Women and GAA

They say behind every great man there is a great woman. We all know that’s codswallop. However, behind almost every great achievement or event down through history there has been a man or woman sitting in the background with a smirk on their lips, happily living in the obscure background whilst the figureheads take all the plaudits. I’m one of those unknown heroes. In 1980 I met Johnny Logan at Downings. He said to me as he left his caravan at the end of the summer, ‘another 12 months til we come back then’ with a forlorn expression. I shouted over, ‘sure what’s another year?’ The following year he lifted the Eurovision with that thought and the country went on to take another few titles after Logan had bravely led the way. When Ireland failed to make the finals of that song contest this year, my eyes watered at how the mighty had fallen and my part in making the home nation what it once was. Those feelings of regret returned last Sunday when I watched Dublin obliterate Antrim in the hurling. In my day if you saw a Dub with a hurl in his hands you phoned the guards.

Back in 1988 I was chasing a girl from Cushendall. She wasn’t the prettiest of blades but I once watched her dig out the founds of a sizable patio on her own with a thin shafted spade. How many wemen would even know what a spade is today? Anyway I won her affections when I entered the poc fada at the Glenariff Games and lifted the competition handsomely with a puck of 500 yards. Also watching the competition were the management of the Antrim hurling team who were about to embark on the 1989 Championship. That year the Ulster Hurling championship had been revived for the first time since 1949 after a 50 year gap. Antrim were a little bit nervous about this and when they witnessed me waltz to the Poc Fada title with arrogance to burn, it wasn’t long til they were plying me with porter in McCollum’s Bar trying to win my services for the year. No amount of stout could make me think I’m a hurler and when I finally convinced them I couldn’t run the length of myself they settled for a consultancy role.

When I attended the first training session at Casement Park I knew the size of the job ahead of me. I knew I could teach them how to shoot accurately from great distances but some players were so out of shape it could’ve passed for a darts throwing convention. I told the management I had a dietary qualification and set about compiling the day-to-day menus for each player. I kerb-crawled around the Antrim streets at night and if I caught a player exit a chip shop or off-licence I nicked them on the ear with an air rifle from the comfort of the Datsun Sunny. I also confessed to being a fitness guru and had the whole squad mowing the grass and cleaning the grave stones around Milltown Cemetery at night. I’d scare the bejaysus out of them by jumping out from behind the odd grave at midnight with nothing on me put a pair of briefs but this was all part of the conditioning plan. Within a month I had built a fearless, thin and fit group of players ready to take on Down in the Ulster Final. We won that game 2-16 to 0-9 but although the county rejoiced at such a convincing win I was unhappy.

On manys an occasion during the game a player in a better position didn’t receive the sliotar due to poor communication. Unlike Dublin last week, Antrim players hadn’t really cottoned on to using slang or nicknames for each other. During the Down match, players had been using their full names such as, ‘here, Olcan McFettridge, Terence McNaughton’s free to your left’. That was too much of a mouthful during the cut and thrust of a championship game so I came up with a few nicknames such as Sambo and the like. Before long it was all the craze in the schools and streets and Belfast hasn’t looked back since. A big worry before the Offaly game was the size of Croke Park and how they’d score points from distance as had been their forte to date since they copied my poc fada style. Again, the management turned to me before the game and asked for my advice such was my total success to date. I told them to forget about the points or shooting from the half way such was the length of the headquarters, just hit the net. For every time they goaled, I said, it’d be worth three long range efforts. In my mind that made sense, and the semi-final scoreline of 4-15 to 1-15 was a vindication of my methods and scope of thought. Whilst the player were feted and management interviewed by every publication in the country, I slipped off the radar. I ran away. It wasn’t because I was envious of the attention given to those above; it was a more heartbreaking issue that was a by-product of my involvement with the Antrim hurling team. My Cushendall spade woman had dumped me for a player from Ballycastle who also played on the Antrim team. She wanted the fame of being a player’s wife, not the girlfriend of the brains of the backroom team.

I packed up my belongings the night of the Offaly game and ran off to Carnlough where I worked undercover as a TV licence man over the next few weeks. I watched the All-Ireland Final as the Saffrons were humiliated by Tipperary from my bed-sit portable TV. I knew how to beat Tipp but I didn’t answer the calls as I couldn’t bring myself to watch the girl of my dreams cavort on the Croker turf with the left half forward.

Now, when I see Antrim fade like last Sunday against teams I would’ve had beaten in the changing rooms before the game with eye contact, I shed a tear. To see Sambo at the helm makes it worse. Never let the heart rule the head. Courting and hurling don’t mix. Sure it done for Cú Chulainn too.