Talk time

PAUL GALVIN:The bad boy of Gaelic football reveals his interest in women's clothing

What’s the mood in the Kerry camp on the eve of the championship? I’m going to take a wild guess and say “confident”.

I suppose you could say we’re confident. We’re confident every year. It’s impossible to know how things will pan out. But we’re optimistic.

Kerry are reigning champions. Where do you see the biggest threat coming from this year?

Well, Cork are obviously the hot favourites. They’ve made no secret of their ambitions and they’re the team to beat. The Dubs have changed tack. They look a more savvy bunch this year. They’re more defensively minded, more aggressive. And Tyrone are definitely going to be back in with another sting in the tail.

What are the sacrifices required to play football at intercounty level?

The Kerry panel convenes in January and stays together until we exit the championship – which is usually September. You’re talking about training and gym work four or five nights a week. Matches at weekends. Then you’re holding down a day job too. It’s very hard on the old social life. Weddings and family occasions have to be sacrificed. Having a few pints at the weekend goes out the window. It’s hard for the wives and girlfriends too, because you can never plan holidays or anything like that.

What are the perks then? I imagine it’s like being a mobster in ‘Goodfellas’. You know, you walk into a grocery store and get bumped straight to the front of the queue.

I don’t know. You meet people. You make contacts. There’s definitely a bit of that goes on. Certainly in Kerry, people are very respectful. When you go out for a meal or whatever, you get treated well. Without them making a big fuss of you or anything.

Someone who knows you told me that you have some unusual interests away from the game.

Well, fashion is probably my biggest interest. I buy GQ, Esquire, IDand keep an eye on what's coming down the line by different designers. There's a guy called Christopher Bailey, who designs for Burberry – I like what he's doing at the minute. Tom Ford always looks good for men. Christopher Kane too. I like a lot of women's fashion also. I watch a lot of Fashion TV. I don't watch a lot of sport.

You’re always wearing headphones before a match. What do you listen to?

I like a bit of hip-hop, a bit of RB. I listen to a lot of Jay-Z, Dizzee Rascal. I love the London grime scene. That sort of thing.

Following your sending off against Clare in 2008 , you got a hard time from the press.

Yeah, that whole incident – the intrusion into my family, journalists contacting my colleagues and friends – it left me quite cold. But I know journalism is a difficult game. Everybody needs a story, everyone has pages to fill. So I’m not bitter about it.

Kerry looked to be a team in decline for a lot of last season. But you came good in the end.

It did look like it was going to go belly up. But we hung in there and our experience got us over the line even when we weren’t playing well. Luckily, when we got to Croke Park, things changed. Ah, it was a lovely thing. It was a fairytale ending in a way.

That’s what I was going to say. To come back the and win Player of the Year was an amazing turnaround. It really was.

That was obviously a very gratifying experience.

If this were a Paul Galvin biopic, the credits would have rolled right there. But this is real life. It’s a new season and you’re now one of the elder statesmen of this Kerry team.

It’s amazing. That only hit me a couple of weeks ago. We had a training session and I looked around and realised that I was the second oldest guy on the field. Christ, it seems like only the click of a finger since I was the new guy – now I’m one of the older heads. There’s a lot of new blood coming in and I want to show them what it means to be a Kerry footballer. The attitude that’s required, the responsibility. I’m very conscious of the Darragh Ó Sés, the Séamus Moynihans, the Liam Hassetts that came before me. They left a legacy to me that I’m very proud of. Now I want to help to pass it on.