Now, Patsie!

There are stories and then there are stories. We've all heard about Jessie Owens and his defiance in the face of extreme provocation, albeit subtly applied by the Kaiser. Many a bar room has hushed to Mass-like silence as the local Seanchai embellished Delaney's athletic achievements or Michael Collins' mastery of evasion from his nemesis, the British. There there are stories that'll never be told outside the parish. Stories so interwoven in the fabric that it belongs to them, is a part of them and will remain there.



In 1945, Patsie Mangan returned to Ulster with the ravages of war permanently visible on his honest shoulders. Forced to earn shillings to feed his burgeoning family (he had 7 sons and 6 daughters before he left, a round 14 when he returned) he went against the grain and put in a hard shift at the tail end of the second round of that destructive European rivalry. During the dying skirmishes, he was caught in no man's land when a Russian shell landed feet from his backtracking and tired limbs. Lucky for him, his life was spared unlike his fellow Ulster traveller. The downside to his continued existence was the complete loss of sight in both eyes.

Honourably discharged, he made the torturous journey back to mid-Ulster to break the mixed news. Patsie was home for good with shillings in his pocket, enough to see them through the next couple of years, but he'd never see no.14. Nor again would he set eyes on the others and his patient wife, Bernie. Days passed and having finally muted the stigma of his war efforts for the local 'enemy' he immersed himself in the local GAA club once again. Before his sight was destroyed by Russian artillery, he was a giant on the field at his club. A towering full back, the sight of his trademark manoeuvre puffed the local community full of pride as Patsie emerging from a mass of bodies to leather the ball upfield with a defiant roar. All that was in the past and Mangan embraced it by helping out at the club.

That was until the club were one player short for an important Junior game which would seal the fate for the year. Win, and they'd get playing Intermediate for the first time in their history. Lose and all was lost again, as it had been for 44 years previously. The officials made it clear that the game would be forfeited if the numbers didn't tally. It had to be done. Patsie, 100% blind, was asked to fill out the team sheet requirements. Initially they played him as a corner forward, hoping he could simply stand well out of the way. And so it transpired. But the soldier in Patsie couldn't be quoshed. Minutes into the second half, he slowly made his way downfield as the ball played around him. No one cared as the scores were nip and tuck throughout. The battle raged on.

Patsie finally stalled when he reached his customary full back line. He turned and faced play. An awkwardness fell upon his fellow defenders and they debated quietly who would approach him and move him out of the way. One man didn't. The one man who knew Mangan to a tee. The goalkeeper had faced the back of Patsie since they played ball for the youngsters in Feis games. He knew every flinch Mangan would make and what it meant. He knew what to do that day. A ball was hit in high and hard from the middle of the field as the opposition cruelly attempted to increase the confusion. From the depths of an uneasy silence, the keeper bellowed "Now, Patsie". The rest betters any tale of titanic feats from Delaney or Collins. Patsie leapt into the air above all men, caught it, and shoed the ball upfield with customary roar. For the last 10 minutes, they say Patsie claimed 14 high balls from 14 "Now, Patsie" bellows from the keeper.

His club won the game and never returned to Junior until the year after Patsie died tragically crossing a road outside his home. That's a story.

Sickly Hurling

I was reading a book last week about the hurling. It was the story of the Liam MacCarthy Cup, or The McCarthy Perpetual Challenge Cup which is actually written on the damn thing. What shocked me initially was the name of the man and what should be the name of the trophy. Apparently, it’s MacCarthy, not McCarthy, as almost every journalist across the country states during the height of the summer. Well, doesn’t that sum it all up. The men with sticks get a raw deal and always have. When do you ever see an incorrect ‘Sam McGuire’ written down in an article about another Kingdom victory? Then there are the finals – the football is always the last one on as if it’s the crème de la crème of the season, the Grande Finale, with the hurling final a way of ironing out any creases in the running of the thing a fortnight in advance. It’s time the hurling lads stood up for themselves. Remember the farce of the presentation a couple of years ago? Paul Galvin wouldn’t have stood for it.

It also caught my attention that not one man from Ulster has reffed an All-Ireland Hurling final for the Liam MacCarthy Cup. Not one. Even a Mayo man has been picked to blow the whistle in the final. Mayo! The last time I saw a Mayo man with a hurl in his hand he was trying to beat a rat out of a bale-stack whilst travelling to Knock in ’82. Now, I don’t know if there’s some kind of mistrust of the Ulster hurling fraternity at Headquarters but it’s time the Ulster Council addressed this, even if it means doing a Gerry Kinneavy and getting one of the lads up here to change his name and county overnight in order to fool the lads in Dublin. Worth considering, and a big boost to the game up here it would be. Hurling in Ulster during 2009 wasn’t the best. Antrim tried their hand at two provincial competitions but their trip to Leinster wasn’t too productive at all. At least they got a trip to the brewery and enjoyed the Literary Pub Tour the night before the game. Listening to Sambo recite ‘THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS’ with the emotion dripping off him at 3am made this old hack swallow hard to hide the lump in my throat. You wouldn’t catch Cody at that and it’s a pity for him.

Back up here, Antrim stood by whilst the rest of the province tore shreds off each other with misplaced pulls and cuts. By the time Down emerged to play the Saffrons in Antrim’s one and only game, they were hardly able to run onto the field such was their exhaustion. There’s some unfair about this. Take Fermanagh for example. Say if those lads were hurling in private at a hideaway 3D surface at a camouflaged shed near Tempo seven days a week from January til May, trained by Michael Lyster or Pat Kenny, and emerged as potential champions, they’d have to have beaten this year: Cavan, London, Derry and then Down before taking on Antrim in the final, in Antrim’s first game. Sure isn’t it not a wonder they don’t bother taking it seriously at all. Imagine Antrim heading down to Belleek in early May on an oul soggy pitch and meeting fifteen Fermanagh men blowing steam from their ears from training 200 consecutive days. Stranger things have happened and it’s worth the looking at.

Donegal and Tyrone did raise the spirits though when they contested the Lory Meagher final in Croke Park for teams that don’t really know the rules at all. It was a tremendous contest, spoiled only by the Limerick man beside me who said it was like watching the Primary Schools competition at half time in a big game. Whether it was or not, it was great seeing two Ulster teams clash the ash in Croke park for a trophy although the Tyrone folk are hard enough to stick winning the odd Sam without having other reasons to boast. In club hurling the St Gall’s lads reaffirmed their own belief that they’re superstars wading through the mediocrity of Antrim GAA in both codes. An All-Ireland title at Intermediate level almost sat alongside the senior football gong. An inability and reluctance to walk down the Falls Rd almost befell supporters of the Johnnies, Rossa and Pauls if that scenario had succeeded. Dunloy earned the right to lose an All-Ireland Semi-Final the following February after an heroic extra-time defeat in all likelihood.

As you can see, 2009 wasn’t all that inspiring and we feared what 2010 would bring. However, there are always the positives. 102 years ago, in 1910, the Ulster Champions were drawn to meet a Glasgow team made up of Irish ex-pats. This was a chance for Antrim to get the cobwebs out of the road before taking on Dublin in the semis. Glasgow won, 1-13 to 0-7, in Belfast. So if you think things were bad now, progress has undoubtedly been made since that fateful day along the banks of the Lagan a century ago. Let’s not end on a negative note. When Antrim reached the 1943 All-Ireland Final, the Antrim captain Jimmy Walsh presented some butter to the Cork captain Mick Kennefick, who handed over a quantity of tea to his northern counterpart. Maybe we need to assess what was the reason for Antrim’s lofty standing then. Generosity. Why not offer Shefflin a Belfast Bap next year before the start? 2012. Loughgeil. We salute you.

Soldiers Are We?

For the last number of weeks I have been trying to get to the bottom of The Great Anthem Debate. For those in the dark, what follows is a short description of the dilemma sweeping stands up and down the country this Summer. There was a time when the anthem meant a great deal. It was an expression of culture and identity, hearing it on the television before Kerry gave some Ulster county an unmerciful hiding during the 70s and 80s. Or maybe you attended your own county final and the County Board wheeled out a dozen oul fellows from the area, stuck kilts on them and told them to splutter and wheeze their way though Amhrán na bhFiann on the pipes. It may have been impossible to make it out but you were all in it together and sure there was no one recording it to play it back and embarrass the lads. It was a novelty back then and we appreciated its value.

Although it’s not a popular view to promote, someone has to call a stop to what the pre-match rendition has become in the 21st century. The current run of things is this: the players go through their elaborate warm up routines as the crowds slowly stagger in from the local hostelries about fifteen minutes before the ball is thrown in. The players then make their way behind St Michael’s band or some other collection of talent musicians as they parade three-quarters of the field as supporters let out yelps of encouragement for their heroes. The atmosphere is now as close to electric as it can be. Hush descends over the ground as we prepare for the National Anthem, hopefully whipping the Gael into a manic frenzy. Within fifteen seconds, all that energy that the occasion has created over the preceding hour has disintegrated, sapped by the modern ‘done thing’.

More often than not it’s some young female teenager who has a great chanter. She has probably cleaned up at the Scór na nÓg and sings at the chapel every Sunday. That’s why it’s frowned upon to comment on this phenomenon. You don’t want to hurt the young vocalist’s feelings. After all it is not her fault. She has been asked to do it by some eejit on the provincial council who thinks that this is the way to go now. Or, as I suspect, he carefully handpicks these cailini in order to dampen any threat of things boiling over with passion on the terraces and a few digs being dished out amongst opposing fans. Well, fair play to him if it is for that reason; it works.

The young lass will only have managed the first dozen words or so, or two bars, and a minute will have passed. You sometimes expect pallbearers and a funeral hearse to make its way onto the field. Even the most excitable and half-drunken fanatic is now slowly losing the will to stand up. There’s no accompanying music, no dramatic drum beat, no tears flowing down the cheeks of some player’s mother. On the other hand, with three minutes having lapsed and she still hasn’t reached ‘Anocht a théam sa bhearna bhaoil’, some supporters are contorting their faces into scary formations with others momentarily forgetting why they are here in the first place. Your eyes begin to water, not with emotion, but because you’ve been staring at the tricolour for nearly five minutes now and the sky is cutting the lining out of your eyeballs.

Players start to stiffen, standing still after such a vigorous preparation. Nowadays they ignore the anthem and launch into press-ups, stretches and manic scratching of their lower regions. The whole affair is a torture now. More often or not the sound of the lady’s voice is completely lost in the wind as she has been made to stand on the pitch on top of a crate with a fierce breeze behind her. I was at a game lately when nothing was heard at all. We stood there for 15 minutes staring at the flag, not knowing that the singer had been red up five minutes earlier and was already in the crowd staring at the flag because everyone else was.

I’m not getting at the singers, nor am I calling for a new anthem. What needs to be done is simple. Get a pipe band or even St Michael’s themselves who do a great job entertaining the early birds in the stands. They play the thing at a decent tempo whilst the blood is still furiously swirling its way around the beery veins of supporters on both sides. It sets the tone for the players to go hell for leather in the opening plays. Now they’re that numb from the death march they’ve just endured that they take 5-10 minutes to stir from the semi-slumber.

I know what the Ulster Council are at. There’s no chance of a slap or two coming from the crowd if the young girls continue to suck the devilment dry before throw-in. It’s like some kind of anti-craic drug in order to sedate the excitable. Yet they’re doing us a disservice. Billy Connolly used to joke that the English had the worst anthem on the planet for creating any kind of fist-thumping motivation before a sporting event and that they’d win nothing until it was changed. We’re not at that stage yet but it’s becoming a painful experience. I’d rather see the whole joint bulging at the eyeballs with foam gathering around the chin than cross-eyed staring at the sky. We could learn alot from the Koreans during the World Cup.

Club Matters

Sometimes we need to stand back and appreciate the smaller things in life. At this time of the year it’s easy to get wrapped up in Monaghan and Kildare and Derrytresk and the things that make the back pages of the publishing media or on the television. Even the wireless is full of phone-ins about Tomas O’Se’s knees and Junior football’s future. It’s at this time that I feel sorry for the small-time club footballer who’s toiling away two times per week training and then playing a match at the weekend with the majority of spectators yapping away about the match that was on the TV earlier. We forget about the average Dan club man. Yet not all clubs allow themselves to sift into the background whilst the better players get all the column inches.

Any club I’ve managed to turn around spectacularly didn’t subscribe to this star-gazing trait. I’ve always been aware of the lads who make this club what they are and the community who keep the pound in the meter. I’d be a fan of putting on all-dancing sports days and parish club tournaments at the same time as big games on the TV to test the loyalty of the parishioners and to be fair they always come good though many just sit in the bar watching the big game. I’d prefer that they’re spending their beer money in the clubroom than giving it to the off-licence. All clubs can do this and should. If they need help in setting up this type of attraction they can contact me through the boys that get paid in this publication.

However, a word of warning: because county boards are too concerned about feeding, dressing and fawning over their county players and management team, you tend to find they pay less attention to what is going on at club level, especially when it comes to discipline and sanctions. I should know. In 1979 I was in the process of re-energizing a small club in the foot of the Sperrins in county Derry. I was doing a great job and we were able to field 2-3 teams at senior and reserve level. As was my wont, I organised a sports day for the club during the height of the inter-county season to keep the parishioners focussed on what really matters. I invited three other clubs close to us including Bellaghy and Dungiven who would all play each other in a light-hearted tournament. I also organised bouncy castles, bare-knuckled boxing, bale-throwing, Irish Dancing, shooting, fishing, running, wife-carrying and laughing competitions to keep everyone interested in some form or another.

I was vaguely aware that Dungiven and Bellaghy had played out a rather fractious championship that had 6 men lined, a mass brawl at the end and a local pub had been burned that night. I was sure though that with the casual nature of the occasion it would pass off peacefully and maybe even lead to reconciliation after a few beers later on. As it was, those same teams were due to commence the whole day’s festivities with a 15-minute each way match. The weather was glorious and I was a tad emotional when cars with registrations from Donegal and even Down arrived in their throngs. I saw one Tyrone car with 15 children crammed into the back of it, all with excited smiles on their faces at the prospect of a day’s jollification. The bales, boxing ring and bouncy castles were all glimmering majestically in the sun as everyone waited for the throw-in by the local PP. I’d guessed there was about 10’000 there and this was the day that the All-Ireland semi-final was on the TV. I’d done it again.

Unfortunately, that moment when the ball was at its highest point in the sky during the throw in was as good as it got. By the time the ball had started to descend mayhem had broken out on the field. All thirty players were engaged in an all-out war with their opponent. Some players produced weapons they’d crudely made, from under their trunks. It was like a picture you’d see in a gallery depicting some old battle in 1588. Women covered the eyes of their children. The majority of spectators stood open jawed at the carnage. All of a sudden six carloads of priests screeched around the bend and right onto the field. I’d never seen so many clergy in one spot before. They flailed holy water around the park and a few engaged in the rosary. One frocked fellow actually threw a few digs himself. Shortly two busses full of cops arrived and arrested as many of those in attendance as they could, including some innocent female bystanders and their children.

That day still haunts me and my judgement of participants for the fun day was a grave error. Derry football is known for its toughness but the depth of their grudges is something that I wasn’t prepared for. I just remember that carful of 16 children leave the field with one of the young lads saying, ‘Daddy, why was the priest hitting the number 10 with a cudgel?” That was not the impression of the GAA I was trying to promote. That night I packed up and walked off into the sunset towards Toome.

So, I implore all club chairmen to earn their crust and promote the club during this period of admiring the elite. Just be careful though that you choose your participants with a little more foresight that I did.

Yellow Mellow

Hard to believe it but we’re on the cusp of another championship season. This weekend sees Armagh and Derry square up above the Sperrins. History has shown that the first year of a new decade usually ushers in a new era for football up in this part of the world. Hurling also appears to take on a new shape going by the record books. I’m long enough in the tooth to be able to make sense of these traits and confidently predict the latest trends in both codes.

In terms of hurling up here, a new decade raises its head in dramatic fashion. The first Ulster hurling championship was played in 1900 when Antrim won it, creating a fairly repetitive scenario for the next 110 years. I wasn’t exactly born at that time although records are sketchy. However, if you look at the annals of Ulster hurling you’ll see that Antrim won it against nobody in the final. This tallies well with my father’s tale regarding the Bicycle Thief of 1900. His story concerned the formidable Derry side in that inaugural year. They had beaten all opposition in friendly games before wiping the floor with Down and Armagh in the Ulster championship. Many had tipped them for All-Ireland glory. Legend has it that they set off for the final in Maghery on the morning of the game by bicycle, all fifteen players. Having stopped off in Cookstown for a swift stout, they returned to their bikes only to find they’d all been nicked. Two days later a bicycle firm set up new offices in Antrim town and are still in operation today. I’m not connecting the two but it’s hard not to. Derry never did make it to the final and three of the players set up permanent home in Cookstown that night.

Fast forward 100 years and Derry finally got their revenge in 2000 with a victory over Antrim, their first title since 1908. That day I’m told that a couple of the Downeys plastered the Antrim changing rooms in bicycle parts before the game in an attempt to out-psych their opponents and to remind them that they hadn’t forgot. It worked and Derry won by a point. 100 years ago Donegal made the Ulster Hurling final. I predict Armagh will upset the applecart and reach the Ulster final this year. It would be in their interest to stay overnight in Belfast, just in case.

In football, the fresh decade has often heralded a new era. 1960 saw the Down team take the province by storm. Although they broke the back of it in 1959, the following year saw the Mourne lads lift every bit of silverware going and leave their swagger on the national map, something that has never really gone away. Paddy Doherty had probably been telling the country how good they were long before that and half a century later, he’s still at it. 1970 saw Derry return to the big time when they won only their second title when they beat Antrim in the final. The Saffrons never made it back until last year. The 1970 title began Derry’s most successful decade, reaching the final five times. Eamon Coleman won his only Ulster Senior Championship medal that year. Unconfirmed, it is rumoured that Coleman wound up the Antrim lads something shocking that year with repeated references to the bicycle thief of 1900. One Antrim player told me at the time that Eamon kept whispering to him throughout the game, ’ye wudn’t give me wan of yer spare tyres ye hefty clift’ in addition to other cycling references.

1980 saw Armagh re-emerge onto the big stage in Clones. With the ’77 run regarded as a fluke, 1980 confirmed that they were a serious bunch. They’d reach four of the first five provincial finals that decade. The most remarkable occurrence for me as a successful journalist was monitoring the changing shape of Joe Kernan’s shirt. In ’80 it was a tight enough fit but covered his frame adequately. With the likes of Joe McNally, Jimmy Keaveney and Eoin Liston about, his physique wasn't overly unusual. In 1982, when they defeated a gallant Fermanagh, there is no doubt in my mind that something which affected the Fermanagh game plan was seeing Kernan storm down the field with his belly button in full flow. The McGuigan final in 1984 was the final straw. At one point he contested a kick out with Frank and his jersey rode as high as just below his chest area, as in a tank top or bikini. Remarkably, it stayed there the rest of the game.

1990 ushered in the Donegal era. They won it that year and went on to reach the final every year for the first four years, winning Sam along the way. A remarkable fact was that they never scored a goal in each of those finals. Even in 1989, they played Tyrone twice in the final, both goalless attempts for McEniff. 1998 final against Derry – no goals for the O’Donnell men. Now, I’m not one to poke fun at any county but I have it on good authority that the good people of Donegal actually believed goals were cursed back then such was the close link to soccer. They’d already lost Packie Bonner to that game by then and Shay Given was about to head across the water. The county board reckoned that brainwashing the Donegal youngster into thinking that goals don’t count would prevent any young fellow from wanting to become a goalkeeper. It makes their Sam Maguire an even more remarkable feat, scoring 0-18 in the final of course.

The year 2000 confirmed that Armagh were the real deal. They blitzed their way though that decade, with Tyrone picking up the scraps when the Orchard needed a breather. It wasn’t lost on me that Kernan, of the 80s rising top vintage, brought in skin tight tops to prevent the same inglorious development befalling the likes of Bellew or Aidan O’Rourke. In 2000 they should’ve defeated Kerry but saved their juice for a bigger occasion two years later.

So, throwing all that in the mix, 2012 is destined to herald a new force. All roads point to Antrim. In ’50, ’60, ’90 and ’00 the team that lifted the title paved the way with an historic breakthrough of some sort the previous year. Last year Antrim dared to contest the final. Lump the house on the Saffrons. The editor will refund any beaten dockets.

THE MAKING OF THE MAN

It has taken a quiet week on the football front to allow me to answer the bagful of requests out there. I’m not one for emailing or writing letters but it’s only right that fans and suitors get the low-down on what makes a man like me tick. I read recently that Brian Cody and Mickey Harte are to write their autobiographies, adding to those of McConville, O’Muircheartaigh and O’Connor. I won’t be following their lead as there are stories that need never be told for fear of repercussion before I hit the long stay in the turf. Yet, in order to satisfy the masses, I shall outline the major influences and incidents that made the man.

As a youngster growing up in one of the most rural areas you could imagine, life was rather basic. Days were spent running after dogs around the fields, trying to woo clean-shaven women and dabbling in brewing. The local club, a junior side who hadn’t won silverware since their inception, survived on the amount of stout sold on a Saturday night. Everyone played for them but because of the lack of attractive women in the parish, there’d only be a few recruits to the side every year, leaving us with a team with players aged anything from 12-72. Although resources were stretched, it fostered a great sense of togetherness. It was probably playing with these lads in their 50s and 60s, still wearing long shorts and 9-inch nails hammered into their boots and history dripping from their pores, that instilled in me a great need to keep the games alive throughout the country and encouraged me to pass on the wisdom I unashamedly possess in barrels.

My own playing career was cut short after one prank too far. It was then the done thing for the captain to perform a daring task during his first year as the main man. When it was my turn as captain eventually, I thought it’d be deadly craic to tie a dead and festering trout to our manager’s saddle one night after training. Being pitch dark, he’d launch himself onto the bike before the smell would hit him. All things went to plan and the poor man leapt onto the saddle with the squelch of the fish and the roar of the boss amalgamated with the guffaws from my troops. Unfortunately the poor man contracted a little known disease called ‘Trout Arse’ and had to undergo months of treatment before he could even sit down again. I left the parish a couple of days later.

I spent the following years touring the province, collating old training methods and taking in as many games as possible, trying to implement as much as I could into my extensive managerial experiences. I watched with youthful intrigue as the great Burren side of the 80s would be put through their paces whilst having Mourne rock pelted at them by their trainers as they pounded up and down Slieve Donard. This taught me that you should only apply methods after carefully gauging your players’ temperaments. I had a short stint around that time in charge of an illustrious club on the Derry shore of Lough Neagh. During my first session I decided to utilise the local produces and rained eels, worms and turf at my players as they sat in the changing rooms before my first session. Within ten minutes I had been stripped naked and thrown into the Lough. I now admit that those men were of a different breed to the lads of Burren. That’s why Joe Kernan and Mickey Harte employed different strategies. Could you imagine Bellew’s face if Joe had asked Francie to pick his song for the team bus CD? It was my first lesson and has stood to me, and other managers no doubt, since.

It wasn’t all trial and error though. Sometimes in order to get to the position I’m in now you need a wee bit of luck. I was on a bus-top tour of Dublin one summer’s day with a widow I had befriended from Latvia. I couldn’t really understand her after two months of courting so when we stopped off at the RTE studios I seized my chance and got ‘lost’ in one of their studios. Having dandered in to a live set, I was mistakenly assumed to be the script writer for the Sunday Game. Amazed that such a man existed, I was given two hours to come up with that day’s analysis for the night programme. I threw in a few light-hearted remarks about eating hats if Dooher won an All-Ireland, racing grannies in Kerry and arseboxing. Sure enough, the likes of O’Rourke, Spillane and Lyons were uttering my every word that night and getting well looked after for it. From that day I’ve continued to submit scripts for the nation’s consumption. Do you really think Joe Brolly or Kevin McStay know what a ‘system’ is or ‘diagonal balls’ are?

That small piece of luck with the Latvian has meant that I’m dining with the likes of Lyster and Morrisey more often than not, giving after-dinner speeches abroad whilst still holding onto the cloak of anonymity. We’d tell devilish stories about getting the pundits to read the most ridiculous lines from the autocue. Lyster would hold his sides laughing as I’d write another piece on how Dublin could take the big one this year, usually read out before a live game by O’Rourke.
So there you have it. You need that little bit of fortune to fall into your lap. If you can couple that with making horrible mistakes and learn from it, you’ll arrive somewhere near to being half the man I am. I hope that fills in a few gaps.

Fermanagh Pains

So words like chaos and upheaval are now being mentioned in the same breath as Fermanagh GAA. I usually have my ear to the ground on these things but Fermanagh tends to be off the radar for me recently. I was involved in an unsavoury incident a couple of years ago at the Enniskillen bus station which hasn’t been resolved so I have refused to set foot in the county for fear of burnings and a rising. It was just an honest mistake blown all out of proportion. I really did think it was green toilet roll for St Patrick’s Day, not a Fermanagh jersey. But all that is besides the point. Fermanagh is in a terrible state of chassis right now and having experienced manys a revolt in my time, I’m in a good position to advise on a resolution for everyone concerned.

From my understanding there appears to be some form of communication problem. The new management have their way of doing things. The players have been used to a different set up over previous years. Therein probably lies the collision. About twice a year I am faced with a similar scenario. I’d return from the fields only to find that what was once the kitchen is now the spare bathroom. The bedroom is the living room as so on. Herself will take a form of head stagger and swop rooms about. I react badly to change and would maybe not set foot in the house for a week or until there’s a dire need for a shower. After a while though you realise that it’s no big deal and accept the new regime.

A large section of the Fermanagh squad appear to have reacted badly to a change in circumstances and are refusing to return to base. Anyone who knows me will realise the side I’m going to take here. I have no time for the modern way of approaching the game. Sometimes I find myself getting emotional when I witness a player asking for a drink of water from the sidelines during a game. Water? In my time and that of many others water was rationed at home. In a big family, you drew up a rota for having a drink of water. Now, these players expect water in plastic bottles to be hauled at them by some water boy. Fortunately, I once saw Penrose drinking the water, spitting it out and washing his neck with it. I admired that and have it recorded in case I ever get a job in management again. That was resourcefulness.

I don’t want to create any more controversy. But there was one snippet of information that did reach my way during the week. I heard it on dubious authority that the initial ruckus was caused when a senior member of the Fermanagh squad kicked up a fuss that they were getting scrambled eggs for breakfast and not poached. Apparently under Charlie Mulgrew they were introduced to the idea that eggs could be poached. Two of the farmer players were rather concerned about this as they took it that the eggs had been poached from an unsuspecting farmer. When it was fully explained, poached eggs became the norm for pre-match get together. Malachy O’Rourke then proposed the idea of putting a dash of pepper on the poached eggs. Again, this was met with scepticism but after a couple of opinion leaders in the squad tried it and liked it, pepper on poached eggs was all the rage for two solid years, cooked for exactly two minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

I’m told that John O’Neill, like myself, isn’t a big fan of new-fangled ways of eating eggs, preferring the hard-boiled effort or, at a stretch, soft-boiled. He was told in no uncertain terms before he took the job that poached eggs with pepper were important to this squad. O’Neill took this as a bit of light-hearted humour and went with the boiled effort first day out. The reaction was monumental. Players refused to even look at the egg, with shell attached, on the plate. Next day, he tried the scrambled approach. Again, it was no-go. One lad from Lisnaskea ate it anyway but was unceremoniously emptied five times during the training game, which followed the scrambled egg standoff. O’Neill had a choice here: Give the players what they want or stand firm and put his mark on a new era for Fermanagh football. He could have gone one better and produced omelettes, coddled eggs or Chinese steamed eggs. However, being a man of tradition, he reverted to the boiled effort.

The rest is history and an on-going one at that. Fermanagh and egg-eating go way back to the time of the Maguires who believed that the English, “ne’re could stomach an Irish Gael wi’ egg in his blood”. It’s an unfortunate start to O’Neill’s tenure and it could unravel badly for the newcomer. Or there’s just that chink of light that time will heal the sense of loss and change on the players’ mindset. Maybe they need to do what I did and take long walks around the fields and ponder the great mysteries of the universe. Only then will the issues that caused the present chaos seem small and insignificant. Maybe O’Neill will back down and give way to this, on paper, small request. I wouldn’t. Ireland is watching.

All Aboard The Showboat

I know it’s frowned upon but I refuse to make any apologies for being repetitive. Many diehard Gaels shudder at the word ‘soccer’. It probably harks back to times when that sport was banned amongst members of the Association. Any GAA man or woman caught playing soccer was immediately barred from playing Gaelic Games. Even if you attended a match you were ostracised. A great Aunt of mine once courted an ex-soccer player from Wales. When word got out she was chased around the local playing fields by a herd of nuns with camogie sticks. I was in agreement with that ruling at the time as it preserved our national games at a time when England were winning World Cups on our TVs. However, to return to my opening gambit, we have to keep looking over our shoulders at what them boys are doing as they have a great knack of winning the attention wars of our teenagers. Just walk down Andersonstown and ask any random lad who their hero is.

Last year, one of these heroes scored an overhead kick. His name was Wayne Rooney. I understand that he has Irish origins, probably from Louth or Westmeath. The English, and Irish, media jumped all over this event and made a whole week of stories out of it. I went walking on the Tuesday morning and wiped my eyes again after I witnessed my 72-year old neighbour attempting several bicycle kicks in succession on her front lawn. She was missing the ball each time and in serious danger of breaking the hip so I turned on my heels before I heard the crack. That’s the power of the newspapers and TV. They took one average passage of play and magnified it so well that even pensioners had their grandchildren crossing balls for them before breakfast. It’s quite a powerful phenomenon, the media.

But yet again, the soccer has stolen a march on the hearts and minds of our future members. The key now is to respond immediately. I written before about the social networking side of promoting our younger stars and I’m glad to see a rash of new accounts. Now, it’s time to perform feats on the field that will be repeated ad nauseum on the news and discussed in every columnist’s weekly out-pourings. Almost six years ago Owen Mulligan won over a generation of potential soccerites with his double dummy against the Dubs in Croke Park. I remember that evening having a pint in my local and the barman dummied taking my order twice in an obvious nod to Mugsy’s moment of brilliance hours earlier. A week later the PP tried the same thing when dishing out the communion and winked at me after the third dummy, always trying to go one better. That’s the impact one piece of individualism can have on all generations.

A couple of years ago, Paddy Bradley toe-tapped the ball a few times without catching it in order to rile Tyrone who were well beaten at the time. It was a wonderful piece of showmanship which had all the young lads nattering afterwards and I’m sure practicing it at some stage that evening with golf balls in Down or spuds in Fermanagh. Yet those incidents are few and far between and even when they happen we appear to be embarrassed by it, like as if a wee bit of talent means you’re an incurable show-off. We’re more likely to verbally abuse anyone who tries something different.

That needs to change, starting this weekend. Steven McDonnell is a fine footballer. For a while he used to point to his number on the back of his shirt when he scored a goal. The Armagh fans weren’t too sure what to make of that and when the Killeavy man went through a barren spell, they let rip on him. It’s in our nature to want to see the man who’s a bit different fall from grace. That’s driving our young lads away. They’re allowed to have any manner of haircut, piercings, tattoos or clothes but as soon as he pulls on the jersey he must revert to being some type of 1950s modest gentleman. Enough’s enough. McDonnell, you’re the man who can start a trend. During the NFL, when Charlie Vernon plays the ball in from the left for you to catch, turn and shoot, don’t do it. Gauge the flight of the ball and head it in, soaring through the cold February air at full pelt.

Quigley of Fermanagh – you have the capacity to be a cult hero. Division four is the place to try things a bit risky and get away with it. Round the keeper, round him again, drop the ball and back-heel it in, moon-walking in celebration. It’s time to turn the collar up and ride the initial scathing criticism from the crowd. We need GAA scores on YouTube, being viewed by families in Cambodia or Greenland. Let’s be honest, a Marty Penrose free from the 21 hardly stirs the blood. It’d be more in Penrose’s line to score a decent point from play and from his socks pull a water pistol, spraying the management in jubilation.

Rooney has shown us the way. Let us not sit back and gaze at his supposed wonderment in papers and on the television. We can outdo a boy like that with a bit of planning and youthful bravery.