Jordan Flynn - The footballer who almost never was

FOR a lad who stopped kicking ball altogether during his teens, Jordan Flynn hasn’t done too badly.

He’s a star for club and county, but almost ended up with dozens of other underage ‘fell-aways’ and ‘got-aways’.

“Some of the teams that I’d have played on through underage, there’s not many of the lads around now. A lot of them are gone travelling, some of them have just stopped playing football for whatever reason,” Flynn tells The Mayo News.

Were it not for his father, his mother, his brother and Ciarán McDonald, Crossmolina’s tattoo-toting warrior could easily have ended up on a beach in Sydney.

Certainly not living in Ballina, doing deliveries for Michael Carr Foods by day and wearing green and red and maroon and white by night.

“I just didn’t really have much of a love for it,” he says, recalling his teens. “Under-16, we won something in Moygownagh some evening. But I wouldn’t really have much interest, wouldn’t really go training. I wanted to go off doing my own stuff and messing about probably doing the wrong stuff.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admits. “I was off doing my own thing trying to figure it out and obviously Dad and Ciarán and my brother Dylan were massive in the club so I nearly felt like I had to play. Then obviously I found a bit more of a love for it again.”

^{Jordan Flynn gets a telling-off from referee Kevin Connelly during Crossmolina's Round 2 Intermediate championship meeting with Moy Davitts (Pic: The Mayo News)}

Then came the call-up to the Mayo U-20s, but the sailing was far from smooth in his early intercounty days, when he saw more red and yellow than a commuter in Galway city.

That included one high-profile sending-off in the 2018 U-20 All-Ireland final which saw him suspended for three months for pushing the referee.

He was raw, in every sense of the word, from his talent to his aggression. Something needed to change.

“I calmed down a bit, stopped being so hot-headed. I stopped thinking that I was right all the time,” says the 26-year-old.

If it was the family that got him playing, it was his friends that kept him going.

“At the time I had a great circle of friends and I still do. I was never left on my own and they were brilliant,” he says.

“ I suppose social media, the way it is, if you started to read comments on things people don’t really hold back. But like that I was never on my own.

“Lads would always text ‘Do you want to go?’when they were going out or going to the gym. They were always texting, so I didn’t have too much time to dwell on things, but I did start to think, ‘I’ve lost x amount of time. What am I going to do to prevent losing any more of it?’ Then I suppose I had to ask myself ‘Is playing for Mayo at senior level something I really want to do?’ The answer to that question was ‘yes.’ That was enough for me.”

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Fast forward to 2024 - a season like no other for Jordan Flynn and his teammates. Crossmolina are in their first county final since 2006 with a team managed by a veteran (Brian Benson), flanked by a legend (John Maughan) featuring seven U-21s in the starting lineup.

“It’s strange because you’d be looking at the likes of Aaron Coggins and you’d be thinking ‘I’m not much older than you’ but then you put it into perspective and you are. At times 26 nearly feels like 35,” Flynn quips.

“Having all that youth around the place is great, because they don’t care. They just want to play football. They don’t worry about anything outside of that. You see Jimmy Maheady, sure he doesn’t want to do warmups or nothing he just wants to go out and shoot. He just wants to go out and play football, that’s all he wants to do. And that’s great to have around the place because it’s always a happy camp.”

^{Jordan Flynn is tackled during Crossmolina's group stage championship defeat to Moy Davitts (Pic: The Mayo News)}

Jordan Flynn on…
Ciarán McDonald

Ciarán just loves training. Sometimes he’d be expecting you to be able to do things you can’t and he has to slow down for a second to realise that it’s not as simple as he makes it look. He just loves football and is mad to help on any team. He has always been there through thick and thin with me and he’s someone that I have an awful lot to be thankful for being in my life. Between himself and Dad, I was well maintained.

John Maughan

He obviously wasn’t making it unknown that he was going to make training hard. Basically, if you didn’t want to buy in this year, it was fine, but just leave. Don’t be coming and going ‘I’ll be here in March, but I won’t be there in April, I’ll be here in May, I’ll be gone again.’ That was no good - If you were in, you were in.

His tattoos

To be honest, a lot of them are just decorations. I have 14 on my finger for the year that my Grandad passed away. Then I’ve a Saint Michael tattoo of a guardian angel and his name was Michael. The rest then, I’d call some tattoos and some mistakes. I like to be a small bit out there. If I can worm my way around Mum and (partner) Jessie I’ll get the neck tattooed, but that’s a long way away yet. I’d say if I finish with two arms, the chest and a neck, I’ll be happy.