Football fast and furious can still be fun

Sideline Cut: Many Donegal GAA people were understandably dismayed by the recent bit of trouble involving the axing of two of the county team's best players for disciplinary reasons, writes Keith Duggan

. It seemed typical of the rebellious nature of the team that after duly qualifying for the Division Two final, the very players singled out by manager Brian McIver for high praise should subsequently get into hot water for what was generally understood to be a bout of overenthusiastic celebration.

Of course, in a period when Gaelic football has been defined by the monastic and deathly-serious abstemiousness of its top practitioners, Donegal is often regarded as the last party county. It was a legend that was formed literally overnight, the night in question being when Mickey Moran's young team pushed Dublin to a draw in a hot and gripping 2002 All-Ireland quarter-final. While the majority of the team boarded the bus for home, the lure of the city and the excitement of the day proved too much for a bunch of young men who, like Phil Lynott's young tearaways, went dancing in the moonlight.

It was an extraordinary moment of bad judgement, all the more so given that Donegal returned to the capital the following Saturday anaemic and washed out to be blown away by Ray Cosgrove and the Blues in front of a sell-out crowd.

Mickey Moran was gracious as ever and rather than admonish his players, he sounded like a heartbroken father and quit. The county executive searched in vain to attract a suitor. The problem was the team was considered trouble. There are no sugar daddies involved in Tír Conaill football, and the winter journeys into Ballybofey are long from almost anywhere. Except Bundoran. So it was that, after a farcically lengthy period without a manager, Brian McEniff, the godfather of the Donegal game, returned to management almost a decade after retiring.

His return was, in retrospect, a highly exciting time in what seemed like a do-or-die period for the game in the county.

The fallout from that Lost Weekend in Dublin lasted through the following winter and was regarded as a considerable blow to the morale of the squad and the county in general.

What happened in 2002 was unquestionably a mistake but for a time it seemed a crime had been committed. Because of that, a few Donegal people admitted a small part of them had been privately pleased that in an era when the first and last commandment of Gaelic football seemed to be Thou Shalt Not Enjoy, there was enough rebellion and spirit and spontaneity to just say: let's go on the beer and to hell with tomorrow.

Undeniably, it would have been better had that brainwave struck after a McKenna Cup match than after an 80,000 quarter-final draw which had been brilliant. All the arguments - that the county had been let down, the supporters betrayed and a chance of an All-Ireland semi-final blown - were true. But still, what happened was a bunch of guys came up to the city from the Northwest, played in the biggest sporting contest in Europe that weekend and got carried away by the thrill of it.

As the years have passed and more and more football counties knuckle down to the good life, swearing off food, wine and women for the rest of their intercounty days, that moment of madness seems like a cry in the dark against the prevailing ethos. Gaelic games, after all, are supposedly amateur. It is not long since free entry into the provincial nightclubs was one of the chief perks of kicking for your county.

The dramatic rise in the standard of fitness and the extreme physical programmes through which young players put themselves in order to get a shot at county football have meant a severe curtailment of nightclub privileges. Many intercounty men just laugh mirthlessly now when they speak of their "social" lives.

The commitment has been ferocious and admirable. It is often said the footballers of Armagh have been the most notable exponents of the professional attitude. It is true that, in terms of training and preparation, Armagh under Joe Kernan have been revolutionary. But what the players have committed to goes far beyond the accepted notions of professionalism. They have not merely contracted their skills and athleticism to a given cause; they have committed their very souls.

Armagh bought into a vision and work ethic and way of conduct that was sacrosanct and therefore became unbreakable and inviolable. It has worked.

Not everyone is a fan of Armagh. The feeling here is that above all contemporary counties, Armagh have added a richness of intent and emotion that has deepened the modern football championship and forced other counties to respond. I have never seen a boring game of football involving Armagh. But for two key moments - the thrilling show by Fermanagh in 2004 and Conor Gormley's immortal block on Steve McDonnell in the last minute of the 2003 All-Ireland final - they could be a three-in-a-row team.

Whether their withering fortitude and will is enough for another summer tilt at glory remains to be seen. But it works and seems natural - for Armagh.

Perhaps the same is not necessarily true in all counties. There has been a slavish adherence to diet and teetotalism and a new-fangled notion of togetherness achieved by training weekends. Fifteen and 20 years ago, that same camaraderie was achieved by county teams heading on the proverbial "golf weekend".

Gruelling fitness regimes are among the reasons Gaelic football has become so fast and exciting and it is unlikely they are going to flag any time soon. But maybe the associated conventions do not suit the personality of every county team. That would certainly seem true of Donegal. Brian McIver was right to act as he did if two of his squad were in breach of agreed rules. But he was also right to call them back into the panel: it would have been a shame if they had been gone for the year.

The commitment shown by modern Gaelic teams is completely at odds with a prevailing culture of wanton enjoyment. That makes it all the more stark and admirable. And the fact is that all teams, even those with a reputation for partying, have been putting in the hours all winter.

It is only a matter of time before someone changes the mantra, before some coach comes along and announces a puritanical lifestyle is not absolutely necessary and it is okay to blow off steam every now and then.

Winning a provincial championship or the All-Ireland is the grand obsession whereby county teams justify the tremendous effort of it all. For almost all counties, the season ends on a note of keen disappointment, and deep down many players and managers know that is how it is going to end.

There needs to be a bit of fun somewhere along the way before the honour of wearing the jersey comes to feel like some kind of prison sentence. Donegal have fielded some good football teams over the last decade, but tomorrow they may be about to win their first bit of senior silverware since 1992. It may "only" be a Division Two title, but it is still worth celebrating. They all are.