BSW3 26. Jimmy's winning matches

Speaker: Francis HoustonThere are many reasons why Glenties is on the map for the discerning traveller, but at the time of writing (2012) and no doubt for many years to come, the biggest deal has to be that it produced Donegal's finest son, Jim McGuinness. We've marked where his family still have a cafe in town. Jim managed to guide the Donegal Senior Football team to victory in the All Ireland final of 2012. An anthem that has been adopted for the team declares that 'Jimmy's Winning Matches' (look out for it on YouTube) and indeed he is.  What was remarkable was the fact that he achieved it in Year Two of a Five Year Plan for the team. McGuinness changed a team that had only two years before been ignominiously dumped out of the championships in Round One; eleven of that team played in the All Ireland win. Jim produced a team that believed they could win and indeed trained them to a level of fitness that would be considered professional. As pundit Joe Brolly put it 'Their focus is icy and they thrive in the heat of battle. After all, Jimmy insists on it.'  You will see pictures of him festooned around the town - his passing resemblance to Che Guevara has given rise to one famous picture of him complete with beret and goatee beard and the motif 'Until Victory Always' that can be bought as a T-shirt in the Highland hotel (where the artist works). And yet, Jimmy had been rejected for the top job on three occasions in the past, only getting it when he'd shown his pedigree as Under 21s manager. A trained sports psychologist, on both paper and in deed, he was the right man at the right time.