The Last Straw: I'd like to begin this week by clarifying certain comments that appeared in this column last Saturday. You may recall that, inter alia, I touched briefly on the possibility of my home county, Monaghan, enjoying success in the Ulster Football Championship against Armagh last Sunday.
Many of you interpreted the remarks to mean I considered this an unlikely scenario.
I accept that the words as published were open to such an interpretation. Phrases such as "snowball's chance in hell" and "I'll climb the millennium spire naked if Monaghan win" could reasonably be construed as suggesting low expectations of victory. I'm happy to state that this was not my intention. In fact, in common with most readers, I have known since Christmas that Monaghan couldn't lose, and I apologise if I suggested otherwise.
OK, OK, so I was wrong last week; or indeed "wrong, wrong, wrong!", as one correspondent put it. It's no excuse to say that every football pundit in Ireland was wrong too, although I mention this anyway in case you didn't notice. The truth is I was guilty of undue pessimism, and all I can say in defence is that the onset of pessimism is a condition of middle age, like ear hair and progressive stiffness of the joints.
I'm reminded of an incident from Monaghan's short-lived glory era of the 1980s when, as reigning Ulster champions and holders of the "Ireland's coming team" title, we were beaten by Down. Afterwards, my father, who was suffering from advanced pessimism and whose very presence at the match (he always missed the victories) helped ensured defeat, announced cheerfully: "That's the end of Monaghan for another few years." I felt like killing him there and then; now I've turned into him instead.
Anyway, I'd like to thank those of you who took the trouble to send me your humble-pie recipes, even if you were missing the point. Lack of humility is hardly my problem, as last week's prediction proved. Monaghan has 80 per cent of Ireland's known reserves of humility, and we all have shares in it. We know ours is not one of the sexier counties, like Dublin, or Kerry, or Donegal (which now even has its own tribunal). Monaghan attracts few tourists, and those we get are usually pursuing off-beat minority interests, such as directions to Cavan.
The marketing coup of having produced a famous poet is offset by the fact that, thanks to him, everybody in Ireland knows our soil is stony and grey (the same as soil in every other county, but they didn't shout about it).
It was this modest background that made our emergence as a global sporting power in 1985 all the more remarkable. In a few dizzying months, the football team won the National League and the Ulster Championship, while the "Clones Cyclone", Barry McGuigan - nicknamed after the freak local weather conditions which, you'll remember, I suggested could have a bearing last Sunday - became a world boxing champion.
Joy it was to be alive in Monaghan that summer, but to be young was to feel that you could be a winner too. Even in the nervous run-up to the semi-final against Kerry, we projected cocky self-assurance. I remember an ominous headline in the Evening Press, "Come off it, Frank, Kerry will murder Monaghan" (it was addressed to the Kerry chairman, after he made respectful noises about the opposition), but I shrugged it off and advised my Dublin workmates to put their houses on Monaghan winning. I made preparations to emigrate in the event of a heavy defeat, but the game ended in a draw, and I was secretly thrilled.
Nevertheless, I composed myself before entering work on Monday morning. And as colleagues looked at me with renewed respect, on the basis that I must have known something, I shook my head gravely and declared: "We'll never be that bad again."
We were never that good again. We lost the replay. And confirmation that we'd been flying too close to the sun came in a 24-hour period the following June when Barry McGuigan's wings melted in a car-park in Las Vegas, and the footballers lost to Down. Since then, grounds for optimism have been scarce. Most years, the limit of our ambition has been to punish any appearance of hubris among the neighbours.
When hubris was named in Armagh's starting 15 last Sunday, I knew there was a chance. Now, we face a moderate Down team next month, and suddenly anything is possible. All things considered, I predict a comfortable Down victory, and I'd say that'll be the end of Monaghan for another few years.
