{"id":645930,"date":"2026-10-05T23:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/645930\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T23:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:52:09","slug":"all-ireland-winning-armagh-captain-aidan-forker-announces-intercounty-retirement-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/645930\/","title":{"rendered":"All-Ireland winning Armagh captain Aidan Forker announces intercounty retirement \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/armagh-gaa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/armagh-gaa\/\">Armagh<\/a>\u2019s 2024 All-Ireland winning captain Aidan Forker has announced his decision to retire from intercounty football.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 34-year-old is one of just two Armagh men to captain the Orchard County to Sam Maguire glory, alongside current manager Kieran McGeeney, who led the county to their first title in 2002.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Forker struggled for game-time this season as he battled to overcome ankle and calf problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Maghery clubman announced his retirement on social media on Monday night: \u201cAfter 15 seasons, I\u2019ve made the decision to step away from Armagh football. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere will probably never be a right time to write these words for me. Armagh has been part of my life since I was 18 years old. Some very difficult days and, eventually, days that I could only ever have dreamed about. I\u2019ve loved every bit of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI leave with no regrets. Just enormous gratitude for the blessings I received in my football life. God is good. I hope, in some small way, I\u2019ve left the jersey and Armagh football in a better place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI\u2019m so excited for this group for 2027 and beyond. I arrived as an 18-year-old who just wanted to play for Armagh. I leave as a husband, a father, and always a proud Armagh man. Thank you for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Forker is the latest of the 2024 crew to step aside, his announcement coming just days after the retirements of Ethan Rafferty, Rory Grugan and James Morgan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armagh\u2019s 2024 All-Ireland winning captain Aidan Forker has announced his decision to retire from intercounty football. The 34-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20803,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-645930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-armagh-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}