{"id":74003,"date":"2025-09-19T20:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T20:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/74003\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T20:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T20:12:11","slug":"for-once-i-was-playing-with-a-free-mind-crossmaglens-john-murtagh-on-how-beating-gambling-issues-impacted-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/74003\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018For once, I was playing with a free mind\u2019 \u2013\u00a0 Crossmaglen\u2019s John Murtagh on how beating gambling issues impacted\u00a0his life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">In the latest of our vintage veteran series, the former Armagh ace speaks about lining out for Rangers\u2019 junior side at 41\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"John Murtagh still lines out for the Crossmaglen Rangers' second team. Photo: Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/e290942a-9047-43f1-b182-475ff50d6ad0.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">John Murtagh still lines out for the Crossmaglen Rangers&#8217; second team. Photo: Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Johnny Murtagh was up at 5.30 on Friday morning, \u201cfoam rolling for half an hour\u201d, having played full-forward for Crossmaglen\u2019s second team on Thursday night. He regularly visits a chiropractor to stave off back issues, which, at the age of 41, have crept up in recent times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">They lost to Middletown by 0-16 to 1-8 in the quarter-final of the junior championship, but Murtagh is keen to take the positives from the year. He loves playing alongside the younger players in Crossmaglen who can use the experience as a \u201cstepping stone\u201d to senior football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the latest of our vintage veteran series, the former Armagh ace speaks about lining out for Rangers\u2019&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[47006,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-74003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-armagh-gaa","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}