After stepping down as Meath manager last summer, Andy McEntee surprised people when he took the Antrim job few weeks later.
So why did he do it?
“My brother Gerry told me years and years ago that championship football is a drug and he is probably right,” Andy says of his two-time All-Ireland-winning brother and Royals legend Gerry McEntee.
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“You do get addicted to it. I suppose you grow up with it. You’ve been involved in it for most of your life.
“I was sitting at home doing nothing for two or three weeks and even at that stage I was going, ‘is this it?’
“But the Antrim thing did come out of the blue. I couldn’t see myself doing a team in Leinster (and coming up against Meath), I definitely couldn’t have seen that.
“But the fact Antrim were in Division Three and not in Leinster made it a bit easier.”
McEntee had only two reference points when it came to Antrim football – former UCD Sigerson Cup team-mate Andy Healy (dad of current Saffron Peter) and Stephen Muldoon.
“Stephen was Queen’s and I played Sigerson against him and then he was living down in Dunboyne so I ended up playing with him.
“They were the only players I knew anything about in Antrim,” admits McEntee.
“The general consensus I would have heard was ‘you’ll do well to get everyone together’ and that there’s always a bit of club rivalry. But I couldn’t back that up at all.
“The response I’ve got from pretty much everybody I’ve spoken to was very positive. We’ve had 40 odd players in with us and everyone was more than happy to be there.
“That’s my experience of it since the start.”
When he watched his team get hockeyed by Westmeath it was bound to be a day when the Meath man wondered what the hell he’d got himself in to.
But the Saffrons, who face a difficult Ulster Championship opener away to Armagh on Saturday, survived in Division Three with a win over the champions Cavan their most notable league result.
On the bad days like losing by 31 points in Mullingar, McEntee finds it much easier being an outside manager.
“I suppose the big difference is you can leave it behind you.
“I would have found that when I was with Ballyboden. I could go home to Dunboyne and there’s no-one asking you what’s going on.
“So when you’re doing the Meath thing and you’re from Meath and you’re living in Meath and you have a connection with Meath like I’ve had, it’s hard to get away from. You’re surrounded by it all the time.
“Especially when it’s not going as well as you’d like it to go. It is hard to get away from it.
“Whereas in Antrim, we’ve had a couple of disappointing results.
“It might be quiet in the house for a couple of days but it’s still easier to park it. You’re not surrounded by it all the time.”
McEntee is a vocal opponent of the split season and insists the GAA is “giving away” prime time viewing months of August and September when gaelic football and hurling had a captive audience.
The changes have Armagh and Antrim doing battle just 13 days after the end of their respective league campaigns.
He describes going to Armagh after their relegation from Division One as “like poking a bear”.
“You saw them get to the All-Ireland quarter-final last year and they were a penalty shootout from progressing further, so that’s the challenge we face,” he adds.
But it’s the drug of championship football that will ensure McEntee is there.
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