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| Sport: | Football | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Irish: | An Dún[1] | ||
| Nickname(s): | The Mournemen | ||
| County board: | Down GAA | ||
| Manager: | Conor Laverty | ||
| Captain: | Pierce Laverty | ||
| Home venue(s): | Páirc Esler,Newry[1] | ||
| Recent competitive record | |||
| Current All-Ireland status: | Ulster (SF) in2025 | ||
| Last championship title: | 1994 | ||
| Current NFL Division: | 2 (7th in2025; relegated to Division 3) | ||
| Last league title: | 1983 | ||
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 Current season | |||
TheDown county football team representsDown GAA, thecounty board of theGaelic Athletic Association, in theGaelic sport offootball. The team competes in three major annual inter-county competitions; theAll-Ireland Senior Football Championship, theUlster Senior Football Championship and theNational Football League.
Down's home ground isPáirc Esler,Newry. The team's manager isConor Laverty.
The team last won the Ulster Senior Championship in 1994, the All-Ireland Senior Championship in1994 and the National League in1983.
With just one loss in six appearances in All-Ireland SFC finals, Down has a reputation for rising to the big occasion. Kitted out in distinctive red and black, the team's massive fan base has been responsible for some of the largest match attendances in GAA history. Although, since the last decade of the twentieth century, the team has had a barren patch at senior level, despite various successes at underage level, in 2010 Down showed signs of improving by gaining promotion to the National Football League Division One and reaching theAll-Ireland Senior Football final — narrowly losing by one point toCork.[2][3]
Down was not regarded as a football stronghold when Queen's University won the 1958Sigerson Cup, and some of its leading players turned their thoughts to Down's county team dilemma.
Down won the 1959Ulster Senior Football Championship (SFC) title with six inter-changeable forwards who introduced off-the-ball running and oddities such as track-suits.
In 1960, two goals in a three-minute period fromJames McCartan andPaddy Doherty helped Down to defeatKerry, who were almost completely unbeaten at the time, and which brought to an end the Kerry football regime for a few years.
In 1961, Down defeatedOffaly by one point in a game that featured five first half goals. In that three-year period their supporters surpassed every attendance record in the book.[citation needed] When Down played Offaly in 1961 they set a record attendance of 90,556 for a GAA game. AgainstDublin in the 1964 National League final a record crowd of 70,125 attended. The 71,573 who watched Down play Kerry in 1961 still stands as a record for an All-Ireland SFC semi-final. In 1968, Down defeated Kerry withSean O'Neill and John Murphy goals, again in a two-minute spell. Despite a famous prediction that Down would go on to win three-in-a-row,[citation needed] the county took twenty years to regain its status.
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In 1991, Down surprised favouritesMeath, Barry Breen scoring the goal that sent his team into a lead of eleven points with twenty minutes to go, a lead that Meath could not match. In 1994,Mickey Linden sentJames McCartan in for a goal directly underHill 16, a goal which silenced Dublin and helped Down claim its fifth All-Ireland SFC title.
No other team fromUlster won an All-Ireland SFC untilArmagh won the2002 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.[4]
In 2008, Down defeatedTyrone after a replay in the Ulster SFC but lost toArmagh in the Ulster SFC semi-final. Down advanced to play Offaly in the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers. After a convincing 5–19 to 2–10 victory over Offaly, Down facedLaois in a Round 2 qualifier. Defeating Laois by a single point, and with Dan Gordon being sent off, Down progressed to the last round of the qualifiers, in which the team was paired withWexford, a game held at Croke Park. Down had Dan Gordon's suspension removed, but awful conditions and a poor Down performance resulted in a defeat to Wexford by a scoreline of 2–13 to 0–12.
Down reached the2010 All-Ireland SFC Final after a narrow win overKildare in the semi-final. However, Down lost toCork in that game, the first time Down experienced defeat in an All-Ireland SFC final. Cork trailed by three points at half-time but improved in the second half and won by a scoreline of 0–16 to 0–15. Down captainBenny Coulter's effort on 70 minutes and a fistedDaniel Hughes effort one minute into added time left one point between the teams. That was the way it stayed, as Cork collected its seventh All-Ireland SFC crown in front of a crowd of 81,604.
In 2019, Down won the U20 Leo Murphy Cup Football Development League, defeatingCavan in the final by a scoreline of 1–14 to 0–11.
Down teams through the years have played with great emphasis on attack, often leading to the neglect of the defence. This system has cost Down teams of the twenty-first century, with the introduction of more negative tactics to quell forward lines, with a massive emphasis on blanket defence.
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2022) |
Team as per Down vsGalway in the2025 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship#Preliminary quarter-finals, 22 July 2025
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As late as 2012, Down had a history of not appointing "foreign" managers, thoughMartin Breheny suggested Down might be the most likely from the cohort of football teams that traditionally appointed a manager from inside to ask for "outside help".[7] Since then, the county has recruitedJim McCorry andPaddy Tally from outside.
| Dates | Name | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| 1989–2002 | Pete McGrath | Rostrevor |
| 2002–2006 | Paddy O'Rourke | Burren |
| 2006–2009 | Ross Carr | Clonduff |
| 2009–2014 | James McCartan Jnr | Burren |
| 2014–2015 | Jim McCorry | |
| 2015–2018 | Éamonn Burns | Bryansford |
| 2018–2021[8][9] | Paddy Tally | |
| 2021–2022 | James McCartan Jnr (2) | Burren |
| 2022– | Conor Laverty | Kilcoo |
Winners (1):1946Winners (1): 1979Winners (1): 2019Winners (4): 1977, 1987, 1999, 2005Winners (12): 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1978, 1981, 1991, 1994
Runners-up (15): 1940, 1942, 1958, 1962, 1967, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1986, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2012, 2017Winners (9): 1931, 1934, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1958, 1965, 1966, 1971Winners (11): 1944, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1972, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2008Winners (6): 1949, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964Winners (9): 1965, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1984, 1985, 2005, 2008, 2009Winners (2): 2021, 2023Winners (10): 1958, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1977, 1979, 1986, 1987, 1999
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Besides, can you ever imagine any of them, with the possible exception of Down, looking for outside help?
