Pat Spillane: I owe everything in football to the genius Mick O’Dwyer

Since I was 18, Micko was a huge presence in my life. I worshipped the ground he walked on.

Not only did he give me my break with Kerry, but he also stood by me all my life. We never in all our time playing with Kerry had a bad word or fell out. There was never one bit of criticism.

I’ve always said my philosophy on life, my view that the glass is always half full, came from Micko. Because the one thing with him was his positivity; he made you feel special, the best in your position in the country.

That was a positivity he took all through his life.

It was a trait that came shining through in his team talks. Not once in all his team talks did he ever speak about the opposition. It was always: believe in yourself and believe in your teammates.

People often ask: would we have won the same number of All-Irelands without Dwyer. We’d have won one or two, for sure. But I know I wouldn’t have won eight without Micko.

He was the glue that kept us together; the conductor, the ringmaster, the point guard, the motivator.

Training sessions were legendary. Twenty laps of the field, the wire to wires.

The 30 sessions in a row that we did one year – they were key, not alone to build up stamina, but to reveal character.

The fella who gave you all in those laps of the field in January was the fella who would give you all in September.

But the nub of his genius was he got all of us peaking for the big day. That’s a quality few, if any, managers had. We came up against great teams and great players, but we never focused on any of them.

He prioritised what he believed were the basic principles of the game. With the ball, everyone was an attacker. Without it, everyone was a defender

Call it Total Football.

And the final principle – always play with your head up. Don’t be looking at the O’Neills on the ball.

He was a clever motivator too. No gimmicks, no gadgets, no performance coaches, no mind gurus. He convinced us that 31 and a half counties were against us. We were playing for our clubs and our families. But most of all for ourselves.

He was very much a believer in the concept of a squad. If there was a deal going, every player got it.

He realised around 1980 that All-Ireland medals alone wouldn’t motivate us anymore, so he dangled the carrot: the foreign holidays. And boy did we buy into them.

For winning four in a row, we got a five-week holiday. Three weeks in Australia, one week in Hawaii, and a week in the US between San Francisco and New York. Not to mind having the extra bonus of £1,400 in our pockets boarding the plane.

Had he faults? Of course he had. He stayed loyal to his players for too long, but that’s a fault of most managers.

He had an ageing team, lads with tonnes of mileage in the legs. But he still stuck with us.

‘Til the day I die, I’ll worship the ground the man stands on. I owe everything in football to him. He gave me the chance, he gave me the belief, he gave me the confidence and then he just left me off. Thanks Micko.