Martin McDermott

McDermott played for Roscommon, typically as a midfielder, from the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, getting to the 1980 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final in the process.[1] A knee injury forced him out of contention, with McDermott having to settle for an All-Ireland Final and a National League medal secured in 1979 when Roscommon defeated Cork in the final.[1]

But then McDermott took on the manager job, and they said about him in 1991: "In Gaelic games he is a relatively new phenomenon, the 'team manager' - usually young, tracksuited, able to perform a wide range of skills, thick-skinned, a good motivator, a good communicator, a multi-talented father figure - roles which Martin 'Marty' McDermott has become very familiar with over the past few years."[1] McDermott looked up to Mick O'Dwyer and Heffo.[1]

McDermott got the Rossies to the 1982 All-Ireland Under-21 Football Championship Final but Donegal took that one away on them.[1] McDermott took off in 1983. He got his local club St Brigid's and McDermott as manager they got to a Roscommon Senior Football Championship final but lost to Clan na nGael.[1]

Soon he got given the senior Roscommon job.[1] It was a time when the Rossies were emergent and they got reached six provincial finals day out on the spin between 1987 and 1993.[2] McDermott got over the team in 1988.[2] He got them promoted to Division 1 in the second year and were there for the next few years.[2] They were even in two league semi-finals and the high quality of the opposition would stood them in good stead.[2] He won two Connacht Senior Football Championship (SFC) titles as manager in 1990 and 1991.[2] Roscommon is still looking for somone to get two successive Connacht titles, not even Kevin McStay could do it in recent years.[2] The Mayo team that defeated them in 1989 was burnded by a favourite stag earned from the 1989 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final but the primrose and blues took them to a replay and actually took them to extra-time at that in 1989 before the loss came.[1] But Roscommon won the day by taking the 1990 Connacht final and got to Croke Park for the first time in nearly a decade only for Cork to account for them. The Leesiders got away from them and the game was up.[1]

The 1990 Connacht final was a 0-16 to 1-11 victory over Galway, a rare time when the Rossies have actually bet the Tribesmen in a provincial final inside Dr Hyde Park.[2] Derek Duggan scored a farmers free into the teeth of a strong wind in the 1991 Connacht SFC final over Mayo over in Castlebar to tie the game up for the Rossies and then they posted a 0-13 to 1-9 score in the replay, again in Dr Hyde Park.[2] Roscommon were within a whisker (a solitaire point) off Meath in the 1991 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final.[3]

McDermott is a native of Oran, and after managing Roscommon to two Connacht SFC titles on the spin in 1990 and 1991, he relocated to South Dublin in 1997, opting for Blackrock-Stillorgan, where he became embedded in Kilmacud Crokes since his son wanted an outlet for his football.[4] McDermott told it in 2022: "From '97 until last year, I was involved on the committees, coaching, management teams".[4] He was also Director of Football "for seven or eight years".[4]