The Long Stretch

It looks like we’ve turned the corner for the current year. When you get to the age I am you look upon experiencing The Long Stretch in the evening as an achievement. The cold hard winter just past was one of the worst I’ve experienced in terms of basic survival. On a couple of occasions it looked like my goose was cooked. After training a couple of squads undercover in December, given the ban on collective get-togethers, I’d return home to find the heat off because of frozen pipes or the wife’s forgetfulness. It got so bad one evening that by the time the stout left my glass and entered my mouth, it had frozen solid. We were barely lasting the night out on a few occasions. In order to survive it took cute thinking. I said to herself, what would a polar bear do as they seem to be content in the cold? We took it upon ourselves to not shave for a month and eat fish raw like the bear itself, no hands used. We survived. And no better sight than a hairy woman to keep the blood pumping around your veins.

The Long Stretch also allows managers to have a good, close look at their troops. By wearing multiple layers of clothes during the January training and the lack of showers in the changing rooms because of the frozen pipes, the boss doesn’t have the chance to see who has wintered well. From experience, you need to do that from the off; catch them on the hop. My first training session would see the lads strip naked and standing in front of me. Some were dubious about my intentions but it gave me a fool-proof assessment of who was eating like a gluttonous sow over the festive period. I’ve nothing against gorging on all manner of stuff over the off-season but it gives me a better insight into who needed a few more laps at the end of the first few sessions.

But my methods and techniques would have you up before the magistrate in today’s world. Asking a group of grown lads to strip to the bone seems to be frowned upon now. That makes the job of the trainer a doubly hard one. It’s only when they pull on their match day jersey that managers get to see if the 36 lb turkey was eaten, bones and all, during Christmas week. Last week’s televised Monaghan and Tyrone game was a case in point. I’m sure McEnaney couldn’t believe his eyes when his side kicked about before the game. A couple of his charges looked like they devoured a weighty relative or two as a Christmas party dare. Mickey didn’t get off lightly too. I wouldn’t be one for looking at players’ arses but a couple of his old hands had backsides on them that wouldn’t look out of place at a Weightwatcher’s convention.

Boys like Corkery and McGonigle had a naturally beefy structure to them, no matter how hard they trained. But these lads were exceptionally talented and that compensated for the excess luggage. The vast majority of us are hindered by it. That’s why the long stretch in the evening lays bare the secret they’ve been hiding over the last couple of months. The showers are hot and there’s no need for the extra layers of clothing on the field. Shaming the players who didn’t admit to the extra indulgence since October was a common tactic in my day. My brother suffered for his sins one season, having loaded on 3 stone in two months. When his belly fell out over his trunks during a bout of sit ups, our manager acted with the speed of a bullfrog’s tongue. He got the brother to stand against the wire mesh, tied him to a pole and told the rest of us to tease him with ‘fatso’, ‘gulpen-head and ‘three-bellies’. He then brought out a selection of cakes and creamy buns and told us to feast on them with gusto in front of his very eyes. The mental torture was unbearable, even to watch, and from that moment on, the ‘long stretch’ was feared by every man who had let himself go over the winter.

As well as the weighty issue described above, the longer nights put paid to the soap-watching. As soon as the clocks go forward, you’d kiss goodbye to a twice-weekly doses of Fair City or Emmerdale. You started later and finished later. I once caught a goalkeeper of mine who had been sneaking a miniature black and white portable and chargeable TV into the back of the net. He’d been getting away with it for a couple of months until Dirty Den met his maker in a whodunit affair. Unable to bear the suspense, he refused to take a kick out until the episode had finished. There are some boys who suffer withdrawal symptoms from the TV worse than the drink or smoking. They’d become accustomed to slouching down on the settee over yuletide every evening and taking in the goings-on in Albert Square or Ballykissangel.

So you’d understand why manys a club player doesn’t share in your enthusiastic embracement of The Long Stretch. It might mean a bit of extra gardening or throwing the children outside for an hour or two for you, but for the reserve left-corner back, it signals a physical humiliation in the shower and going cold turkey on the box in the corner of the living room at the same time. Bear that in mind the next time you make fish-supper remarks directed at the burly corner-forward.