HE'S COUNTY:A warts and all diary from inside the camp

UNLESS YOU’VE been living under a stone this past week – or been totally buried in the Rose of Tralee, more anon – you’ve heard all the stories.

How about I flavour the whole tale with a – perhaps unwelcome – shake of truth? The very words I used to the granite-jawed doorman outside a well-known Dublin night club – yes, that well-known Dublin night club – were as follows, and I quote: “Please don’t let yourself down now, you do know who I am, don’t you?” He looked me as if he didn’t understand a word I was saying. I felt obliged to help him out of his pickle.

“Okay, a hint, a left-footed point from the exact spot where the 45 meets the sideline, Cusack Park, live NFL game on TG4 . . .” He still didn’t flex a facial muscle.

“Come on Rod,” one of the lads said, “sure Polish Paul doesn’t know a single thing about football.” Waiving payment, they waved us through.

And that, folks, was the sum total of that particular night-club incident. It was done with a smile on my face. No one felt threatened. I never have a problem paying, but that place never charges county players.

I never even thought about it again until I got a call from my father Tuesday morning.

“What went on between you and that garda Sunday night?” he said, no hello or nothing.

My first thought was: “The lying wagon, she told me she was in PR”, though this latest news did seem to explain away the ready availability of robust hand-restrainers back at her place.

“What’s she saying?” I asked him.

“What?” replied Dad, clearly exasperated, “A woman?”

“Jeez, Dad,” I said, “of course it was a woman, why, what are people saying?” The phone fell silent. Dad’s breathing got more strained. “Dad,” I said, “Chrissake, I’m not 15 now. I’m a grown man. You were young yourself once too.”

Eventually, after much awkwardness we got to the bottom of the misunderstanding. As you all know by now, the blogs were clogged Monday night with the following allegations: 1. I punched a Latvian bouncer who wanted to charge me in after saying he didn’t know who I was; 2. I threw drink in the face of a girl after she said she knew who I was, but thought I was well up myself; 3. I wrestled a garda to the ground when he discovered me banging on the door of a nearby pub at 5am on Monday morning, and didn’t know who I was.

So how’s your week been, then?

From the high of Sunday to the usual begrudgery 24 hours later. You’d think I’d be getting used to it, but each time it bugs me.

Who starts these rumours? Are they happy? Do they not realise they are dealing with another man’s good reputation? In a year’s time, everyone will remember the story – and no one will recall my denial. Give a dog a bad name.

And to think that Monday morning my biggest problem was wondering if I had played in the match at all. The best media crawling software in the business would barely find my name in the coverage.

It doesn’t bother me one bit. There’s no ‘I’ in team and I will prove people wrong the next day. The Sunday Game boys have moved from criticising me to ignoring me. It makes them look childish, if you ask me, and, Pat and Joe, what gives with all the scraping at each other like girls fighting in the schoolyard? Either deck one another, or, please, stop.

Let them see if I care. Just let them see when I roll in with a show-stopper in the big pow-wow.

I was happy enough with my own performance, considering. I carried props while others sang finales. That’s the way it goes sometimes. No ‘I’ in team, as I said.

At least we had the Roses though. The organisers have me plagued to do escort every year, but, thankfully in one way, the GAA calendar has always intervened.

But I never miss closing night. Here I sing finales. Tuesday night, same as it ever was: hang tough until after the announcement, until after the tears are shed, until after the escorts have been flicked, and manifest yourself. Right man, right time, oh, I say, what positional sense.

They’re all mixed up, confused, then, you see. Their Andy Warhol is over, and they can’t handle it. Celebrity has claimed them.

It’s usually around 1am when I appear. She was American. Aren’t they all? “Rod,” she said, “welcome home, at least around here people know who you are, and appreciate all you’ve done.” Elected, on the first count.

Twenty-five years ago, my ‘alleged’ behaviour last weekend would probably have copper-fastened my place on the team. Different world now, though.

It will be an anxious few weeks, right enough, but if it were easy, they’d all be at it.