Plight of a Kingdom doomed to conquer

Sideline Cut: It is hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for the loyal men and women of Kerry football as they brace themselves for what will almost certainly be another All-Ireland-winning season. The general verdict on this year's competition is that it is extremely hard to look past Kerry. And it is. It will be absolutely no surprise if Kerry prove to be the best footballers on earth this year, just as they did 33 times before.

But isn't that a kind of curse in its own right? It must be a very strange sensation, when consulting the calendar each January, to circle the two or three requisite weeks to prepare, celebrate and recover from an All-Ireland final triumph. Imagine it. February: Ma's birthday. June: Get Married. September: Win Sam Maguire, hooley, etc.

True, Mayo folk tend to subconsciously register three weeks of expurgation and loathing and tears for that time in autumn, but not in any official kind of way. They don't block book the Brandon or plan family reunions in Killarney; they merely head off up the side of Croagh Patrick with a vintage bottle of Irish and a copy of the match programme.

And most of us can relate to the Mayo folk. It is part of what endears them to us: more than most counties, Mayo people volunteer for the indescribable torture of falling at the last championship hurdle. At least they make it that far, which is more than most counties are capable of.

The All-Ireland championship has really very little to do with winning. For almost every county in Ireland, it is principally concerned with the deferral of losing. The pleasure and point of it is locked into the simple prospect of another day out.

The spirit of the championship is as basic and optimistic as the old fighting slogan of living to see another day. That is about as much as most counties can hope for.

With Kerry, it is different. Something went wrong down there. They stumbled on a cosmic accident of genes, eye-catching green and gold hoops and absurdly brawny football archetypes who were utterly at the mercy of their own superiority. The strange thing was that as the medals began to choke the mantelpieces in Kerry, the rest of Ireland felt no animosity toward the Kingdom. Much as with Brazil in the World Cup, sharing in their joy was somehow unavoidable. They made a tremendously vivid impression on the youth of Ireland in the late 1970s when their annual semi-final and final televised appearances seemed like the height of exoticism after a winter of Aengus McAnally. Back then, there was something downright glamorous about the sight of Páidí Ó Sé buck-leaping along the left wing with that curiously extravagant solo style and those splendid sideburns.

Strange as it seems now, there was a generation of young lads who desired nothing more than to cultivate a beard and paunch a la Eoin "The Bomber" Liston. Most succeeded. Some lads of my acquaintance even wanted to "be" Pat Spillane - all are now reportedly thriving in therapy.

It was clear Kerry folk didn't really have much choice in the matter of winning the All-Ireland - and they still don't.

The contention here is that, beneath the surface happiness, all those All-Irelands have left the good folk of Kerry in a state of perpetual dislocation. Kerry football is like an astronaut floating off into the great yonder, annexed from the mother ship. There is something lonely about the extremity of the Kerry success.

There are times when you wonder if it wouldn't do the average Kerryman good to be somehow transported into the body and soul of a Fermanagh man or a Monaghan GAA diehard thumbing a lift out of Clones on a darkening and drenched Sunday night. You have about five pound sterling in your pocket and a half bottle of Harp in your paw and you realise you may never see your county win again. You feel guilty and terrible and responsible. That is the common experience of the championship.

And whatever about the fans, being a multi-award-winning Kerry footballer must be nothing short of an ordeal. A Kerry friend assured me an insult commonly heard in the pubs and discos he frequents is: "Go on with your two All-Irelands." A common chat-up line in the discotheques of the Kingdom runs along the lines of: "Is that an All Star in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

In most counties, acquiring a single All-Ireland medal is enough to guarantee a man a granite statue on the roundabout of his home town, at least one parish hall renamed in his honour and the kind of popularity among the ladies that would make Brad Pitt feel inadequate. Not in Kerry, though. Down there, you are nobody unless you can produce about a half dozen CLG trinkets to show off.

And that is the other thing about Kerry. Showing off does not come easy to them. You only have to look at the demeanour of the pathologically modest Mike Frank Russell whenever he fires over the kind of wonder point that would have the rest of us woofing to beat the band.

And remember Maurice Fitzgerald? For 10 years, we watched Mo Fitz play the best football most of us had ever seen while never once looking less than deeply troubled by it all. There may well be no footage of the Kerry great actually smiling before, during or after a game.

When he kicked that eye-popping point from the sideline in Thurles against Dublin, he trotted away looking positively grief-stricken. It is probable that even as he touched the celestial heights, Fitzgerald was aware he was contributing to the fearful standards expected of the generation of Kerry footballers to come.

In 20 years, those sideline kicks will probably be met with shrugs unless the kicker attempts them blindfolded or breathes fire at the same time.

There is a reason that Kerry folk still bang on about Séamus Darby's extraordinary goal and it has nothing to do with the denial of the five-in-a-row success. It was more to do with the way that loss, so dramatic and gut-wrenching and inexplicable and flying in the face of all previous experience, made them feel. It made them feel as vulnerable and vexed and in the lap of the gods as every other county. It made Kerry folk feel part of the crowd.

Of course, they were soon forced to separate themselves shortly afterwards as they embarked on a consolatory three-in-a-row triumph, which acted as a kind of a farewell tour for that great team. They were not allowed to indulge in the kind of melancholy and fatalistic dreaming and paranoia that make the championship meaningful for every other county.

Nope, it was straight back on the trail of unblemished championship success, for three years flush. They could but watch as the rest of us failed in varying hues of glory.

So spare a thought for Kerry folk this weekend and for the rest of the summer. Somebody has to do all the winning to give the championship context and meaning. That has become the fate of Kerry and they bear it with goodwill to all men and even better grace. The bastards.