Giving It One Last Go

Thanks, Megan! That’s what every Waterford FC fan should be saying as John Mahon admitted it was his girlfriend’s intervention that kept him in football this year making blocks and tackles instead of doors and cabinets as a carpenter. 

“Do I really want to play anymore?” Speaking to reporters from the national newspapers on the occasion of being named SWI/SSE Airtricity Men’s Player of the Month for August, the big defender told how close he was to quitting football last year. After disappointment in Scotland and a horrible year in Sligo, Mahon was considering going into carpentry with his father and brother until his girlfriend Megan “put me in touch with a psychologist. I talked to her and there was a weight it lifted off my shoulders and I felt like – give it one last go.”

 

Bloodied but enjoying the win against his former club last week (Noel Browne)

“It was mid-season last season with Sligo. I found myself out of the team and I was talking to (his girlfriend, Megan Summerfield) wondering do I even want to continue. So, she looked up online - the psychologist - and then I got talking to her.” Mahon spoke to the psychologist of his time with St Johnstone, with whom he had signed on a two-and-a-half-year deal in January 2022, but agreed mutually to terminate his contract after a year. “She probably thought there were a lot of issues from Scotland. I felt like coming home would just solve all the problems. But it probably didn't. It was probably all in the back of my head still. And then suffering the Achilles injury, it kind of expanded that tenfold”, he says of the injury that kept him out of almost the whole 2024 season on his return to Sligo. “Speaking to that psychologist, the weight lifted off my shoulder. I could kind of see clearly again what I wanted. And come to the end of the season, it was nice to get out of Sligo, from my hometown, and test myself somewhere else.”

The stare that Mahon gave to some travelling Sligo Rovers supporters after beating them comfortably 3-0 in the FAI Cup last weekend probably speaks volumes about his final year with his hometown club. Very often in football, local players can become the main target for vitriolic abuse from their own fans when a team is struggling. Rovers were battling relegation, John was captain, he missed time through suspension and his form was suffering. These are young men (Mahon was 25 at the time) and the pressure can take a toll on them especially when their own fans fail to ‘support’ them. 

By the end of the season, manager John Russell told him he was no longer in Sligo’s plans for the future. “I kind of expected it,” John told the press. “I wasn't in the team at the end of the season, but being a local lad coming up through the academy, being told that you're let go, you're kind of thinking, where do I go from here? Me and my girlfriend, we were travelling to Southeast Asia. It was nice to get a break away from football and sort the head out.” The only serious interest came from then-Waterford manager Jon Daly and he is grateful for that. 

 

A happier Mahon in 2026 (Noel Browne)

Mahon has thrived as a mountainous figure in the Blues’ defence. Even throughout the sixteen-game winless streak to start the season, the teak-tough tackler was a standout – earning his place in the division’s Team of the Week twice in in April despite the club’s struggles. Two arrivals made a huge impact on the team, the defence and John himself. The first was the vastly-experienced Kevin Long and the second was new boss Graham Coughlan, whose praises Mahon sings. “He respects me as a player. I can kind of feel the love and the care he has for me and then, as a player, when I get that, I go out on the pitch and repay it tenfold. Him being a centre-half as well, it kind of helps. He understands what I'm about, similarities, willing to put my body on the line. We can see each other in ourselves. So, yeah, look, he's a massive influence, probably why I'm doing so well at the moment.”

As for the counselling which turned his career around and facilitated the success he is currently enjoying, “I'd probably advise any footballer to get into that - seeing a psychologist - if they're going through any issues or even to improve their performance.” He admits he was “probably in denial” about the lows he was feeling in recent years, but “in the back of my mind I probably knew I wanted to stay in football.” He didn’t want to speak to a psychologist at first, but says that his girlfriend “kept onto me about doing it so, eventually, I had the first call with her and I came away from the call feeling unbelievable, to be honest. Then I had two or probably three more calls with her and I just felt, yeah, I felt so good in myself and, as I said, I could see clearer. It's massive, the mental side of football. You know, you can have all the talent and ability, but if your mind is not right, your football will suffer.”

A change of scene has certainly helped him on and off the pitch and, with Waterford surging up the league and looking forward to a cup semi-final, he is on top of the world now and excited for what the future holds. “I feel like coming down here now and to be playing so well, it's kind of repaying the favour and the faith they've put in me.”