Never one to play a soft game

SPORTING PASSION DESSIE FARRELLThe GPA chief executive tells Mark Roddenhow football won out over hurling and hockey and of his love of boxing - as a spectator sport

THE SPORTS apart from Gaelic football that I played at a competitive level were hockey for Leinster and Ireland, and I also played hurling. I captained Dublin under-21s and I played soccer with St Vincent's school and we won a Leinster Senior Schools Cup. I would have played a little bit with Home Farm some years before that and I played a couple of games of rugby with Barnhall in the early 90s as well.

The ones that stood the test of time would have been hockey and hurling to a lesser extent. I played under-21 with Dublin and I played senior club hurling for a year or two after that and eventually I had to make the choice between hurling and football.

It was an easy-enough choice at that time as regards where Dublin football was at in comparison to where Dublin hurling was at.

I continued to play hockey for St Brendan's and also for Leinster for a couple of seasons. I never played hockey at school and it was unusual to play any sort of decent representative stuff when you hadn't played at school at that particular time.

I got into it through my dad and his workplace - he was a psychiatric nurse in St Brendan's Hospital - and there were staff in there who played for St Brendan's and another club, St Loman's.

A juvenile team was established in St Brendan's back around 1981. It's funny how it started up. There were lads from in around Stoneybatter and the Manor Street area of Dublin's northside who used to go up to the grounds and play soccer on the hockey pitch and ruin it. They were being chased off it regularly and there was a running battle between this gang of young fellas and club members trying to keep them off the pitch.

The dressing-rooms were being damaged as well so eventually somebody came up with the bright idea to try to win these young lads over. They gathered up a load of hockey sticks and hockey balls one day and asked them would they be interested. The lads took to it anyway and they're now running the club up there.

I played under-16 and under-18 for Ireland and I played for Leinster at 16, 18, 21 and senior. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I still play it.

I play club football with Na Fianna and I still play the hockey with St Brendan's. It's a participation sport rather than a spectator sport but it's enjoyable for anyone who plays it.

There's a lot of a hand-eye co-ordination involved. There would be this perception about it being a soft game which has been very unfair because it can be very physical when it cuts up rough.

Obviously there's a hockey ball, which is equivalent to a cricket ball, zinging about the place at 100 miles an hour and maybe more, so you'd want your wits about you.

Hockey was something different and it helped me with other skills that benefited my football. I would have developed quick reflexes and I had a very good handling ability in hurling and football that probably developed from hockey.

Particularly in the off-season it was very useful to have the hockey to keep you up with the pace and give you an edge when you came back every season.

I always played hurling through school and club so it was nice to have represented my county in hurling too. My first year at under-21 level we got a ferocious trimming from Kilkenny.

DJ Carey and Adrian Ronan and fellas like that were in their heyday and I think I might have actually got sent off with Adrian Ronan that same night.

The following year in 1992 we actually defeated Wexford in Dr Cullen Park. We were to play Offaly in the next round but that clashed with the Dublin senior football opener against Wexford.

Unfortunately I couldn't play both and the football won out but I was very disappointed that the hurling game wasn't rearranged to accommodate me being able to play both. We were beaten by a point and Offaly went on to lose to Waterford in the All-Ireland final.

A sport I never tried but would be one of my passions is boxing. I was a huge fan of Barry McGuigan, and Steve Collins is from Cabra, where I'm from, so I always followed him too.

I remember that I was doing my Inter Cert Latin exam in 1986 the day after Barry McGuigan lost the world title against Steve Cruz.

I did my studying and then I stayed up for the fight and I couldn't understand the next day how everyone else hadn't heard that Barry had lost.