By Cian O'Connell

On Saturday morning John ‘Jigger’ O’Connor will rise in the Sunset District in San Francisco. One of Roscommon’s most cherished and celebrated footballers will meet with former colleague Tom Hunt to watch his native county face Donegal on television.

That O’Connor’s son, Darach, is part of the Donegal panel merely adds to the sense of intrigue. Two Jiggers: one watching, the other involved in a sport which has always connected them. “I was called it after I started playing at home,” O’Connor recalls about his nickname award in Strokestown.

“Then when Darach started playing they started calling him it. Catherine was thinking we will nip this in the bud, but 'no, no, I like it' he said.

“He didn't mind, it started at club level first, once you start playing at any level that is what they call you, that is it. I'm not Jigger anymore, I'm Jigger's daddy, I have lost my title,” he laughs.

It has been quite an adventure for O’Connor, who scored a goal after 35 seconds in the 1980 All Ireland Final against Kerry. That is one of many sporting claims to fame, but last winter O’Connor opted to return to the United States of America. “I didn't come back for 19 years, but I went out on a holiday last November and I think it was after the bad summer we had at home,” O’Connor says.

“My wife and I came out in November and I ended up staying until Christmas and then I just came out after Christmas again. I was home in May and June, my wife is coming out soon she is getting a leave of absence for a year, she will come out for a while too.”

Returning to San Francisco was always something O’Connor craved. It was where Darach was born. “We have a lot of friends here, we have kept in contact with them,” O’Connor adds. “We are in the city in San Francisco. Darach lived here for two and a half years, he hasn't visited since. Darach has been back to the States, but never back to San Francisco, he has been in New York and Boston not San Fran.

“We will try to get him out, he is talking about coming this year for Thanksgiving because my wife is moving back out next week.

“We are just going to try to spend some time here and to spend some time at home. The climate here is unreal, it is never too hot and never too cold. I know I'm missing the best summer for ages, but after the last few years. Even last summer was terrible, we had floods in August so it can be hard going.

“I like it here. We have a lot of friends here. It is a small community, you have people from everywhere. I was walking down the street the other day and I ended up meeting two Buncranna people within five minutes of each other.”

Buncranna is central to the family story. When leaving California O’Connor and his wife Catherine opted to move back to the Donegal town. “There was no way I was going to get my wife down to Roscommon, she always says that I wanted to go to Buncranna,” O’Connor jokes.

“She figures Roscommon is so flat she often wonders how we grew up there with it being so flat and having no sea. When you were young you were born on a farm so you didn't have time to be thinking about the sea or anything like that.”

While in Buncranna O’Connor played for the club and even briefly featured for the Donegal masters. “I played for a few years even though I was in to my 40s, but one day I told her we were starting a third team with some older guys,” he recalls.

“Darach was young at the time and she came down to give him a jumper, she saw they were all teenagers, that was the team with me, the old man, in the middle of them. So she said no more.

“We had been Intermediate, I was well into my 40s the last time I played for them and I played over 40s for Donegal for a year. The injuries started catching up on me.”

A golden era for Roscommon occured between 1977 and 1980 when four Connacht Championships were hoisted. Roscommon were relevant and prominent nationally, but Dublin and Kerry were also on the beat.

“It was a great time, we lost two All Ireland semi-finals by a point,” O’Connor remarks. “We won four Connacht titles, but we lost two semi-finals by one point which was tough and was hard to take. If we had got to another final we probably would have won it, you know the way they talk like that. We were in hard luck.

“We were playing the best team of all time and Dublin, they were well there and had a strong team. So it was a few years when Kerry were the best team ever, without a doubt they were the best team ever.”

O’Connor continued playing in primrose and blue until 1983, but then opted to move to the States. Now O’Connor marvels at the commitment shown by those playing at inter-county level. “1983 was my last year with Roscommon, I went to New York that July,” O’Connor comments.

“It is where the money was, you'd see the young fellas now I don't know how they do it to be quite honest. The dedication is unreal. Before I came back to the States in February Donegal were playing Dublin on a Saturday night. I just watched them, they had their meal and they all just trailed behind going away.

“When we played if you got a Saturday night in Dublin you'd be lucky if you got home on Tuesday. It was a League match and I'm almost sure there was a bye week the next weekend so they hadn't a game for two weeks. Dublin on a Saturday night, but no, they are just so dedicated. I'd find it hard to play now with the commitment, it is unreal.”

The Football in America was hard and tough, but many great memories are still fondly recalled by O’Connor. “I played a lot in the States, I played in New York first and in San Francisco when I moved there in '86,” O’Connor says.

“I went back to New York to play. The standard was pretty high then because you had a lot of emigration in the 80s. I remember playing with a New York team in 1984 we went back with several county players on the New York team to play Mayo in a Gael Linn Final.”

New York’s panel was sprinkled with accomplished performers such as Billy Morgan, Fran Ryder, Paddy Crozier, and Charlie Mulgrew. It was an accomplished team with many future inter-county managers involved, but O’Connor took ample satisfaction from that particular success.

“If Mayo beat us there was a trip to New York for them, we beat them well by six or seven points. That was a Mayo team that were in a Connacht Final.

“The standard was very high back then, it isn't as high now. With the New York team we had a lot of inter-county players and in the club scene when it came to the finals you had more because they'd stack the teams for the finals.”

Decades later those days are still debated in the States. The wins, the near misses, the what might have beens, but the game always matters. O’Connor’s wife, Catherine, will head for Dr Hyde Park on Saturday with her brother and sisters to see how Darach fares.

“She goes to all of the games, she is more into it than I am,” O’Connor acknowledges. “The first Gaelic match she ever saw was in San Francisco because Buncranna didn't have the name of being a Gaelic town years ago, it was more of a soccer town. She had never seen a Gaelic match until she came to San Francisco.

“They are good supporters in Donegal - you have to hand it to them. A funny one about Catherine when Down won the All Ireland in 1991 we had a house here in San Francisco, they were coming out to play us in the spring of 1992. We were all putting up some of the Down players and we were in the Irish Cultural Centre and everyone was saying they wanted a photograph with Sam.

“At the end Catherine says which of them is Sam. That is how much she knew about Gaelic then, she said 'he must be a good looking fella because you all want a photograph with him'! Now she is an authority on it.”

O’Connor keeps in close contact with some of his former Roscommon teammates. “I do all the time, I meet (Seamus) Hayden regularly and I have a good friend here who used to play for Roscommon, Tom Hunt, who I will watch the game with.

“It is a great one, I'm sorry I'm missing it. When I played I never had any nerves, the bigger the occasion the less nerves I had. Now I can't watch games when my son is involved, it is terrible. This one is a little bit easier to watch.”