Former Meath football boss Andy McEntee has opened up about the online attacks and the poison pen letters which he was subjected to by people who “haven’t the b***s to put their names to it” during his six years at the helm with the county.
McEntee’s reign concluded in the wake of the Royals All-Ireland SFC qualifier defeat to Clare earlier this month with plenty of online abuse thrown his way, as well as in the direction of his son and team captain Shane after his resignation was tendered.
While the elder McEntee is not on social media and tries to ignore it, his son Shane set the record straight to trolls about paying for his own flights home from Mali – where the Irish Defence Forces Lieutenant was working as part of an EU training mission – to represent his county against Dublin last month.
The Nobber native was speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s ‘The GAA Social’ and in an emotional interview confirmed that he “never sought or received a penny” for his time as Meath boss, despite the claims which some people threw his way.
He expressed his disbelief that people would actually take the time to sit down and write what they did, “We’ve all been in situations … I’ve certainly been in situations where you say something off the top of your head, you fly off the handle but to sit down and think about something and write it, that takes a bit of effort,” McEntee said of the online trolls.
“ All I’d say is think about it twice before you blurt something out there because once it’s out there, it’s out there. First of all, think about the accuracy of it.
“I saw something else, someone else suggesting, which surprised me, about my time being up and someone else comes in saying ‘he was well paid for his time’.
“That annoyed me because I never sought or received a penny from the Meath county board. That sort of s***t gets to ya. That was never my motivation for it and it hasn’t been for any of the jobs that I’ve ever taken, it’s (money) never been the motivation.”
He suggested that social media is helping to push managers away from inter-county jobs, though.
“One of the problems with all of the social media attention is that it (inter-county management) is becoming less and less attractive unless of course you’re getting well paid for it.
“Yes, there are good days and the good days are great, but you have to weigh it up and think is it worth all of this?
“There’s an awful lot of lads both in club and county saying that the balance is wrong at the moment.”
