The GAA transfer that saw a 'regretful' homecoming

Seanie Johnston enters the action for Kildare at Breffni Park - the place he used to call home.

A big inter-county game at Breffni Park. Seanie Johnston had been here plenty of times before - yet this match could not have been more different.

To put 15 July 2012 in context, inter-county transfers in gaelic football are a rarity. You often stick to where you are born and forge a career within those borders, proudly wearing your county's colours

And that had been the plan for Cavan Gaels forward Johnston, who said "all I really wanted to do was play for Cavan".

At the age of 25 he had become a star of the team, before a management change saw a mass upheaval of playing staff and he, along with several other players, were pushed to the sidelines by Val Andrews.

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Johnston said the decision to shun him from Cavan's senior panel, one he "didn't see coming", ultimately led to a gambling problem, one he is now on top of, and he admits he was not blameless in the whole scenario as his ego "took a massive hit".

Desperate to play inter-county football, and after some conversations with Kildare manager Kieran McGeeney, a surprise transfer was on the cards with his Cavan days looking over.

Despite several blocked attempts to stop the transfer at the GAA, Johnston, not a dual player, played a two-minute cameo in a Kildare Senior Hurling Championship game to qualify for the county and, with that, the switch was complete.

The transfer would always cause a bit of a stir in GAA circles, but the All-Ireland qualifier draw threw up a nightmare scenario for Johnston as Kildare were drawn away to Cavan. You couldn't make it up.

"It was like, please, please don't. I was hating it. I couldn't describe how much I was hating it," Johnston said in a wide-ranging interview on the GAA Social podcast on BBC Sounds.

"The message came through from my best mate, and it just went 'oh no'."

'My family had to leave the country'

Given the nature of his high-profile switch, the forward knew he was likely going to be the centre of attention and says he regrets how big the story had grown.

His family had recently been through a tough time as his sister recovered from a brain tumour, and his parents flew to Prague in the Czech Republic ahead of the game to avoid the spotlight after attention had spiralled out of control.

"The regret is around my family and how difficult it was for them," Johnston added.

"My parents left the country for that match. There were reporters outside the house, there were people following me down the road from the house where I was living in Kildare down to work.

"It was just manic."

He added that TV cameras showed up on the ninth green while he was playing at a charity golf tournament - after being invited to play by Cavan legend Gabriel Kelly - and while "they were got rid of" before he reached them, it highlighted how Johnston had become the biggest story in town.

"When this all kicked off, I didn't feel it was going to be this big but it was and I felt so bad for them," he added about his parents' exposure to the attention surrounding his homecoming.

"They'll never come out and say 'that was really hard on us', but you know that it was."

Johnston played two minutes for Coill Dubh in the Kildare Senior Hurling Championship to qualify for the county's senior football team

Before he knew it, matchday arrived and Johnston, who has now taken over as Ballybay manager, says it was a one "I'll never forget" as he descended on the place had used to call home.

He says the bus journey from Kildare was "quiet" as anticipation grew ahead of throw-in.

"You get across the border and into Cavan, and there were signs on the road saying 'welcome home'," he recalled.

"This was a big event. There was 15,000 people there for a qualifier."

Johnston was on the bench as Kildare raced into a comfortable lead. Then, on 62 minutes, Johnston was called upon and entered the fray, going on to kick a point in the closing stages.

He added there was "no conversation" with McGeeney, now at Armagh, about not coming on given Kildare's lead and the circumstances surrounding the game, but he regrets the match.

"I just became a sideshow, and the reality for me was I was out of football for a year-and-a-half. You convince yourself that you are ready but I was miles away and I was off the pace.

"Putting yourself in my scenario then, could you imagine if I had said no to Kieran McGeeney? What would he have been thinking?

"Do I look back and wish he hadn't have put me on? Yeah.

"One thing my father did say to me: 'Look, this will go to the grave with you so you better be ready for it'.

"He was right. It is probably a very strong way of thinking but I wouldn't say he was wrong."

What happened next? Well, ultimately, the Kildare support didn't get to see Johnston at his best and replicate the form from his time with Cavan.

Despite that fateful afternoon back in 2012, and the fanfare surrounding it all, he would indeed return to Cavan colours in 2016 and he played three more years at Kingspan Breffni - this time wearing the famous blue. It's funny how things work out.

Listen to the GAA Social with Seanie Johnston, Oisin McConville and Thomas Niblock on BBC Sounds.