Less than 24 hours after Kieran McGeeney’s departure from Kildare was confirmed, a campaign to bring him back to Armagh is in full swing and it appears as if it’s even being backed by the official Armagh GAA Twitter account.
A motion to stick with McGeeney as Lilywhites manager was defeated by a single vote by club delegates at a meeting of the Kildare County Board last night, but the decision to get rid of Geezer has not gone down well with the Kildare squad, who plan to release a statement later on tonight.
Given his status and reputation in Armagh, it was almost inevitable that there would be calls for him to return to the Orchard County, as was the case on Twitter last night.
What some might have found surprising, however, is the fact that a number of posts were retweeted (see a taste of them below) from the official Armagh GAA Twitter account, particularly considering that Paul Grimley was only re-appointed as Armagh manager last month.
McGeeney & McNulty both free agents now! Time to come home!! Grimley, McGeeney & McNulty what a management team that would be!! @Armagh_GAA
— Paul Hagan (@Paul__Hagan) September 3, 2013
Geezer is out of Kildare. I think this is @Armagh_GAA‘s opportunity to get one of the best managers in Ireland! #InGeezerWeTrust
— Aodhan Conlon (@chezzers13) September 3, 2013
Get McGeeney back to where he belongs @Armagh_GAA
— Neil McKeag (@nmckeag85) September 3, 2013
Would give anything to see #mcgeeney back involved with @Armagh_GAA at some level! I feel we are years off big days in Croke park #memories
— Jordan Mc Cooe (@JordanMcCooe) September 3, 2013
@Armagh_GAA so how long is it going to be before we contact Geezer? @RTEsport
— steve malone (@steveonthenet) September 3, 2013
Grimley, of course, worked with McGeeney in Kildare in the recent past so the retweets weren’t necessarily an endorsement of McGeeney taking over from Grimley, but if you were being paranoid about it you could definitely arrive at that interpretation, particularly given the pressure Grimley was under following the defeat to Cavan earlier in the year.
McGeeney himself might not have any interest in coming back and he could well be snapped up by other inter-county teams in search of a manager right now, but we wouldn’t rule out him coming back to manage his native county at some stage, if not in the near future then at some stage down the line.
Hat-tip: Hogan Stand
