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.

Who'd Be A Manager

What qualities do you need in order to survive in the hellish world of modern inter-county management? A touch of hard-nosed insanity has to be present in their DNA, especially those who stick it out for over 12 months. Ulster in recent years has been a graveyard for newly-appointed managers. You only have to think of Brian McIvor, Paddy Crozier, Jody Gormley, Peter McDonnell and Ross Carr. Years ago, a manager was the last man you blamed. The likes of Art McCrory and Brian McEniff would’ve taken on the post as a youngster, only stepping down at retirement age. If things weren’t going well on the field, it was the players who faced the abuse and they couldn’t really hear it on the park. The manager was just there to make sure the best players in the county got there on time and togged out. Many a boss would’ve trawled the pubs at midday to get a couple of his key players sobered up for a game three hours later. Now, it’s the man on the sideline who faces the music first and foremost. It wouldn’t matter if you won Sam five years running as manager, if you had a mediocre year on the 6th attempt, they’ll be writing letters and hurling abuse at matches. It’s a lose-lose situation. Today, everyone needs a pantomime villain.

You get the odd strong character like Kernan, Boylan, O’Dwyer, McEniff or Harte who don’t give two hoots about what others say. But they’re the exception. Too many fellas, brave enough to take on the post, are left broken men after 2-3 years of honest yet thankless service. It’s time county boards took into consideration who they appoint into that position. Let’s be honest here. If there was a 5ft 5’’, 10 stone manager prancing up and down the sideline, you’re not going to fear him from behind the fence. You’ll get rid of your anger by directing a few expletives towards the defenceless cratur, knowing he’ll hardly leap over the fence looking for a bit of boxing. McEniff wouldn’t have lasted a month if he was just starting out in the management in the modern era. Kildare made the right move. I’d say McGeeney gets zero verbals from the lily-white faithful. Can you imagine how you’d feel if after shouting, ‘ah away back te Mullaghbawn ye nordie spanner’ as McGeeney stops dead and with the deathly precision of a sniper picks you out from the crowd with a thunderous stare. You’d be out of Newbridge before the sideline ball was taken. Add to that big Grimley hovering beside him just in case you were still breathing after Geezer’d finished mauling the loudmouth.

The Down and Armagh county boards had a big decision to make. Both counties possess a growing band of maniacal followers who will take nothing less than to win every game as remotely acceptable. If Armagh appoint the likes of a McEniff type character in stature, he’ll be gobbled up within minutes of the first throw in. Same with Down – I’d worry about the likes of Linden or a McComiskey-type build taking the reins in front of a baying pack or Mournemen. Big Greg McCartan and Francie Bellew are the lads in my book. Francie’d only have to innocently look in your direction and you’d get slightly nervous wondering can he read your thoughts.

In my final few years as a club player on the Donegal/Sligo border, we had a manager who recognised the road the game was taking. Despite being in charge of a hopeless group of players, the only 15 males in the parish, Big Jemmy was beginning to be on the receiving end of some terrible abuse. It wasn’t his fault that the goalkeeper had a glass eye, our wing half back was riddled with the consumption and two of our forwards were developing serious cases of in-turning legs. He still took flak from the men and women of the parish. After another mauling from our parish neighbours, he cracked after one ‘ye bollocks’ too many was aimed at him from behind the dugout. He jumped over the wall and flailed every punter in sight, even stretching out the visiting Canon from America. The locals thought it was great to see the man eventually crack but after the third consecutive match explosion from Jemmy, the comments soon ceased and gave way to mild applause and ‘hard luck son’.

On my retirement I asked Jemmy for any advice as I was thinking of heading into the coaching side of things. He told me to set my stall out first thing, never to take even one nasty personal comment from the crowd. Unfortunately I took his advice too stringently and laid out an elderly pensioner in my first match when she shouted, ‘I didn’t pay in to see that gobshite’. I should’ve looked around me and made a valued judgement instead of wading in with both fists a blur of frenzied action. It turned out the poor woman was talking about a streaker up the other side of the field. I was sacked before half time and took up the bagging turf.

But you get the general message. The modern supporter can size up a manager within sixty seconds of seeing him on the sideline. If you’ve had a bad day at work or herself had been giving off all morning, you know that all that frustration can be exorcised by a few gulders at the unfortunate man with the bib on. However, county boards can wipe that phenomenon out. Appoint the meanest men in the business and we can go back to barracking the corner forward with the red boots. He’ll not hear half of it on the field with his flowing blonde locks clogging up his earholes. And all is well again.

The Games That Mattered

A man of my experience and bottomless intellect doesn’t have it easy. Rare are the occasions when I can enjoy a quiet drink in my local, The Mongrel Calf, without a punter approaching me requesting a yarn regarding games of old, be it in the Polo Grounds or the time Iggy Jones lapped Croke Park three times without a glove touching him. Sometimes I take herself out to the pub with me but that normally ends up a disastrous decision. She loses the cool after my fourth or fifth tale and has been known to wreck the bar in a fit of temper. So, in order to avoid future publican’s bills, I have decided to summarise the games I am asked most about – my crème de la crème.

1982 Ulster Final

Armagh 0-10 Fermanagh 1-4

Not since Adolf called it quits had I witnessed the Erne County battle it out for Ulster’s finest trophy, the Anglo-Celt Cup. Herself was born in Tempo, growing up not knowing the English Language and washing the odd time. I educated her over the years and you can almost make her out now though she still prefers the grunting. Anyway, that year she was on a permanent high from May until July. Victories over Derry and Tyrone had propelled the Wet County into a Clones showdown with Armagh, a fearsome Orchard team with an eternally burly Kernan terrorising defences and Moriarty pulling the orange strings. That didn’t prevent herself from maintaining the blind faith. At night, amongst the unbearable snores, she’d be calling out “McGinnity ye boy ye” or “Keep’er lit Peter Greene”. Well, how else would a man feel hearing that? I wanted Fermanagh OUT. I didn’t want my amorous advances to be repelled with the likes of “Hasn’t Ciaran Campbell strappin’ arms” for the rest of the season. As we made the approach to Clones on Ulster Final day the mood couldn’t have been more strained. She was leaping about that morning like a child on Christmas day before the opening, whilst I prayed to Cardinal O’Fiach that if there was a God at all he’d be wanting the Cathedral City to win the damn thing. At 5 pm she cried in my arms, her dreams crushed by John Corvan. I kissed my orange scapula.

1960 First Round

Down 0-14 Antrim 1-4

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Saffron men, even though they broke my heart in 1912, losing to Louth in the All-Ireland final. I had 5d on them. Earlier in the year in 1960, I had watched Antrim blitz a poor Down team 5-17 to 0-3 in the Davidson Cup. I was spellbound. A youthful Sean McGourty, aged 22, ripped the Mourne defence apart that day, ably supported by a spritely yet deceptively tall Aodhan Hamill and the Albino-featured Jon MacManus. This forward line was unparalleled in my eyes, not since the days of the Breffni’s Mick Higgins, Peter Donohoe and Phil ‘The Gunner’ Brady had such an array of talent graced a playing-field in Ireland. Down, on the other hand, had a wayward Paddy Doherty, the lacklustre Kevin Mussen and the weak-link, Sean O’Neill. It was Saffron men against Mourne Boys. I shouted from the roof tops in all the local papers that this could be the biggest annihilation since The Battle of the Blackwater. I re-mortgaged the house and pre-spent on a holiday home in Maigh. A few of the neighbours trusted me, sold off a few organs and the like to lump it on the Saffrons at a tasty 3-1. Down were perhaps the worst side I had seen in my lifetime, I believed – incapable of stringing together 2-3 passes and completely unaware of the need to knock the ball over the opposing goalie’s crossbar for a score. They were lacking the basic skills a primary school child would possess. This was no contest and it was a matter of how many All-Ireland titles Antrim would want before they got bored of travelling to the capital. As it turned out a last minute goal prevented a 10-point embarrassment for the Saffrons. Down went on to win the All-Ireland. And the next year too. I never returned home that night. I never returned home again. Under the cover of darkness, I left Newry a poor man. She still brings it up around Cheltenham time, just in case.

1995 All-Ireland Final

Dublin 1-10 Tyrone 0-12

Fours years of Ulster success had made the province dizzy. Anything was possible. All nine counties were jockeying for position to see who would next step up to the winner’s podium. After maiden success for Derry and Donegal, and a couple more Sams for Down, Tyrone Gaels thought they’d have some of that. Being a Fermanagh woman, herself wasn’t overly fond of that idea. In fact she once yelled at the TV when Tyrone nailed the Erne county “ away a that a ye yiz wee leprechauned runts”. I suggested a tour of the O’Neill County in the week before the All-Ireland in order to soak in the atmosphere of expectation. Unfortunately I’d lost the licence the week previous due to a small incident of road rage when I encountered Sean McGourty walking and the memories of 1960 came flooding back. Herself had to drive me to Tyrone – and it put her in a foul mood. Parish after parish, pub after pub, from Moy to Strabane, we were met and greeted with obvious excitement and merriment, and this only made herself worse. Our last stop was Ballygawley to buy some buttermilk. Lo and behold, who was shopping in Centra only the man himself, Peter Canavan. He was purchasing Jocob’s cream Crackers and a tin of Spam. As he left I tapped the great man on the shoulder and said “ye’ll do it, Peter”. He smiled back. I was amazed when herself repeated my actions, but even more so when she said “llab eht luof uoy epoh” and turned herself around three times. Peter shrugged his shoulders and ran out of the shop. I just took it that her medication was wearing off. Another surprise was the fact that herself came with me and watched the match, in Croke Park, that following Sunday. Despite it being a poor spectacle Tyrone were in the ascendancy at the finish and it looked like the great man was going to fulfil my prophecy. Suddenly, as Peter approached the ball with a minute to go, herself got to her feet and uttered the same words she mouthed in the Centra in Ballygawley, “llab eht luof uoy epoh” and this time spun around repeatedly. Sean McLoughlin’s point was ruled out as Peter was adjudged to have committed a foul. I looked at her as she smiled a manic grin. I have never looked on her the same way again. She’s not as backward as I thought – or is she?