LOCKER ROOM: Eight sent off in the last 10 minutes. A return to traditional values. More of this sort of thing and the club will be right back at centre stage for the winter months
ONE OF the few things to enjoy about the penance which Irish weather imposes on us all is the sense of knowing what we all are. Put your hand up if you didn’t wake in the early hours of yesterday morning and on hearing the rain making its familiar din on your window think with deep regret, “Oh no the pitches will be off”. No? Have ye no lives? Of course, of course the year is crowding December at this stage and people are suffering the effects of biblical flooding on top of the misery the Government and the church have left behind, so anybody with a healthy sense of perspective should be fretting about The X Factor but, but, but.
There is something about matches played at this time of year that is perversely appealing. I can see why the eggchasing community with their hipflasks and sheepskins (don’t tell me to update my stereotypes) are so congenial. (I have concluded, incidentally, that Dev’s thesis about hurling and rugby being the games closest to the Irish soul was spot on because they both allow for endless one-upmanship in the bullshi**ing stakes. You know the sort of thing. “Yeah, he’s good, but his left side is ropey under pressure if he is forced to the wing” or “He looks fine but will he give you the hard yards chasing third phase?” Who doesn’t enjoy that advanced sciolism?)
Anyway, back to winter. There is a feeling of saintliness which goes with standing on a chair as it sinks deeper and deeper into the mud as your frozen fingers struggle to unknot the ties on the net you are trying to put up. You know there are people who train three and four nights a week in this, but hey, they get warm and they get skinny. True heroism is standing on a chair wondering will you be able to haul the chair out of the mud without too much obvious effort when you get down! If you escape nets there are few pleasures like that feeling of conspicuous hardship when you turn up on the sideline just late enough to avoid being asked to be an umpire. I like the novelty of seeing the ball being chased through wetlands. And, secretly, I like the possibility of violence which comes with the short-temperedness of winter games.
I spent yesterday morning running around on camogie/Noah’s Ark issues and so didn’t get to Russell Park’s lovely all-weather pitch to see the relegation play-off between the mighty Vins/Marino and St Brigid’s. The first news I got of what had been missed came in a phone call from the great Christy Sweets who gave an update on the situation with 10 minutes left.
It was like getting a call from Kate Adie in a war zone. Vins well ahead. Three Brigid’s players off. Christy thought the lads would hold on in those circumstances but those in the club, alarmed that the lads should be playing in a relegation play-off at all having been All-Ireland champions in March 2008, weren’t sure.
Anyway the final update came crackling through soon after: 2-13 to two points. Brigid’s with five men sent off! FIVE! Ah that sickening feeling of having missed something weird and freaky. Could have been standing there, under-dressed, shivering in the rain and wind, shaking the head with the other sodden herons on the bank. Five off and the Vins saved!
We don’t know as yet the nature of the misdemeanours which brought Brigid’s to the brink of having to concede the game. One imagines a side collectively throwing in the towel, not because Brigid’s aren’t a fine club but because the frustration you feel on a cold, wet day on your own patch of Astroturf as you sink into AFL 2 must be as close to torment as you can get.
On hearing of the red card party in Russell Park I was prompted, of course, to bore innocent bystanders with tales of my own psycho days as a young player. I still fondly recall the first time I ever hit another player. We were playing St Finbarr’s of Cabra in under-12s football. It may not have been the way sports psychologists of today would deal with the matter, but from the start of the season the mentors were flagging the visit to Cabra with comments like, ‘let’s see how tough ye are up in Cabra on a Sunday morning’, or ‘Finbarr’s will sort the men from the cry babies’, or ‘bring yere nappies if ye’re nervous’.
Even today a visit to The Bogies (where the Barrs play their home games) is deemed a rite of passage for most teams, even though St Finbarr’s are one of the friendlier and more welcoming clubs in the city.
On that particular Sunday morning, swaddled in my nappy and with my soother in my pocket, I was playing full forward and the ball was spending most of its time at the far end of the pitch. I was waiting for all hell to break loose, which would be my signal to flee (somebody had to go tell the story to the outside world). Finally, out of boredom or to keep warm, the full back turned and just punched me in the face. It was a very cold morning and he wasn’t the huskiest of fellas and it didn’t hurt too much so I just continued to stare up the field as if nothing had happened. I can remember feeling my eyes water in that way they do when you have taken a blow to the nose. Dreading anybody mistaking this for tears, I made a show of blowing my nose in that tough boy way of evacuating the nostrils one at a time, blocking one with an index finger and blowing out the other like a torpedo shaft.
All fine until I felt five fingers, each as thick as a phone directory, on my shoulder. Lar Foley’s hand. Lar was our mentor and he paid special attention to the commerce between full backs and full forwards.
“Did he just hit you?” asked Lar, nodding at the emaciated skinhead beside me.
“Eh, yeah but it didn’t hurt. It’s grand.”
Lar shook his head. He told me he could hit a lot harder and that he would be hitting me if I didn’t stand up for myself and stop being such a fecking eejit. I adored Lar so there was nothing for it. I turned and with a look of sincere apology I punched the Barr’s boy in the face. Let’s just say it wasn’t the sort of devastating punch that would have deprived him of his looks.
In the cold he may not actually have felt anything and thought I had faked the punch like a stunt man in a western. Anyway he looked at me, looked at Lar and left it at that. We passed the game without a word between us or, as I liked to say for years, we both knew I had put manners on him.
I was recounting this story to my captive daughter for the umpteenth time when I saw the report in the Sunday paper about the Wicklow league final between Carnew and Roundwood. As the general mayhem of Wicklow can often do, it made the Vins/Brigid’s game seem like a boys sodality meeting. Eight sent off in the last 10 minutes. Eight. Now that’s entertainment. And Carnew lost a player for a year just recently for striking a referee.
We have lost the run of ourselves in recent years folks. Too namby pamby by half. Five off. Eight off. A return to traditional values. More of this sort of thing and the club will be right back at centre stage for the winter months. I tell you. Believe me I know. Did I tell ye about the time I put manners on a young fella up in Cabra?
STATEMENT
In an article written by Tom Humphries and published September 28th, 2009, regarding professional boxing and following the recent Bernard Dunne World Championship title bout in Dublin, references were made to "Spivs and Crims" in the corrupt administration of professional boxing. Such comments referred to the administration of world boxing and in particular did not refer to and were not intended to reflect in any way on the integrity of the Boxing Union of Ireland, its administrators and indeed its president, Mr Mel Christle SC, under whose offices the world title fight took place. The Irish Timesacknowledges the professionalism and integrity of the Boxing Union of Ireland, its administrators and those associated with the Union and its president Mr Christle SC. As an acknowledgement of any inappropriate reference or offence which may have been caused by this article, The Irish Timeshas made a contribution to the Society of St Vincent De Paul.
