In an era of losing ugly, the full-time scene at Croke Park on Sunday was a cleansing balm. When tears of relief coursed down Mayo faces and eyes were raised to the heavens in wistful communion with absent friends, thousands of losing Kerry supporters grasped the solemnity of the moment. There was no swift, sullen exodus at the final whistle. They stayed for the speeches and watched the lifting of the Sam Maguire. Some even embraced their euphoric, sobbing rivals. We watched in real time as a clash of extraordinary athleticism, mythology and heart-stopping tension suddenly gave way to grace, gratitude and civility.
It was the 141-year-old Gaelic Athletic Association at its most sublime. No quarter was given, yet both sides made every part of it a gift to us all. There was a pathos about it, perhaps because it felt old-fashioned.
This was never a given. It’s only a couple of months since Kerry were condemned to play (and lose) with a 14-man team after a mass brawl with Donegal. One of Sunday’s Mayo stars, 27-year-old Jordan Flynn, has spoken about his lowest point when he was sent off during the 2018 under-20s All Ireland final and gave a shove to the referee as he went.
An 18-week suspension and a lot of partying ended with some kind of epiphany, but in the meantime, there was another kind of social punishment. Some asked questions about his family, his character and how he was raised. For a player of his age, that could have gone one of two ways. This week he is an All-Ireland champion, about to be married, worried about a sports-life balance. It’s the kind of role modelling any organisation could identify with and cherish.
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The arts of losing and winning pretty are deeply undervalued. A poor mastery of them can amount to national self-sabotage. Argentina’s implosion into juvenile scuffles and tantrums after their decisive loss to Spain in the World Cup final, capped by their decision to turn their backs to the trophy presentation, was a textbook example of losing ugly.
The legend of the great Lionel Messi will be forever tainted by those events, but so, importantly, will Argentina itself. The furious intensity of its players’ singing of the national anthem and the ill-judged Las Malvinas banner on the pitch during the semi-final win over England might have told us something about a ferocious patriotism. Instead, it sent a message about a great nation’s struggle to cope with loss and conflict.
In the US, Donald Trump’s intervention to have a US player’s red card suspended had a similar impact. Predictably, his abuse of privileged access fired up Belgium and swung world support to them. But beyond sport, it highlighted the contrasts between US and European culture. Whatever your angle on Folarin Balogun’s foul – many neutrals considered the red card a bit harsh – it ultimately came down to two world views.
Americans are used to interventions by team owners and executives to protect theirs and sports’ co-mingled business interests; Europeans rely on the independence of governing bodies and consistency of rules. Outcome versus process.
For many Americans, Trump was not abusing his power but correcting an injustice. For shocked Europeans it was the spectacle of a head of government exercising brazen influence over a supposedly independent governing body – and succeeding with lightning speed. Anyone still deluded enough to think that sport can be separated from real life might think again.
The World Cup’s biggest controversy was triggered by a man who is himself the embodiment of losing ugly in another sphere. Since sport and democratic politics rely (theoretically anyway) on the shared belief that the rules apply equally to everyone, someone who blithely breaks them in one sphere will most likely break them in another.
Yet some of the best examples of losing pretty come from concession speeches after US presidential elections. Had Republicans heeded senator John McCain’s remarkable generosity towards Barack Obama in 2008, the US might be a very different country now.
In 2016, a devastated Hillary Clinton managed to rise above the repellent Trump “lock her up” campaign to urge Americans to accept the result. “Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead.”
Some sports fans will argue that all this is self-evidently losers’ talk from people who fail to understand the sheer intensity, the unique talent and commitment of a true competitor.
But the fact is that for every John McEnroe, a tennis star notorious for fighting with umpires, there is a Roger Federer, an all-time great beloved for his generosity towards winning opponents. For every Diego Maradona – notorious for ugly outbursts and shouting abuse at referees – there is a Bobby Charlton, an Andrés Iniesta and a Mohamed Salah. For every embarrassing, trash-talking Conor McGregor, there is a Stephen Thompson, a Robert Whittaker, a Charles Oliveira, a Brandon Moreno.
What brings the near unbearable tension to both sport and political campaigns is the immutable human law that everyone has their dog days. It’s when those days arrive that people remember the grace or the gouging, the trash-talking or the camaraderie, the losing ugly or losing pretty.
On that score, Kerry followers begin the next campaign with several two-pointers already on the board.
