“Yes Mr Bradley.”

Enniskillen Gaels boss Simon Bradley will be keeping a wary eye on past pupils like Oisin, Ultan and Aogan Kelm, Barry, Jack, Ben and Dan McCann, Michael Óg McGarrgle, Martin Gilfedder and Ryan Lyons to name a few, as his former students will be hoping to teach him a lesson as the battle of the Gaels begins in Sunday’s county final at 2pm in Brewster Park.

And Bradley (53) spent 26 happy years teaching PE and pretty much every other subject in St Mary’s Brollagh from around 1995 to the school’s sad closure in 2021.

Those years were among the happiest in the highly decorated Bradley’s life.

“I was there for 26 years, and they were the happiest days of my life and I was lucky enough to end up as Principal.

“I was there with caretaker Pat Maguire and we were the last two people out of the school.

“I started in the mid-1990s and Gerry Gallagher of Garrison went into full-time politics and they needed a sub PE teacher and I got a phone call from the then Principal Gerry Regan and I was made full-time in 1996.

“I taught pretty much everything except Maths and Science.

“It was an absolutely unique place in a crazy education world, Brollagh was a real stand-out anomaly of really good education and was a very good school.

“It was so homely, and everybody knew everybody, and it was a family orientated school and I would say the vast majority of the children were really happy coming to school.

“It did very well academically and in terms of children going on to new pathways and it was a very successful school.

“And I meet so many past pupils who are now parents and you always know them because they are smiling."

He added: “I taught several of the Erne Gaels players who will be playing today so I know them pretty well and Barry Mulrone of Devenish also went through Brollagh.

“We won an U14 county title and because of our size it was hard and Sean Sands was our stand out player and Gary O’Connor of Erne Gaels.

But, aside from leading Enniskillen Gaels to county championships in 2006 and 2022 when they beat Erne Gaels by 3-12 to 0-10, Bradley has a pretty unique record in the Fermanagh GAA.

He is a past pupil of St Michael’s Enniskillen and St Mary’s Belfast and lost a Sigerson final to a star-studded QUB side in 1993.

But before that, he has a feat that will never quite be equalled when he played for Enniskillen Gaels and won a Fermanagh senior football county with the Gaels at the age of 16 when they beat Roslea by 0-7 to 0-5 and he missed out on an U16 championship title that year.

“I probably did not appreciate it at the time as I was playing for the Northern Ireland Schoolboys soccer team, Enniskillen Town, and minors, U21’s and seniors for the Gaels.”

He picked up his second county title in 1992 when the Gaels beat Lisnaskea in the final and the next was the six in a row all conquering side from 1998-2003 where he also played in two Ulster club finals in 1999 and 2002.

Bradley managed the team to a county championship in 2006 and he has ten titles including management-which is quite another feat. 

Simon made his debut for Fermanagh when he was just 18 in 1989 and played on and off for nine years.

“It was a very different time back then and a completely different experience as there was no back door and you were very often just aiming towards one game in terms of the championship.

“Your whole year could end in a heartbeat, and I went to the US for four summers.

“I played a lot of football when I was very young, and it would not really happen nowadays.”

Bradley played four years at county minor and five years at U21 which is quite a record.

But it led to a lot of “injuries” later on, and Bradley is glad that it does not happen to younger players today.

He normally played as a half-forward or full-forward and he just missed out on Fermanagh’s big run in the early Noughties.

When asked what the Gaels mean to him, he said: “Like any GAA person, the Gaels is the lifeblood of the Association.

“It is not just the football it is the people that you meet and that was brought home to me at the death of our chairman John Quinn, and it was just the way the club responded.

“It was done with such honour and respect and just reinforces just how good the GAA is and the basis of that is the club system, and it is like a family.”

In more recent times. Enniskillen really blew Erne Gaels away in the 2022 final.

“I think we got a great start with two goals in the first half, and we managed the game out well.

When asked if that heavy defeat in 2022 will give Erne Gaels extra motivation in the form of a deeply felt hurt, going into Sunday, he demurs: “I don’t think so, and I think their main motivation is trying to win a championship, so it does not matter who they are playing on Sunday.

“They have not won a title since 1981 and beating Derrygonnelly in the semi-final will have given them loads of confidence just as us beating Derrygonnelly in 2022 in the semi-final gave us huge confidence as well.

“I think that both teams are different in 2024, and Erne Gaels are set up in a very different manner to the way they were set up in 2022.

“They are much more compact at the back, and they are much more committed to stopping other teams scoring and they are playing a counter-attacking style of football.”

Bradley watched Erne Gaels' narrow win over Derrygonnelly in the semi-final and I was very impressed with them.

“I thought they were very composed in the last ten minutes, and they knew what they were doing- probably just edged it on that day and deserved to win the game.

“They got a wee bit of luck with a decision that went with them in the last minute but sometimes you need that bit of luck.

"They put themselves in that position and went on and won it."

Meanwhile Enniskillen Gaels are coming into this final undefeated, but Bradley feels there is much more in this side.

“Yes, but every game we feel frustrated because we have not been firing on all cylinders and hopefully, we can do that on Sunday.”

Enniskillen had a big win over Ederney in their semi-final but Bradley firmly puts it in context.

“The scoreline did not reflect the game and Ederney were minus eight regulars and that was their third game in three weeks, and it probably caught up with them in the end.”

Bradley is sweating on the fitness of Brandon Horan, who has a hamstring injury- but Paddy Reihill is definitely ruled out with a longer-term injury.

Bradley added: “If you look at any of the teams that are in county finals across Ulster it is a very similar style of play- compact at the back and either a very quick break or a patient build-up where you are trying to break down your opponent’s defence.

“It is a similar brand of football and the teams that play it best are the teams that are getting to county finals.”

When asked where he felt the main threats would come from Erne Gaels, he said:
“They have three or four players like Ultan Kelm, an outstanding athlete, Shane Rooney has a nose for scoring, Ryan Lyons, all the McCann’s can score and they obviously have a lot of hunger going for that first championship and I know how that feels in terms of us in 2022 as we had not won a title in 16 years.

“It is a huge driving force, but it also brings that bit of extra pressure that they will have to deal with if they are in front with ten minutes to go.

“Seeing it home is not always the easiest thing to do.”