“Sean was always looking for competitive players. A fella that mightn't have been a star at club level, but he could do a job for the team at county level. Once you get that value there, certainly for me coming into the team, I wanted to show Sean that I would never give up. I'd say maybe if there was fellas that did they weren't picked again or were moved on.

“It becomes a thing then, that Meath never give up. It becomes a badge of honour, so you don't give up. And the team you're playing against would expect you not to give up. Now, the only thing is that you need good players to do it. Because if you don't have a good team then you're not going to come back.

“You need a fella who's going to win you ball at midfield and get it up the other end. And you need the Graham Geraghtys, Tommy Dowds, Ollie Murphys, who will do something with it if you get it into them. They'll get a free, a point, or a goal.

“Once the team out the field knows you have good lads inside, then you always have hope. You do need to have the spirit alright, but you need to have the players in there so you can say, 'Right, we're not going well here today, but if we can just get the ball into such and such, something is going to happen.”

Because the 1996 All-Ireland Final was so overshadowed by the brawl that led to the dismissal of Liam McHale and Colm Coyle, Meath’s young team never really got the credit they deserved for their victory. That’s why when Giles looks back on his career, his second All-Ireland win of ’99 stands out as the more satisfying achievement.

“You were just desperate in 1996 to win one,” he says. “You just wanted to win an All-Ireland. So the second time around it was just a little bit more...well there wasn't any controversy that year. We got seven All-Stars that year and there was a little bit more recognition that, okay, yes, Meath were the best team in the country that year. They deserved to win the All-Ireland.

“We didn't come in under the radar, it wasn't a surprise, and we didn't catch anyone on the hop like we did in '96. So just to win a second one, like everyone always says, it just backs up the first one. It proved '96 wasn't lucky or a once off.”

Giles played in just one more All-Ireland Final -  the 2001 defeat to Galway. Meath were raging hot favourites after hammering Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final, but slumped to a heavy nine-point defeat. Giles missed a penalty at a crucial period in the match, so it’s no surprise to hear losing the game in the manner they did is the biggest regret of his Meath career.

“When I look back on my career, I’m delighted with how it went and what we won,” he says. “But if you had a regret you'd say it was that match, absolutely. It's just a hard thing to do, we caught Kerry on the hop in the semi-final. You'd never beat them by 15 points again. We were well up for that game and things went our way. Just a hard thing to do to turn around the next day and be as hungry and have that edge about you and have something to prove.

“When you have everyone around saying, ‘I think ye'll win on Sunday’. Better off a fella telling you, ‘I don't think you'll win on Sunday'. We had no history with Galway whatsoever either. We might have played them once in the League. They had beaten Derry in the semi-final and we had a tonne of history with Derry. We played them every year in the League and they were the one team we never beat. We got a couple of draws with them in the League but it would have been better for us to play Derry in the Final.

“I'm not saying we would have won, but you definitely would have come back down to earth fairly quick if it was Derry. The defenders they had, the great players they had like Anthony Tohill. You would have been thinking very differently going into that game. Revenge is always a great motivator. We knew some of the Galway players from playing with Ireland, but had never really played them before. And as much as you were up for the game, there's different levels of being up for the game. We were well beaten on the day.

“The penalty thing. If I had scored that, then there would have only been two points in it and anything could have happened if that goal had gone in. Now, maybe it wouldn't because we weren't playing well, but if we had even got out of there with a draw that day and gotten another day at it, who knows. That's my one regret, but, sure, listen, everyone has them.”

Giles was a Meath selector for three years under current senior manager Mick O’Dowd before stepping away after last year’s campaign. He knows just how hard the current group of Meath players have worked, and has some sympathy for the fact they haven’t earned the same rewards for it that he did in his own playing days.

But at the same time he doesn’t buy into the increasingly popular theory that being an inter-county player is a joyless existence nowadays unless you’re consistently winning big like the Dublin footballers or Kilkenny hurlers.

“I've been involved for the past few years with Meath. The training is very well organised, the facilities are generally very good, they're well fed, they get plenty of gear. You're meeting up with 30 fellas and there's good old banter around the place.

“To me, the fella training for the Dublin marathon where he's training on his own and he's doing 100 plus miles a week. To me, he puts in a sacrifice and gets no glory out of it. No-one is seeing him, he's not getting fed. So I think County players need to be careful when they talk about the sacrifices they make.

“Now, obviously if you're not making the team or if you're injured and you're missing games, then that's tough to take. Or if some incident happens and you're getting a load of flak on social media, that's not easy for a fella when he's putting his effort in, I appreciate that.

“But, In general, I think playing county football is good fun for them. And there's a lot to be got out of pushing yourself to your limits and getting yourself into as good a shape as you can and going out and competing against the Dublins. You know, like, at the end of the day you want to find out how good you are and when you finish you can say, ‘Okay, I was fairly good. I wasn't maybe at the very top level, but I found out a lot about myself.’ To me, that's important, finding out what qualities you have when the pressure is on.”

He understands why Meath have been made such underdogs for Sunday’s Leinster SFC Semi-Final against Dublin, but he is not prepared to write off their chances. As a player he experienced some great days in the Meath jersey, and he hopes the day will come when he can do the same as a supporter.

“Listen, the reality is that Dublin have nearly beaten every team in the country by double digits or something close to it on any given day in the last few years. That's what they're capable of. But Meath will have a chance, you always have a chance. They just need to play their best game ever, both individually and collectively. You' probably need some circumstances going your way like the way.

“Donegal caught them a couple of years ago when Dublin missed early goal chances and Donegal got a couple. There are just certain things that happen. You'll have a chance, but there's no-one in the county really expecting them to win.

“They did well against Louth, it was a good performance, and they finished the League strongly against Laois with a good win. I suppose our minors had a good win over Dublin a couple of weeks ago in the Leinster Championship, and that's the sort of thing that Meath needs to do. Beating these teams at underage and getting into Croke Park and winning games and building real, genuine confidence as they're coming through the ranks.

“It’s 17 years now since we last won a senior All-Ireland. You'd love to see the present team getting further than they have and have things go their way. Or your own kids when they come to that stage, that Meath are a top county and they might get the opportunity to sample a bit of what we had. You'd love that to happen. That's the hope."

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The details for the forthcoming 2016 Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tours at Croke Park are as follows...

• Trevor Giles – 25th June

• Michael Duignan – 30th July

• JJ Delaney – 6th August

• John O’Brien – 13th August

• Brian McGuigan – 20th August

• Declan O’Sullivan – 27th August

All Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tours include a trip to the GAA Museum, which is home to many exclusive exhibits, including the official GAA Hall of Fame. Booking is essential as the tours sell out quickly.

For more booking and ticket information about the GAA legends for this summer’s tours visit www.crokepark.ie/gaa-museum. Bord Gáis Energy customers can be in with a chance to win two places on the tours by signing up to the Bord Gáis Energy Rewards Club where regular competitions will take place.