Being honest, I was never that great at sport. For a while (including at school), I considered myself to be a reasonably good soccer player. Then I discovered that, quite simply, there were better players around. And they were right beside me!
I dabbled with Gaelic Football, but never went much beyond the dabbling. Regret that now. Never really held a hurl either. The allure of the English Leagues and Shoot! magazine captivated me just before the great Roscommon GAA team (1977-1980) emerged. (Thereafter, I happily divided my devotion between GAA and soccer).
When it came to athletics, I had some potential. I ran quite a bit in those far-off days. Had I persisted, I just might have been a contender (at a local/junior level, I hasten to add!)…
Yeah, loved the ould running for a while back then. There was that Community Games event in Rooskey in the late 1970’s, when, one particular evening, I just streaked ahead of the field, the gap getting longer and longer. I won with ease. Oddly, the following week I was back in the pack.
Then there was an annual sports day at secondary school in Newtownforbes. A strange episode. Preparing the course, we had mapped out an approximate 1000 yard route. Then, just before race-time, we were asked to move the finishing line further back (a teacher reckoned the course should be longer). The race started, and, as in the Community Games in Rooskey, I exploded from the blocks. I led all the way, but by the time we got within 100 or 200 metres of the original finishing line, I was struggling. Almost 40 years on, a shocking admission now: when I reached the original finishing line still in the lead – but with big Derek bearing down on me – I slowed down, as though I had won. A surprised looking Derek passed me, and, not unreasonably, continued on to the actual (and new) finishing line. I lamely protested for a moment, then sheepishly accepted my lot.
Playing soccer for Dynamo Rooskey, I was an accident-prone full-back. But when the club organised an annual fundraising road race, I had a few good outings, winning one year, placed third the year after (when they annoyingly allowed non-club members to enter).
But I could run well. At some stage, I joined Longford AC. At my first training session, we were advised that athletes from the club would take part in a meeting in Tullamore the following weekend. I went along and was thrown in at the deep end. 1500 metres over hurdles. I had never leapt over hurdles in my life, had no technique. Somehow I survived the harrowing ordeal, finishing fourth in my debut in what were actually Leinster finals.
Growing up in the pub business, I had whiled away the hours at pool (and a bit of darts). Absolutely loved the pool. Forget those ‘mispent youth’ jibes – it’s a great game. I played hundreds of pool competitions (individual and team) over the years, but sadly the old eyesight now lets me down too often. How did that black not go in? It used to!
Reporting
When you’re a teenager, people ask what you’d like to be. My passions were sport and, when it came to subjects at school, ‘English’. Thus, writing about sport became the career goal. In 1986 I started as a (very young) sports reporter with the Longford Leader, later joining the Cavan Leader, then the Roscommon Champion.
Nothing, then or since, matched the warm glow, even on the coldest days, of attending a GAA match…with all that potential for mayhem and magic.
Stephen King was a giant in Cavan, where the success-starved fans had a raw passion, a hunger for the return of the glory days. The shadow of John Joe Reilly and other Cavan heroes of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s ruthlessly followed new generations. It was a privilege to attend weekly games in the famed Breffni Park.
In later years, I soldiered in Roscommon press boxes, from big match day in the Hyde to more low key but always intriguing action at other grounds, to Athleague for the hurling too (always enjoyable), with a sprinkling of soccer thrown in.
The Clann years were great, if ultimately agonising too, the Johnstown men lording Roscommon and Connacht, but cruelly jilted at the altar of All-Ireland success year after year.
Later (2013), the superb St. Brigid’s reached the promised land, and what a joyous day that was. Following Roscommon clubs, and particularly the county team, has been brilliant, sport weaving its seductive presence into our hearts.
I think now, as we wade through this stinking Covid-19 swamp, of the enormous and emotionally charged role sport plays in our lives.
How much all of us would give now for the simple pleasures of a mere month ago…dropping our kids off in Lisnamult or at other venues…delivering them into the embrace of the fantastic volunteers in GAA, soccer and other sports.
Or stepping into the Hyde to watch Roscommon navigate through the tricky league, the championship flirtatiously waiting in the wings.
Before this, the Ireland rugby team, for all their inconsistency and undoubted flaws, was still a fascinating player in the Six Nations’ finale.
Liverpool, striding majestically towards history, and now the joy that was to come has been so abruptly tampered with.
The golf…Rory and Tiger. The Leeds United Comeback Project, like a Netflix series. All that gripping end-of-season soccer. The about-to-be born GAA (championship) summer. The Olympics. So much sport, now mired in uncertainty, clouded by Covid. Don’t like this new world. Bring back VAR, all is forgiven. Verdict: Not happy.
Heroes
When, as a young man, I was doing that brief bit of running on tracks and roads, potting those pool balls and playing soccer rather erratically, I was also being smitten by heroes.
The great Alex Higgins. Bestie. Tony Currie. Eamonn Coghlan. Muhammad Ali. Seve. Dermot Earley. Matt Le Tissier. McEnroe. And Borg. It was all magic then, it’s magic now.
I cannot describe the excitement and adrenaline rush we felt when rising to watch Ali at 4 o’clock in the morning (our time) in those epic 1970’s fights with Frazier and Foreman. Magic watching Kempes and Luque in the 1978 World Cup, and the peerless Maradona eight years later. Magic watching Alex defy physics (that pot on the blue, see Youtube) in his mesmerising, hair-standing-on-head victory over Jimmy White in the 1982 World Snooker Championship semi-final (prior to an emotional win over Ray Reardon in the title decider).
Sport is glorious, whether you’re dabbling in it as a young person, writing about it as a journalist, or viewing it as a fan. God, how we miss it. We look forward to normal service resuming after the break. Bring back the sport, bring back yesterday. Bring it back for all of us – the dreamers who’ve seen it all, for the players now sidelined, bring it back for the children who’ve had their weekends stolen.
And if you’re ever a superstar like Seb Coe or Eamonn Coghlan, or a run of the mill junior soccer player who comes into their own in road races in Kilglass, then run with everything you have, push for the (real) finish line, and smile while the cold wind blows and you inhale and savour the peerless magic of this (for now) stolen pleasure.
