Johnny McIntosh: 'I've been getting more praise and more plaudits for commentating than I ever did for hurling'

For many Johnny McIntosh has been the voice of a brilliant Antrim Senior Hurling Championship – and especially last weekend's two epic semi-finals. But, as the former Saffron forward tells Neil Loughran, he'll be only too happy to watch Sunday's showdown between Dunloy and Loughgiel from the stand…

Brilliant ball to McMahon, McMahon goes inside, looking for Nugent for the first goal of the game… stands up well… FFFFFFAWWWWW – SCREAMER! ABSOLUTE SCREAMER FOR DOMHNALL NUGENT!

THERE is a bit of a sense of vindication any time TV cameras roll into town. Of all the games across Ireland that TG4 could have chosen to cover on Sunday, they plumped for the Antrim hurling final in Ballycastle - and with good reason too.

Reigning champions Dunloy and north Antrim neighbours Loughgiel came through monumental battles against Belfast clubs O’Donovan Rossa and St John’s respectively last weekend, capping off a championship that has delivered thrills and spills from the opening weekend.

Wider exposure and recognition on a national scale is well deserved, and you could confidently predict another cracker to round the whole thing off.

But, for many tuning in on Sunday, there’ll be something missing - Johnny McIntosh.

The former Saffron forward was commentating alongside Jerome Quinn on Sunday as Antrim GAA streamed the action live on Facebook, his enthusiasm and passion providing the soundtrack for all those unable to be in Dunsilly.

“It was a very long day,” says McIntosh, who has worked as a radio co-commentator alongside the BBC’s Mark Sidebottom but isn’t as familiar with being the main man behind the microphone.

“I only did it for the first time a few weeks ago and it’s fairly tiring; it’s a world apart from what I would’ve done before. Myself and Shane Elliott would do a lot of it with Mark, but on those days I literally arrive at those matches with nothing. He has all the notes, all the prep, all the hard work to do and every so often he’ll ask me ‘what did you think of that?’

“You’re only just chipping in your opinion every so often but doing the commentary on your own, especially when it’s going out on a stream... on the radio you could nearly say anything and people don’t know because they can’t see it but when it’s streamed out you’re having to put words to pictures and people know if you’re wrong.

“Jerome did the lead intro and there’s a level of professionalism you need to do that; it takes years of experience to be able to fill air. All I was really doing was shouting and gowling and it just so happened they were two of the best games I’ve seen in Antrim in a long, long time.

“I was exhausted by the time I got home. I was snoring by about a quarter to 10 on Sunday night, but it’s been great. I was just saying to my wife there I’ve been getting more praise and more plaudits for commentating than I ever got for hurling,” he says, laughing, “I maybe missed my calling”.

Almost 5,000 tuned into both games, and while plenty of positivity has flowed off the back of Sunday’s coverage, streaming matches live has not been without teething problems for counties across the country.

Antrim are no exception, with their stream of Rossa’s dramatic quarter-final victory over Cushendall – which cost £5 – failing.

Although refunds were initiated immediately, county PRO Sean Kelly faced a torrent of abuse on social media in the aftermath.

“It was horrible and actually sickening,” he said in an interview with GAA.ie earlier this week.

“I couldn't go through another failed stream or something going wrong. It was horrible, I think people must have had lockdown-it is - I've never seen abuse like it.”

“People got very annoyed,” adds McIntosh, who was commentating on that game.

“Sean Kelly does an awful lot of work and he takes it personally – he does everything as good as he can, and he was annoyed about it.

“So when Jerome said to put it through Facebook Live, alright you can’t charge, but the county was happy to see the bigger picture. They could’ve streamed matches last year and nobody might have watched them because everybody would be at them, so the fact they’re getting four or five thousand watching, I suppose that shows the value.

“And, given the circumstances we all find ourselves in, it would have been a travesty if people hadn’t had a chance to see those two games. An absolute travesty.”

Quite apart from getting to follow the game he loves, having the perfect vantage point has also allowed him close quarter access to some of the up-and-coming talent in the county.

Earlier this year McIntosh - alongside former team-mates Karl McKeegan and Brian McFall - took charge of the Antrim U20 side, and he is already looking forward to getting back out into the thick of the action.

“We have the Ulster final to play at the end of September/start of October, so we’ll be starting back training in the next week or thereabouts.

“It was very nice for me to get to watch Sean Elliott, who was incredible for Dunloy, Conall Bohill for St John’s is U20, an absolute star, young Oisin Donnelly came on and scored the equaliser the other day, Declan McCloskey’s just out of minors with Loughgiel but he’s been very steady.

“I’m able to keep an eye on boys like that and see what kind of form they’re in.”

Away from hurling, it has been an unusual time for the Glenariffe man too as Glenbio - the reagent manufacturing company he set up in 2012 - had to find ways to get to grips with life in a pandemic.

As a consequence, they are now producing Covid tests – and what he initially thought may have been a “stop-gap” measure is, McIntosh admits, now looking like more of a long-term proposition.

“We had a very successful business, and a lot of it is selling the tests and kits for blood to be tested in hospital laboratories. If you go to a doctor and he takes a blood sample, that gets sent off to the Royal and they use some of our reagents to test your glucose or your cholesterol or whatever.

“But come April, people no longer went to their GP or to the hospital. It seemed to be that people didn’t get sick any more. All of that business went very quiet so, like everyone, we had to try and find a way to get into the Covid testing.

“We found suppliers and products we could work with, and it’s going okay. We’re selling some of the PCR antigen tests, we’ve a good global market for that now, antibody rapid tests… at a time you were thinking it was just a stop-gap, but in the past few months you start to think maybe it’s a range that we’ll have forever more.

“I’m sorry to say, but it looks like it’s going to be something that’s here for a long time and we’re going to have to plan around it. It’s been hard work at times alright now… but it’s certainly easier than the commentating.”

The former Glenariffe hotshot breaks off into laughter again, but his voice will not be heard anywhere other than at the side of Páirc MacUílín on Sunday afternoon.

And, despite the acclamation that came his way last weekend, McIntosh isn’t disappointed not to be on the mic for the big one.

“Not at all - I wouldn’t say it’s something I enjoy doing.

“The first couple of weeks I was nearly sick with nerves. I enjoyed Sunday a bit better because you had the foil of Jerome - you need to give your voice a rest every now and again, and mine actually packed up near the end of the Loughgiel match.

“You’re excited, you’re enjoying it and I was probably getting as excited as anybody. To get two games that went to the wire, and stories like big Domhnall Nugent, Chrissy McMahon at the end of the Dunloy game... it was incredible.

“But I’ll be happy enough to maybe take a run up on Sunday and actually stand and just enjoy the county final.”