Compiled by PHILIP REID

Talented McCarthy's emergence posing Brady a new challenge

IF YOU venture onto the Facebook page of St Coman’s – a handball club in Roscommon – you will see a pointer for a particular game which promises to be “one hell of a handball match”.

The game in question takes place this evening and the hyperbole on the social media site does indeed do justice to the All-Ireland 40x20 singles final between Paul “Gunner” Brady and the heir-apparent, Robbie McCarthy.

Those in the know say the outcome is akin to a flip of coin, so closely are the court gladiators matched.

It is also a sell-out, with the likelihood that an even bigger venue would also have been filled to capacity. The feeling is that those with tickets are the lucky ones.

Handball, as a sport, has always lived in the shadows of Gaelic football and hurling.

My own memories were of sore hands and bashing a ball against the side wall of an old supermarket in preparation for games out in Oldtown in north county Dublin where a real handball alley existed and, on a couple of occasions, getting to play in the promised land, those alleys beside the entrance to Hill 16 at Croke Park. Bygone days, to be sure.

The likes of Brady and McCarthy are in a different level, a league of their own in many ways. Brady is 32-years-old and rightly considered the greatest ever Irish handballer of the international-sized 40x20 court.

Tonight, he will be seeking an eighth straight All-Ireland singles title in the 40x20 discipline and a ninth in total. He is the King Henry or the Gooch or the Messi or whatever you’d like to call him of the handball court.

He is that good.

And if real honours have evaded him in his other sporting passion with Cavan’s football team, his dominance of the handball court has made him a sporting legend in his field.

Like all great sportsmen, it was failure which acted as the motivation to achieve greatness.

Having won his first All-Ireland 40x20 singles in 2003, he suffered a 21-20 third game reversal to Corkman Tony Healy in 2004. Brady has been unbeaten in the championship ever since. Of that loss to Healy, Brady has gone on the record to say that it “still motivates and sickens me, in equal measures, to this minute”.

Brady’s talent has been exported on many an occasion to the United States where handball has a high participation level, particularly in California and on the east coast around New York and Boston. Indeed, he ranks third in the all-time standings when it comes to US Open titles, having won seven in a row up to 2010. It’s the stuff of legendary status. He became the first player to win three World Championships in a row when he picked up the title in Oregon in 2009.

Like all rivalries, it takes two to tango so to speak. And the emergence of McCarthy – at 23, some nine years younger – has meant an overlap of the king and the pretender. Since losing to Brady at the semi-final stage last April, McCarthy has remained unbeaten in Ireland and also in competition in the United States.

McCarthy’s win last year in the US Open in California (only the third Irish player to so, following in the footsteps of Brady and Healy) has marked him out as something special and spice is added to this showdown by the fact that McCarthy has yet to get the better of Brady in a match.

Handball has a rich history, with references to sports involving striking a ball with a hand going back to ancient Egypt and even to the Aztecs.

The first recorded game of striking a ball with a hand against a wall was in Scotland in 1427 while the earliest written record in Ireland is contained in town statutes of Galway in 1527.

The sport was brought to the United States by Irish emigrants in the 1870s and flourished.

With the World Championships scheduled to take place at the state-of-the-art arena in City West in Co Dublin later this year – in October – the Brady-McCarthy rivalry is one that could well prove compelling to those beyond the traditional handball enthusiasts.

It deserves to be with, it must be said, TG4 doing their bit to ensure the ancient sport is brought to new audiences.

Brazilians out of Irish clubs' league

THE LEAGUE of Ireland, it would appear, is lagging behind other leagues around the world when it comes to signing Brazilians.

According to a recent report by Fifa – titled “Global Market Transfers in 2011” – it found that Brazilians were the most sought after transfers around the world, followed by Argentines and, thirdly, French players.

By my reckoning, there are only two Brazilians currently operating in the League here: Rafael Barreto with Bohemians in the Premier Division, and Eduardo Dusi with Salthill Devon-Galway in the First Division. What’s more, Dusi arrived in Galway on a free transfer!

In a global context, it is quite astounding that 13 per cent of all transfers involved a Brazilian player. According to Fifa, over $3 billion was spent on international soccer transfers worldwide with over 11,500 moves registered on its Transfer Matching System between January 1st and December 31st 2011, with peaks during the transfer windows in January, July and August. The most active day of all was August 31st, with 317 switches made from one country to another.

The last statistic – that of the average cost of the transfer – might, perhaps, give a hint to why Irish clubs didn’t feature in the frenzied buying.

The average transfer cost was $1.5 million, which would effectively bankroll the entire running costs for the season of your average Irish club.

Of course, that old story about the most famous Brazilian player to showcase his talents in the league was rubbished with the death last year of Socrates.

The urban myth that he had played for UCD’s reserves – when studying medicine in Dublin – was finally put to bed with the midfielder’s death. He did study to be a doctor, but in Sao Paulo, not Dublin. And he never did get to play for UCD.

Dangers of sharks lurking 'Down Under'

THE OUTPOURING of emotion – both here and in Australia – to the death of Jim Stynes reflected the Dubliner’s impact on making a hugely successful and decorated cross-over from Gaelic football to the Aussie Rules game.

And with a number of talented Gaelic footballers being head-hunted to become the next Stynes, perhaps it was timely that one of Aussie Rules’ own home-grown stars should warn prospective recruits to the sport of the “sharks lurking around the edges”.

Alex Rance, a defender with Richmond in the AFL, became the victim of a male stalker stemming from a business deal that went wrong during the off-season.

In an interview with The Age newspaper, Rance said he was keen to use his situation as a warning that all players, not just the game’s stars, were vulnerable to being targeted by unscrupulous people.

“I thought I was not really someone who would be targeted at all, because I wasn’t really a big name.

“I think the awareness needs to be put out there that you just need to be careful who you put your trust in,” said Rance, who warned teenagers drafted into the AFL to ensure that they had a strong support network around them to deal with unexpected and dangerous situations.

“I think it’s definitely something to be aware of, especially for the younger boys who do come in and (think) it’s this glitzy, glamour sort of society that we get thrust into,” he told the newspaper.

The Final Straw

Palmer getting things out of perspective

YOU’VE GOT to respect Arnold Palmer as one of the true legends of golf, but the seven-time Major champion lost a bit of perspective when chiding the top two players in the world – Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy – for missing out on this week’s Bay Hill Invitational on the US Tour. Palmer made the point he had travelled to play in the British Open “to kind of enhance or to create additional interest in international golf”.

Okay! Whatever! The fact of the matter is the British Open is a Major. Bay Hill, just a fortnight before the US Masters, is one of 40-or-so events on the PGA Tour.

There is a major difference, pardon the pun. By missing Bay Hill, Donald and McIlroy are doing what Palmer used to do: make sure they arrive at a Major as well prepared as possible.

Borisov's Olympic dream dashed

BULGARIAN boxer Evgeni Borisov’s dream of fighting in the London Olympics ended in a cruel manner last weekend, when he suffered a broken left wrist and concussion after being set upon in the town of Bodov Dol.

It is alleged a paving stone and a car jack were among the weapons used in a brawl that involved up to 14 people.

Borisov – a seven-time Bulgarian champion and seen here on the receiving end against Ireland’s John Joe Joyce – was considered a strong contender in the 69 kilogram category for the Olympic final qualifying tournament which will be staged in Turkey next month.

Police reported that a verbal confrontation flared into the all-out fight that ended Borisov’s hopes of making it to London 2012.

“There were five against me and they hit me with a paving stone and a car jack. I have no explanation where this came from, I’m so angry because this is the end of my Olympic dream,” Borisvo told local newspapers.

Adam Nolan – from the same club in Bray as Katie Taylor – is the Irish representative in the 69kg category at next month’s crucial final qualifiers.