Three wedded things and a funeral

This week I must make two shameless plugs for patent wonder medicines, and then there's this guy, well it's kind of awkward, but a couple of weeks ago I hit him over the head with a shovel and buried him in a shallow grave and then I rode back into town and told all the folks that they wouldn't be seein' him around no more.

So today we need to dig Dave O'Leary up, brush down his blazer, shake him by the hand and tell him it was all a terrible mistake brought on by liquor. Then we have to plug the two items and most importantly we'll make it all look like a coherent column so they won't sack us just before Christmas.

Here's how we're going to do it: We'll tie the three strands into a grand theme Of Managers and Men and proceed as if we have something original to say thereon. We will tie it all together neatly in the final par, but before that we'll hop from mini-theme to mini-theme by means of "links". These are little writerly devices used to move from one topic to another without the prose becoming unnecessarily disjointed.

Speaking of becoming unnecessarily disjointed, what a botch job we did on Dave O'Leary. Eh? Having tramped down the dirt on his final resting place a few weeks ago it is alarming, even for a lifelong Leeds fan, to see himself up and about and open for business again this weekend. Who knows what it takes to be a MANAGER of MEN? Eh? Not me.

Lawdy David you should be a broken man by now, haunted by your aggregate failures, chastened by the wise words of savvy back-page columnists. Instead, I have gobbled humble pie, digested my own hat and breakfasted on my own words since Leeds chose (capriciously) to qualify for the next phase of European competition.

To demonstrate what a big guy I am I will do two things: I will write these words of gracious conciliation before hearing the result from the Leeds-Chelsea game. A large annual wager rides on the overall outcome of Leeds' relationship with Chelsea each season and, were Leeds to lose ground in this race, well there's no court in the land that would object to me hitting you over the head with the shovel again Dave, but no I will write beforehand and I will (gasp!) go further . . .

Yes, that's right. FURTHER. Regardless of what else transpires this season Dave O'Leary is my vote for Premiership Manager of the Year. Leeds have a casualty list longer than that arising from the Battle of the Somme, they have a pending court case which will be an ugly media circus, they have a squad which don't own two razors between them and they have a purse which still bulges like Linford Christie's codpiece.

And O'Leary ushered them out of the firstphase "Group of Death" into the lucrative second-phase "Group of Death" while the begrudgers (into whose fetid company I was press-ganged while drunk) said it couldn't be done. Genuinely impressive.

Speaking of impressive, wasn't the media reaction to Tony Cascarino's book a wonder to behold. Now then, in the literary salons of Dublin we are seldom done with the moaning and caterwauling because certain sporty types won't speak frankly anymore. And lo it comes to pass that somebody writes a story of quite boneshaking frankness and on the basis of one minor extract we run amok.

Great and loud was the tut-tutting. Good MEN unable to MANAGE their piety. Some felt Cascarino should have kept his mouth shut, others considered him to be "in it for the money", while still more were of the view that he had made a laughing stock of the great little nation. All this philosophising without having read the book.

Having read Full Time, The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino (as told to my good friend Paul Kimmage - note the full and pious journalistic disclosure there. Have read the book. Know the author.) and published by Townhouse at u £9.99 I can only describe it as the best Irish sports book I've read and also among the most courageous ever written.

Here's what Tony Cascarino should have done though: He should have produced a bland, unsalted footie biog into which the phrase "don't get me wrong ..." was inserted three hundred and seventy six times.

As in: "Don't get me wrong, Jack Charlton was a friend of mine, but . . ." He should have run around blowing up other peoples myths. What was it like rooming with Paul McGrath? Who did Glenn Hoddle think he was? Teddy Sheringham: Man or Beast? He should have called his book Tony Goal and given the finger to everyone who ever laughed at him from an English or a Scottish terrace.

Instead, he's taken off the clothes we put him in and he stands there shivering and nude before us. This isn't a book about big-time football, it's about struggle and failing and hurting, things which most of us understand perfectly.

You put the book away and wonder if you could ever turn down the nourishment of self justification for so long. Tony Cascarino has handed in his celebrity. He walks away with more substance and dignity than a mere 88 caps ever gave him.

There's a lesson in here about the one dimensional cut-outs of sports figures which we offer the public for consumption, but we won't learn it. Heroes and villains and nothing in between. Business as usual.

Speaking of heroes, perhaps we can now MANAGE a MENtion of the adult camogie section (Yes Father, ADULT camogie. . .) in St Vincent's, who offer a special seminar entitled Preparing for Success on Saturday, November 25th from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m..

Tickets are a snip at u £15 considering the do brings together Brian Cody, Ger Loughane, Sean Boylan and John O'Mahony as the speakers. Apart from the Beatles, are there any four people in the world you would more like to see on stage together?

Subjects to be dealt with include: Organisation, Team building, Communication, Fitness and Training, Psychological preparation.

Tickets from unusual outlets: Germain Noonan (01-8327815) Brian Ladden (012389091) or from Helen Drumgoole (018370260) who, like Dave O'Leary, needs no lessons in man management having e-mailed us to ask first if we'd like a free ticket and second if we'd like to mention the seminar in the newspaper.

To be as brutally honest as Tony Cascarino, the answers are yes and yes again, but I still have my pride.