Old faces on the street still follow strangers' every footstep, some with intrigue, some with caution. Old faces in bars still offer midweek conversation and high octane laughter for the occasional refill. Old flags and bunting still draw attention from the tree in the square as more success looms. And an older John McEntee remains evergrateful.

Take two text messages as proof. 3 All Ireland club, 4 Ulster club, 11 Senior Club, 5 under-21 club, 1 minor club, 1 Ulster Og Sport, 1 Community Games All Ireland, Club under16/14/12, 1 All Ireland county senior, 1 National League, 5 county Ulsters, 1 Ryan Cup with university. That's most of the I think. Only to be quickly followed by, I meant to say, thanks for coming up. You needn't have.

John Mac. All that won and he still thinks you're doing him a turn.

But at 29, it can't be long until the turns stop. It's not so much the wife, new arrival or job in Craigavon Hospital.

It's just there's been more football in those years than most will ever know or want.

Since Cross started winning county titles and couldn't stop 11 seasons back, he's never had more than a two-week break from club to county while more often than not there's been none at all. No surprise, then, that only he and his twin Tony, Oisin McConville and Francie Bellew remain from the side that turned the village from an outpost into a club.

"There's no doubt I'd have a much longer footballing future ahead of me if we hadn't done so well with both club and county. But who'd change being in that situation? How many guys do you know who play for twice the time we'll play for, and come out of it with nothing? I'd much prefer to win everything possible for a shorter time. But at times because of it all, it can be hard to motivate yourself.

"But it's not always about motivating yourself either.

That comes in the summer when the country is watching and you can feel the excitement but much of it is just a slog and like most things that are like that in life, it's just about getting up and doing it.

Of course sometimes you are fed up with it all and you wonder why bother or what you are doing out here, but again you just get up and do it and while you're there, give it your all. And besides, you lose fitness very quickly when you're not playing and I'm starting to think most county players don't get much more time off regardless of club commitments."

Modesty. A trait others haven't had in Cross, Armagh and Ulster. Success breeds jealousy and there's been plenty of that. There's been rumours too. He was told one day that Oisin was with his sister. Later he was told Oisin had hit her. Other days he heard tales of rows and punch ups in training. Barbed-wire lies laid out in no-man's land to cut and grate and maim, regardless of who else got snagged. But that's one of the things that has made his Rangers special.

"Nothing is ever smooth, especially when you've been with guys for so long. Points of conflict arise from around the place. You hear things, you say things, but you move on and deal with it. That's what we've done all along, you bag it and move on, and that's allowed us to keep going. I guess a lot of it is jealousy, we've been so successful that's bound to happen but it's still not nice to see.

But it's everywhere. Maybe some of it comes from a local level, maybe some of it is from other clubs here in Armagh and there's a lot of jealousy around the province as well.

Sometimes it's a case of there being no smoke without fire and maybe some of the rumours are true. Some can be genuine but most of it is rubbish and we know that and that's why we deal with it and move on."

But has there not been a bitterness at county level, because Joe Kernan is from Cross or because you return late in the year to the county panel and take others' places when things are going well with the club?

"If you are a county player, you are a county player. It's been like that under Joe and anyone else before him. But if we happen to get to an All Ireland series with the club I'd like to think we have the full support of everyone else in the panel when we return.

The Armagh team is always going to be picked on merit and the starting Armagh side will always be the one best equipped to win. And when we come back from playing with the club, it's not like we've been away doing nothing else. We've been training hard and playing football and we are coming in fit and ready.

"But there are times when it's different and sometimes, because it's Joe in charge, people feel the Cross guys get special treatment and that's not really fair. But I guess Aaron and Stephen [Kernan] are worst affected by that sort of stuff. But they fight as hard as anyone to be where they are and they haven't got there because of being Kernans or because they are from Cross. They deserve everything they get and I think they've already shown why they are highly rated."

But that's for later in the year and he may not see that county side of it again anyway.

Reports have said he's retired from the Armagh scene, he says there's been no decision.

Yet now is all about Cross and success built on a village with one sport and a group of people with one goal. "Much like any club you need people to make it to the top. I suppose the longevity has been a little different. We don't have competition from other sports so our guys have been doing well and focusing on it from a very young age. A lot of them have also been on Armagh development squads all the way up. They've got great training because of that and we see the best of them at senior. And besides, while we've won all these Armagh titles, we haven't been anywhere near so successful in Ulster. It all looks good but there's been a lot we've missed out on. That keeps you going.

"Also, it's a completely different team from when we started. I guess me and Tony and Oisin and Francie, guys like us are now leading the team and we are the ones needing the young guys to back us up. At the beginning it was the other way around.

There were Jim McConville and Donal Murtagh and Anthony Cunningham there as the big names, the senior names. They helped us through and now it's our turn.

"We've also had a hard time I guess up here. It's not something we go around saying or using as motivation. There isn't that siege mentality but all that happened is still at the back of our minds. So many games go into the last five minutes with nothing really in them and it becomes a slog. It's tough going but that's always been the way with everything up here, be it football or life. It's nothing new to us but looking back it gives us all so much pride, what everyone here has done."

In Crossmaglen, nothing ever changes.