Take A Break

Times have definitely changed. You only have to avail of newspaper archives to understand the peculiarities of a few decades ago. I was browsing one such organ and came across a story about a man who was jailed for kicking a dog. On the other side of the page, another man had been arrested for ‘roaring his head off’, in Greencastle. There have also been some peculiar rules in the GAA. A good few years ago you might have scored 0-20 with the opposition scoring 1-0 and they won. That was simply because at one time games were decided on the amount of goals scored, with points only counting if that was equal. Another was the red card rule in December and January in that you could get the line as often as you wanted then and there’d be no further punishment. I remember looking forward to games at that time of the year knowing that you could take the head off anyone without fear of discipline. Matches at that time of the year were great score settlers. Men were decapitated before the ball was even thrown up. Thousands would flock to see mass brawls between parishes. But it was part of the game, all within the rules supposedly.

Not all of the oddities within the general rulebook of the GAA have been addressed. One such bizarre regulation is the ruling regarding the training of sides in December. Apparently there should be no get-togethers on the field of play for any squad. They’re prepared to have back doors, front doors, cups, inter-provincials, club competitions for every level, U10, U11, U12, U13 and so on throughout the season, but under no circumstances should there be any laps done in December. Have you ever heard the like?

Last year I was contacted by a high profile inter-county manager who was sweating about the season ahead. In 2008 they had underachieved slightly and he was keen to have a head start on the chasing pack by getting a few fitness and bonding activities out of the way before Christmas. He gathered his troops in Mid-Ulster for a one-hour lapping session. Within two minutes a car load of Ulster officials landed on the field and chased them. It was clear then that The Powers are randomly roaming the streets and backroads of Ulster every day looking for anyone who is breaking the rule. It’s cat and mouse time.

I had to think on my feet. I knew that one of the national papers had advertised a drive-in cinema whereby punters simply drove there in their motors and watched the picture. Soon myself and the manager in question were thinking along the same lines. He advertised a drive-in at a farm in the remotest of locations although he made sure all his squad knew about it. In the meantime, he put together a motivational film for his men, with tactics and training regimes discussed in great details, to be shown on the big screen. On the day of the viewing things seemed to be going to plan as the projector was set-up against the gable wall and the first few motors arrived, all members of his squad. Soon things turned pear-shaped. Word had got out about the venture and all manner of farmer attended in their Masseys, Combines and horse. They then caused havoc when it dawned on them that this film wasn’t all that good and soon started hurling abuse and manure at the screen, eventually smashing the projector in an ether-fuelled frenzy.

After that disaster, I concocted another plan. I had once read about a teacher in the 1700s educating his pupils in the fields of Donegal whilst picking spuds. The pupils just stood around in the drills listening to him speak Latin and learning it that way. Well, the county I was dealing with had bogs a-plenty and in no time the boss had his side out in mid-December cutting and stooling the turf. It was a tough number as the ground was rather frozen as the spades rattled their bones every time they made contact with the bog. All the while, the manager rallied his troops with tactics and motivational speeches for the coming year. Unfortunately, conditions worsened and three men were laid down with the frost bite and another got stuck in a half-frozen sheugh. Before long, the officials were on the scene, probably tipped off by a rival county’s housewife.

Further schemes were invented: Meeting upstairs in the gallery during Mass; running around the church during Mass; training at midnight with no floodlights; dressing up as women and pretending they were just happy girls skipping around a field with gay abandon – all ideas were attempted at least once. However, every time that car load of Ulster Officials would land within minutes to spoil the party. You have to give it to the Ulster Council. When they are given a directive, they carry it out to its extremity.

It then dawned on me that perhaps the Council were right after all. December is a time for family, for rest and for attending dinner dances, getting full and taking part in fist fights afterwards or menacing stick-wielding battles. Years ago, men and women used to get nicked for ‘roaring their head off’ at this time of the year and not worrying about running around a field 12 months a year. What have we become if we’re thinking about 2010 before the year that’s in it has been properly celebrated and reviewed. Take a break, lads, and kick a dog.

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.

Leave The Kids Alone

I was talking to a boy who was on his way to the gym earlier in the week. He was a well-known inter-county footballer from Derry and not fond of referees. I enquired as to why he was bothering with something like a gym when this time of year is for resting up after a long season from the year gone by. I can remember from my own playing days that no one ever trained from late August until the following Easter. By the time the end of the summer had arrived, your club was either out of the running for any silverware that there was no point in running around a field twenty times on a Wednesday night, or they were playing enough league and Championship games to keep you naturally fit anyway. Training was only for the early part of the season to trim down the belly and get the lungs at full capacity. Teams still won All-Irelands and county championships back then so it must have been an alright strategy.

Nowadays the pressure is on young lads to train eleven months in the year. The player I was talking to said his individual training was vital as if he didn’t do it, the management would know. He said they take a blood sample, urine sample, hair sample and a photograph of you naked to make sure you’re alcohol and drug free as well as toning up your body. That’s a world gone crazy. I’m led to believe that Canavan is a great man for the drink abstinence of his players at Errigal. I’d say the same boy was living it up rightly in his early twenties running around Omagh or Cookstown at the weekend. These middle-aged managers are some craic, forcing some kind of Chinese military regime on their players when they themselves were half cut at throw-in.

What has happened to the carefree days of seeing how many cowboy suppers you could fit in, in a week, without piling on the weight? It was some feat, back in the day, finding a balance between calorie and alcohol consumption without the manager suspecting an over-indulgence. I know of a few players on the great Monaghan team of the 80s who had the diet of some kind of American Texan oil baron and still managed to make the weight on any given Sunday. I’m told that nowadays that personal gym training you have to do in January is a litmus test for modern managers. They apparently attend secret training sessions that inform them of how to read eye and body language to spot the spoofers in the camp.

I’m also led to believe that Baker Bradley can look at a man from ten paces and tell if he carried out his two-dozen bench presses within the last 24 hours. The likes of Bradley, O’Rourke and McCartan are as good as the mind-readers you get on the television. It’s the first think county boards look at before they appoint a manager; do they have supernatural powers. Chancers haven’t a hope of hoodwinking these lads. I don’t know how true this is but apparently Mickey Moran used to condemn anyone caught neglecting their personal training to his Room of Shame. In there, he’d tie the spoofer to a chair and encourage the locals to berate him with insults regarding his playing ability, manhood and family history dating back centuries. Muldoon subsequently never missed a gym session til Moran headed off to Mayo.

But that’s the way things are and rarely to sports revert back to how it used to be. The fear is that things get worse in terms of preparation and what is expected of our young playing members. I hope we don’t suck the individuality out of them. I fully understand the need to self-assess and improve though. Take the Gaelic Life newspaper for example. It is roundly viewed as a good read on a weekly basis. But editor Bogue should maybe be looking at how to move it to a level of greatness. And how to you do that? – monitor his team. Bench presses and the like are no use to pen-pushers but abstinence from harmful substances can clear the mind and help create moments of great clarity and insight. It wouldn’t be an altogether ridiculous idea to perhaps invest in some kind of physical assessment on a Monday morning with the threat of disciplinary action hanging over their weekend activities. I’d include Brolly, Devenney and Burns in that although the Mullaghbawn man will be a hard one to nail He’s keeping his nose clean for bigger fish. You wouldn’t catch him making disparaging remarks about female lineswomen. There’s a skeleton there somewhere, we all have them, but it’ll take a bit of digging to reel Burns in.

But you see what I’m getting at. Our young lads are often criticised in the media for being self-obsessed, lazy and mannerless. Little do you know what discipline they possess in order to earn a starting jersey every Sunday at all club levels. Whilst you have the Loup’s full forward running a lonely 10k on a Saturday morning for the love of a game, Ronan Scott is ordering a Variety Meal from KFC to soak up his hangover before driving to Keady to watch a MacRory match on soft seat thinking about his hourly wage. There’s something wrong there.

Waltzing Matilda

I think the Australians get a raw deal. You get the feeling that the resentment many hold towards that great nation is the result of two things. Firstly, the fact that they have a Union Jack on their flag gets a few goats up as you know flags are deemed important in this part of the globe. Secondly, they live the lifestyle we all aspire to. They play something close to what we do in terms of a national sport, but do so in fine weather all year round. They’re better looking and are naturally stronger and fitter. We may harp on about the hardiness of a bog man or the stamina of a lad who dungs out the yard but these lads from Down Under are born like that before lifting a shovel. Let’s face it – we’re fairly jealous of our cousins from the southern hemisphere even though many of them were rogue ancestors of our own, sent down on a boat for being a bit of an eejit.

I speak with authority here on this subject. It’s not a period of my life that I’m overly proud of but it’s worth the telling if it makes the average yokel change their views on the Aussie nation. Back in 1959 the convict boats were still in use even though it wasn’t common knowledge. The Irish Government turned a blind eye to the Guards turfing a few lads onto a prison ship and pointing it in the direction of Circular Quay. I had been playing a bit of Rugby in Blackrock at the time and living the life of a handsome bachelor. Unfortunately I feel in with a middlin crew and began to ape their mannerisms, turning my back on the hard-working Presbyterian ethos instilled in me by the Northern way.

Missing Mass soon turned into bad language. I togged out for Drumcondra GAC one Sunday morning as a ringer in the Dublin Championship and was torturing the Glasnevin full back with a torrent of verbal abuse in a strong northern twang. I’d never seen a man as intimidated. I was also probably one of the strongest men in Ireland at that time, having spent weeks honing my muscles outside the pubs of Dublin. My job was to lift inebriated women home up to four miles away. I was feared throughout the county and beyond. Unfortunately that sense of infallibility got to me completely and I embarked on a period of complete disregard for anyone I encountered in authority.

It all came to a head when I was lifted by the guards for stealing a bag of Greek spuds and apple tart from a small vendor outside Quinn’s, five minutes after the act. It was 8pm when I was taken. By midnight I was sailing.

I’d rather not go into the details of the journey apart from the fact that everyone on the boat had heard of by feats on the field and I won the bare knuckle competition as I had no willing opponents. By the time the ship docked in Australia , the locals had been well clued in about my arrival and before I had time to draw breath, two contracts were set before me by the now defunct Sydney Swallows and Perth Packers. That apple tart seemed to have awarded me with a ticket to fulfil the dreams of most red-blooded Irishman, getting paid abroad for playing a bit of ball.

The Swallows were my choice and I arrived bright and early next morning for the first training session of the season. The squad seemed a bit stand-offish at the start, perhaps afraid of my fearsome appearance and reputation. I was also quite confident having been the King Dick of Dublin County football for the previous season. To me, the Aussie game seemed a little easier what with points for wides and taking a breather for a few seconds every time I fielded the ball. I thought I would lord it.

In an unprecedented fall from grace, that notion of rugged Irish toughness outperforming beach-toned Australian muscle was shattered when the first ball came my way. I was unceremoniously flattened on the Australian grass with a gentle shoulder by the Swallows’ captain Brett Dinkum. For the next hour the hard man from Ireland was made fun of, humiliated and tortured by every member of his new club. Even the female physio cracked me a swift left-hander when I complained of double vision. I screamed a woman’s scream.

In order to save face and return some pride to the country and association I was representing, I decided to do a bit of slagging off the ball. My ‘your blade’s a glipe’ was met with blank stares. The level of sledging back then wasn’t what it is now. Those were more innocent days.

I never returned to the club and signed up to doing toilet duties at the Grand Opera House for the next three years. Mickey Harte has often lambasted our relationship with their game. He’s right. They’ll only expose us for the white-skinned, freckle-faced, jelly-legged sports men we are. Those fellas are serious. They haven’t wasted years toning useless muscles stooling in the mosses across Ireland . At the age of five they’re in the gym. All we can do is complain of their brutality whilst secretly harbouring a serious resentment that they have it all. Compare Kylie Minogue to Foster and Allen. Barbequed chicken to a plate of beans. Jason Akermanis to Colm Parkinson. I thought I was the GAA’s High King in 1959. Over there I was just a Joker.

2011 GAA Prospects

After years of campaigning, letter writing and general nuisance making, I finally received the call. When the letter arrived on Monday morning with the Dublin postmark I knew straight away that the men with the power had finally come to their senses. I have been given the position of general overseer of things in every county. They officially call me a trouble-shooter. My first remit is to sort out the footballing situation in Kilkenny with the target being a league point, or drawn game, in 2012. It’s a mighty task but one I’ve already begun looking into by finding jobs in the county for retired footballers from decent counties. The downside to this is that I have to leave aside all other GAA related business which includes this column so as not to compromise the secretive nature of my new career.

So as these are the last words I’ll compose for this fine organ, I thought it’d be in the best interests of our provincial hopefuls if I bluntly lay it on the line. Previous to this, I’ve had to hold my tongue as a negative reaction could harm the whole publication as well as endanger my being. Let us start with the Saffrons. This lot get my goat most of all. This is a county with an abundance of resources. Belfast is full of people. The glens of Antrim offer acres of fields to practice on. This county should be challenging Kerry and Kilkenny for the right to be labelled the Kingdom of Ireland. Yet what do they do with that space – open chip shops and fight amongst each other over the merits of city and country life. Baker Bradley looked like the man who’d sort that out and he did for a while. But rumours have surfed that the Glenullin man has succumbed to the delights of a steakette bap. It is a deep fried battered burger in a soft round bread roll. I have also been told he has started ‘slegging’ the city lads. It’s a great disappointment altogether and, in my new role, I would advise that the search needs to turn to a more fearsome character. Step up Martin Rogan.

Armagh I’m not so worried about. They’re slowly emerging from that permanent high under Joe Kernan. Armagh were always a once-a-decade team. Under Big Joe they were annual contenders, changing the mindset of the average Armagh supporter. They expected success and that didn’t sit well with me. There was something endearing about seeing old Armagh jerseys being pulled out from the attic when they’d win Ulster after a decade in the doldrums. Now, every Armagh fan has a new top. They boo when they lose and demand managerial change. Back in the day you could have managed the Orchard for twenty years, win one tournament and be labelled a legend. However, I feel the bad times are about to return and a sense of equilibrium will be established in the county. Nothing to be done here. As for Cavan, it’s a daunting task. I’d favour the Wexford model from the last few years who just got the ball to Mattie Forde and see how far he could take them. The same goes for Seanie Johnston. All Cavan needs is 14 hod carriers.

Derry need Baker. It’s as simple as that. Can you imagine the sons acting up? Could you even contemplate the Ballinderry players throwing a huff and sitting at home whilst the Oaks take on Laois in the league? Bradley used to prowl the lanes of Derry as a youngster, lord over all he viewed. It’d be like The Don returning to Milan after a 30-year exile to reclaim the old turf. Donegal may well be on the up under Jim McGuinness. I honestly hope he doesn’t attempt to change their natural ways in the process. There’s something unique about a team winning matches with no drinks ban. St Gall’s have shown it can be done in the modern era. If I’m posted out to the Hills of Dungloe I’ll be slipping the lads a dram after training.

Down are in fine fettle. This is a county we all manage to get behind unless you’re from the Orchard. Their feats in the 60s will always remain dear to those of a certain generation. Ulster needs a good Down team and under McCartan they should be about for another while. I’d leave this crowd untouched. Perhaps I would advice a form of anti-Australian ethnic cleansing in the county, as they seem to be a target for the Aussie Rules scouts. I suppose it is closer to Australia on the map. Fermanagh on the outside appear to be a county in turmoil. They’re not. It’s a clever ruse to keep the county on the back pages. That keeps the sponsors happy. Don’t forget, Fermanagh are barely a county. They’re doing alright.

Monaghan have never won the All-Ireland. They never will. I don’t think they really care either for a very obvious and understandable reason. In Wikipedia it says, “In 1930 Monaghan beat Kildare in a semi-final to reach the All-Ireland final, where Kerry beat them by 3-11 to 0-2 without their goalkeeper touching the ball.” Seriously, I’d advise the Farney Board to stay away from even attempting to compete in the All-Ireland final, as that stat will only be brought up in the build-up.

Finally, onto Tyrone. They would provide me with the most work. Phasing out the old hands needs careful management and whilst I acknowledge Harte’s ability to do so, it’s like a father cutting the lads out of a will. He grew up in adulthood with them. They provided him with the pride and pleasure you’d associate with a da. Harte simply cannot be asked to break the bad news. That’s where I’d come in. I’d call Dooher et al into a room and hand them a letter saying the game’s up. I’d integrate McMenamin into normal society.

Despite all the above, aren’t we, up here, in a better position than we experienced during the bleak 70s and 80s. Ulster GAA is healthy and although they lose this valuable tool, I still might come knocking. Good luck.

The Ulster Aristocrats

Isn’t it great to see Down in the All-Ireland final exactly fifty years after their first appearance in the final and their initial Sam Maguire? You’d think something like that is written in the stars or was just meant to be. There are a lot of superstitious people around the country who’d buy into this destiny theory. Well I don’t. It’s a load of codswallop. There’s no such thing. You either work hard to get there or you don’t. However, sometimes a little bit of fortune can go a long way. If James McCartan claims all the plaudits for winning this weekend, there’ll be one man massively upset at his scenario. That man is me.

I’m probably breaking some kind of unwritten gentleman’s agreement but if I hadn’t offered my services and advice to wee James this year then Benny Coulter would be lying on a beach in Portugal this weekend. You see, there was some hype over the 1960 team this year. They have been feted the length and breadth of the country since the start of the year. They’re bound to be at the point of exhaustion and maybe even cursing the day they won the damned thing. I’d say Sean O’Neill is desperately hoping that Marty Clarke and his troops win this weekend to take the focus off them for the rest of the year, before they keel over.

I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this but Wee James got a bit caught up in the whole 50 years craic and had a mad idea. I can see where he was coming from. In recent years Down had been getting further and further away from winning anything of note. Embarrassing defeats to Wicklow and their likes was a common way to end their championship year. They hadn’t even shown signs of winning an Ulster. McCartan knew that he was going to be given a couple of years at least to build a new team. However, his plan for 2010 was revealed to be by a close friend in the Down camp. James thought that, in order to honour the team of 1960, he would attempt to field as many of that side as possible during the championship.

Luckily my snake in the Down backroom team filmed a couple of training session James was putting the lads of ’60 though. He sent me the footage via the email. It was extremely hard to watch. Brian McIvor and Paddy Tally had these lads, some of them in their late 70s, doing bleep tests and repetitive press-ups. McIvor seemed to be taking great pleasure in telling Kevin Mussen that he was a ‘hape of dung’ and punishing Dan McCartan for a mistimed block by making him do a dozen laps of the field, which took him 4 hours to complete til 3am. James had arranged a challenge match for the ’60 team against the Abbey MacRory Cup team. It was a horrendous piece of footage. The final score of 8-29 to 0-2 in the Abbey’s favour only begins to describe the horror of the occasion. On nine occasions the ambulance was called for with more than half the Down side having collapsed with either exhaustion or suspected heart complaints, and that was in the first half.

McIvor decided that instead of subjecting Mussen and his men to national humiliation, they would just play two members of the team at corner forward in each game, rotating the players each time so that every member of the ’60 squad got a turn out at some stage. I have it on good authority that Joe Lennon and Paddy Doherty were in serious training for the Donegal game at the start of the campaign. He was then going to roll out Sean O’Neill and his da for the expected game against Tyrone. It was a suicide mission. Imagine what Ricey would be saying to O’Neill? After I got wind of this remarkable plan I jumped straight into the motor and after three days of solid negotiations I managed to convince McCartan to ditch the plan for the sake of the memory of 1960 and the general health of the players themselves. It was hard going. McIvor was reluctant to give in until I mentioned to him some made-up European law against cruelty to over-60s. He soon backed down. Tally was just laughing in the background at the whole shenanigans. I suspect he was behind the mad idea and was taking a hand out of the other two.

Well, it has all turned out for the best. Down now find themselves in the All-Ireland without the help of lads old enough to be their grandfathers. The ’60 squad have been able to attend the rash of celebratory occasions without the aid of wheelchairs, crutches and an individual breathing apparatus. I’m sure the media will hound Wee James after the game if the Mourne men are successful. They’ll be looking for words of wisdom from the latest GAA guru. Just remember, if you see a vacant look in his eye and a pause when asked how he had turned this underachieving side into the best in Ireland, be of no doubt who he’s thinking about.

College Skulduggery

On St Patrick’s Day most of the attention will be on Croke Park and Crossmaglen’s quest for another title. Or maybe you’re a hurling aficionado and will be cheering on Clarinbridge in the first match. But, for me, the crucial piece of action taking place that day will be played out in the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. For there, St Colman’s of Newry take on St. Patrick’s Dungannon to see who’ll lift the MacRory Cup and be labelled the best footballing college in the province. It all sounds a rather nice affair with families getting a day out watching their son or sibling play out another school game that will probably be forgotten about within six months. How wrong can you be? I’ll be casting a cold eye on proceedings, trying not to visit the old memories and haunted feelings I endured as a lad sitting through A Levels in the days when they were relatively difficult.

The school’s management team, despite starring for the county minors the previous summer, overlooked me. That was an unusual occurrence in any school. Anyone who could kick a ball straight gets on the school squad, a group usually numbering something like forty-five lads. Back in those days, parents turned a blind eye to the odd hammering from a teacher as long as the son got in the squad, especially for the photo on match days. It took me a long time to work this out. To get back to the first predicament, the reason I was overlooked for the MacRory side was simply a clash of interests. The manager taught Latin. Any lad who wanted a place on the side chose Latin for A Level. I was a man of my own mind and took on Woodwork, Greek Mythology and Sums.

As it turned out that year, the entire MacRory team were made up of lads who spoke of ‘post mortum’, ‘anno domini’ and ‘alma mater’ yet hadn’t a notion of how to add the scores up after a game. I accepted that injustice as there were plenty of other things to keep me interested at the time and there was no chance the school would ever win the thing anyway. However, that carefree attitude came back to bite me later in the year when I was rejected from every university I applied to, even though I was guaranteed fine grades. It didn’t take long for the penny to drop. One day in school, shortly after our boys exited the MacRory at the quarter-final stage, the big midfielder grunted to me that he’d been given a place in one of the top universities in Ulster, to study Law. Now, this wasn’t the cultured midfielder who could read a game before the first ball was thrown in. This was your plodder who barely moved form the middle of the field, grunted during games and was told before each half started what way he was playing.

Soon, players of similar ilk were full of joy at the news that they had been accepted into third level institutions onto high-class courses. What took the biscuit was when The Brain was celebrating his acceptance into the Study of Classical Arts course in Belfast, a most sought after place. The Brain was nick-named that so for two reasons. Firstly it was a term of affection. He had the tendency to score 0% in every exam. With lads being cruel at that age, he was labelled The Brain which he accepted readily, oblivious to the intended mockery. Secondly, his real name was Brian but on almost every piece of paper he signed, he misspelt it as Brain. The Brain never actually got any game time that season on the school team. He was simply there to intimidate the opposition whilst sitting on the bench. He had that look of ‘Lurch’ from the Adams Family.

It dawned on me eventually that having ‘MacRory Cup player’ written on your CV was your ticket to academic progression. Universities would fall over themselves to secure the services of anyone with supposed footballing pedigree as it kept the name of that house of learning in the national spotlight if their sporting teams did well. A few years later I attending the College All Stars awards and was shocked at the behind the scenes shenanigans that went on. University representatives offered all manner of shiny and glittering goodies to MacRory footballers in return for a decision to attend their institution. Watches, women and wealth were dangled.

I was foolish back then. If only I had taken on Latin and accepted the weekly beating from the maniacal Master, my MacRory team membership may well have led to greater riches. Instead, I sat back and worked tremendously to achieve modestly good grades, especially the B in Sums. Yet, the likes of The Brain was already secured a golden ticket despite turning up on the wrong day for each of his exams. I’m not bitter now and I’m sure times have changed. The lads on this year’s MacRory teams, I’m sure, don’t get the same privileges The Brain did. You couldn’t get away with it now. Whistle blowers have more confidence in the 21st Century. Yet, it’s hard for me not to look back and think of what might have been. Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis; it is best to endure what you cannot change.

Feck Sake Umpire

Another weekend and another controversy. Colm Cooper scored a point against the Dubs in Croke Park only it wasn’t. The umpire decided not to allow it for a reason only he knows to himself. Maybe the sun was in his eyes but sure it was February and the sun isn’t really all that taxing approaching the evening time. Perhaps he looked at Cooper and though a lad that slight couldn’t have possibly hit the ball that far. Only he knows. But as Jack O’Connor stated afterwards, enough is enough. Ireland’s not the laid back country it once was. In the past, such a dispute was resolved with a wink and a pint and forgotten about in the morning. All that changed eight years ago when Marsden got the line for chinning Jordan in the final. Before that, players like Paidi O’Se could go toe-to-toe swinging right hooks and at worse end up with a stern talking to by the ref. Now, the right thing is done it seems, that is unless it involves the men beside the posts.

What can be done about this? I have heard that they might change the coats that the umpires wear, bringing them more in line with the striped outfits you’d see our Australian cousins don for their games. How that will address their decision making is beyond me. I’ve heard of vertical stripes helping weighty people look slight less hefty but I’ve yet to hear of it rectifying chronically deteriorating eyesight. For when all is said and done isn’t that the problem here? The GAA are holding on to a tradition that sees them hire pensioners to gauge whether a ball has gone between two posts. It’s a well known yarn that just before Sludden awarded that goal for Meath against Louth last year, he threatened the umpire that he’d not give him his teeth back from the officials’ changing room unless he raised the green flag. It left the umpire perturbed and confused about the whole incident.

The major hindrance here though is surely eyesight. I’m not aware of one man or woman over the age of sixty who can drive a car without the aid of seeing glasses. What makes GAA headquarters think that the same men can see a white ball amongst the white clouds pass between two white posts? It’s lunacy and I cannot get my head around their persistence in employing officials in this age bracket. There has to be some kind of financial reason such as exemption from paying tax if they hire pensioners or maybe it cuts down on the catering bill as all those lads would want after a game is a cup of tea and a scone. No matter the reason, the advancement in technology means their persistent errors are highlighted with undeniable evidence.
Referees are given vigorous tests to see if they are fit enough to take charge of a game at any level, and rightly so. What examinations do umpires endure? I would excuse them from treadmill analysis or bleep tests but surely some form of eye examination is a must as well as the ability to make correct decisions and lift a flag. Some umpires might claim that the glare of the sky on their spectacles hinders their sight or that the rim of the glasses may cause them to misjudge the flight of a ball. They are good points and the GAA know they’d be in choppy waters if they discriminated against people with glasses. My solution is to look at Art McRory. He wore the thickest-lensed glasses ever seen on a man and never missed a trick, winning Ulster and league titles. It also gave him a menacingly wide-eyed look that offered him an advantage in any form of combat. I’d imagine that if Sludden had faced an umpire staring back at him with those type of glasses, Louth might well have been reigning Leinster champions today.

There are also the small binoculars that can be attached to glasses as well as tiny wipers for those drizzly days when the spectacles get streamed up. As well as that, I have a friend who works in a science factory in South America and he informs me he has been assigned by some GAA bigwig to investigate the use of an electric current that picks up any movement between the two posts. This volt then surges into the body of the umpire through a wire up their sleeve from the bottom of the post. The umpire will automatically jump slightly into the air and lean forward to pick up the flag. It has been tested twice on two Maned Wolves which ended tragically. The South American Maned Wolf is now an endangered species. The point is that moves are being made to do the best with what we have. The GAA know that ageism will be used against them if they begin to phase out the current batch of umpires. Be it thicker glasses, electric shocks or standing on scaffolding, something needs to be done soon before the crowd begin to turn on the defenceless old-timers.

I just cannot see how the striped jumpers will improve umpire performance. Stripes have often been associated with criminals or burglars. Maybe there’s more to that than meets the eye.