David Gough – The man in the middle

“Be yourself. That’s all David needs to do.”

SportsJOE took a trip deep into the Royal county the week before the biggest game of one of its most famous son’s careers. David Gough may literally take centre stage at 3:30pm on Sunday, but he’ll hope his role fades into obscurity as the game unfolds. Driving through Slane, there’s a vibrancy that perhaps was dulled during the dark years of the recession. Billboards for the new distillery slip by as you come down the sweep into the Boyne Valley, and there’s an afterglow from the Metallica concert that threatened to lift the castle from its foundations in June. It’s quiet, but contently so. The real heartbeat of this town lies five kilometres outside its centre: Slane GAA club. When we pull up at 8 o’clock on a Thursday evening, we’re met with the bane and joy of most GAA clubs: finding a parking space. Delighted to be busy, not so delighted to be getting too close for comfort to the anonymous 7-seater beside you. Parked so close you’d need the flexibility of the CCCC’s disciplinary process and the gait of a minor wing forward to escape from your car. The recently opened complex is thriving with activity as the sky slowly darkens; the ladies side taking on Seneschalstown on the main pitch, the training area thronged with underage games, the sidelines wedged with parents and the plastic table carefully balanced on the stones of the car park offering you the chance to win the club’s Lotto jackpot of €3,375. Inside the freshly-painted hall, pots of tea are steaming on the ledge and tables are laden with sandwiches, fairy buns and expectantly empty cups. A spread laid out because a special family within the club are about to take centre stage on one of the biggest days in the Irish sporting calendar. The Goughs of Slane, led by David, will take the reins of this year’s All-Ireland Football Final. Juggling the roles of brother and umpire, Stephen Gough speaks of the support they’ve all received in the build-up to their biggest day yet;

“Yeah, hugely proud to be involved in an All-Ireland Final, especially with my own brother taking charge. The people in the village are very proud as well, you can see it from the amount of people that have been congratulating you on the street, asking to make sure to tell David that they're all rooting for him. Very proud.”

Cousin-cum-umpire Dean echoed those sentiments;

“It's a big day for the club. I'm very, very proud to be a member of Slane GAA and I'll wear that crest close to my heart on the day. We always knew it was an ambition of David's, years and years ago, to eventually get to an All-Ireland Day. And the thoughts of being part of that were just too good to refuse really.”

Ambition and drive, these words are mentioned time and time again by the friends, neighbours and family members we speak to. But, as much as David Gough wanted to referee an All-Ireland Final, something always came first. No exceptions. Anthony Harding, former underage mentor of David, recalled a time for us when the young man was given an incredibly difficult choice to make;

“David, when he was concentrating on moving onto the refereeing, he would've been in his mid 20s then...he was still playing plenty of football, but he was putting a little more emphasis on his refereeing, you know? And he was a fourth official in a league game in Armagh, and Slane were under pressure to field a team on the same day, he was needed. So he came with Slane, played the game with Slane, don't ask me whether they won or lost but he played the game anyway. We went into the pub after for a couple of pints and David said "bang goes my chances of being the youngest man ever to referee an All-Ireland Final" and I looked at him and said "Jesus, this lad's serious". Not only was he going to ref an All-Ireland Final, he was going to be the youngest to do it. Until he pulled out of the game in Armagh. He knew he wouldn't get the final as quick as he thought he would. The club was important to him in that battle...He didn't let us down...An excellent clubman, outstanding. Couldn't ask for any better.”

Club came first. There was no vaulting ambition, no glory-seeking, no desire for power or fame so great that David Gough could forget who he was or where he came from. It runs in the family; not only has David himself and his brother Stephen lined out for the club, but his sister Ciara is a formidable member of the Ladies side. There are a litany of Goughs connected to the club, including Gerry, Colm, Kieran and Sean. They didn’t lick it off a stone either. David’s grandmother, Alice, who sat down with us for a brief chat in the midst of the happy chaos, minded the nets for the women’s side in Slane in her own playing time for the club. Her message for her grandson was succinct;

“Oh, very proud. He’s a great lad. He just needs to be calm and cool and just do the job. We'll all be watching him, so the best of luck to him. I hope he does well.”

 As the GAA marched in the Pride celebrations in Dublin for the first time as an organisation this year, David Gough took his place with the organisation. He has spoken at length about his struggles in coming out to his teammates, and told one particularly poignant story on The Late Late Show about the support he received when his deepest secret was revealed;

“I missed a Championship match, my first Championship match ever (in May 2011) in over 10 years playing football, I didn't go to the Championship match. And I was hoping that news would have filtered out, through some avenues, through family, through friends to the teammates. Brendan (Loughran, team captain) phoned me up one evening after the match, and he had a few drinks and he said ‘look, we've heard a few things. But we're not going to believe it until we hear it from you’. It was quite an emotional phone call.

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“I said 'look, yeah, the rumours are true. I am gay'. And he said 'is that why you didn't turn up to the match today?' and I said 'yeah, I'm just not comfortable yet with being back around all-' he said 'it doesn't matter, you're still the same person you always were, you're still going to play in corner back, we still want you to play, have the fun, come to training, come for your drinks afterwards. We've missed you, and we don't want you to finish playing with us'. At the time as well I had started to referee, which was an obvious way out of the dressing room scenario, and it just fitted the image... It was a lovely phone to call to get, and I never forgot it. I was upset afterwards. That I had thought so little of my friends.”

It's a touching story, one that sticks in the minds of anyone who saw Gough’s emotive appearance on the RTÉ couch. So when two former teammates sit in front of us, and give their names as Brendan Loughran and William Clarke, it’s with a rueful and self-deprecating smile that Brendan answers “yeah…that was me”.

“When it happened, I suppose, David hadn't turned up to the game. There was talk, stories floating around and we (the team) were having a few pints. The question I asked of our lads was 'has anyone talked to David? Has anyone approached him and asked him what's his version?'. Obviously if there's stories going around there's no smoke without fire. Everyone said 'no' so I decided to take it upon myself to talk to David. When I was talking to him, as David said, I just asked him out straight "are you gay?" and he said he was. And I just said 'why didn't you tell us sooner? We accept you for who you are and that's it'. I can understand why he would be reluctant to tell us, boys will be boys and we'd be slagging and taking the piss out of everyone. But at the end of the day David is one of our teammates and one of our friends. That's never going to change.”

 It’s dark when we finally close the lens of the camera, that many people have so many kind things to say about David Gough that we’ve stayed twice the length of time we had expected. The final question they were all asked was ‘if you could give David one piece of advice before he takes the whistle on Sunday, what would it be?’. Invariably, from neighbour to cousin, from former mentor to granny, the answer came back the same in one form or another; “Be yourself. That’s all David needs to do.” The car park is near-empty as we say our goodbyes and leave, scarcely lit by the floodlights of the main pitch as the generator winds down. Of the scattering of cars left, we curse our luck that the 7-seater remains beside us, the pair of cars comically close in the vacant grit lot. “Do you want a hand reversing out, lads?’, Stephen Gough offers the assistance as he walks to his car with his young daughter. He stops for a moment, tells us about his and the team’s plans to ref a county championship game that weekend, how he hopes the current crop of young players can get Slane out of Junior B after the financial crash and emigration decimated the side, and again reiterates his pride for David and his journey, all while shrugging his club jacket off and placing it around the shoulders of his tiring child. The GAA is not without its flaws. But every so often; a team, a coach, a mentor or a club can restore your faith in this great Irish institution. Slane GAA club provided all of these last Thursday night. If these scenes seem familiar, it’s because they are. They’re replicated across the country every day of every week of every year. Sometimes we can lose sight of what makes the GAA so vitally important to towns and villages throughout this island. The town comes before the county. It can take a club like Slane to remind you of that. “Be yourself. That’s all David needs to do.” https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1167105719512064000