Eyes on the Prize

Yesterday I was doing a PR photo thing for CRY with John Lundy, Jim Grattan and Jessica Delargy of the IFA.

It involved getting together with Jonny Evans of Manchester United for a photo shoot to promote Cardiac Screening.

Jonny agreed a while back to become a patron of CRY and this was the first opportunity we had to get to meet him, get some pics done and for John to explain to him a bit more about CRY. I was interested to see what this well paid professional footballer was like in person.  He was a nice guy, quiet, unassuming. Certainly not a bigtime Charlie as John would describe some of them.

By way of contrast, on Monday afternoon my nephew and good friend Sean Leo headed to Limerick to study for a PGCE at the University. In the boot of the car was tucked a bag of half a dozen or more O’Neills balls to keep him occupied. Alongside various provisions that his mother had carefully packed for his trip. Although he will likely be back on Friday it was a poignant moment. I took myself off.

Two years ago about this time of the year Sean Leo and his two brothers set off round the world for six months. It broke all our hearts to see them go, it was as if they were never coming back. In reality at any given time, half the young people of Portstewart seem to be in Thailand or Oz. Six months they were back, better for the experience. For me it was part of the making of the County Championship winning team that a number of them had been away together for a real adventure. A sort of bonding.

As I met Jonny yesterday and stood shooting the breeze I couldn’t help comparing him with the young gaelic players I know male and female. Without being in any way big headed or overbearing Jonny casually mentioned that he had someone to open his fan mail at Old Trafford.

He also told us in passing how he accidentally drove his golf cart into a lake having lost control of it and had to jump clear. It wasn’t a drunken prank – the wheels locked on a downward slope and he had to jump clear, hurting his leg in the process. He seemed most perturbed about the fact that his phone was wrecked in the water.

He was a personable young fella. Similar to young players I know and work with. No airs or graces. The difference is that yesterday whilst Jonny relaxed in his hotel in ‘recovery’ after Manchester United’s 8-2 hammering of Arsenal, our players were up for work, school, whatever. Certainly not PR photoshoots or endorsements.

It’s a different world. He told us how he didn’t like Arsenal and wished they had scored more, saying ‘I was telling the lads “let’s get into these’ns” so I was.’  I smiled for a minute at this young fella urging Rooney, Giggs and Co to get stuck into it.

On Sunday in a changing room in Newbridge at halftime I heard the same sentiment from one of our senior camogie players. A world separates them but really there is much in common.

The difference is that one is a top class athlete with the greatest team in the world. The other, plays for Manchester United.

Ah right. Today, Wednesday, we are back into routine. Tousleheads, morning refuseniks, lost shoes, missing schoolbags, homework done and undone. Notes, tears, tales from the classroom. Spellings, pointless notes, dinner money,lumbering cello, forgotten PE gear.

Once when Peter started Pre school I called in to see when he started and the teacher said today. So I left him with her to get on with it. Didn’t do him any harm.

It’s funny the wee morning routines. Every day Sorcha and I had a race to the door. ‘let’s have a wace daddy’ she’d smile with her Sorcha smile. She always won. Twas great.

And, no matter what I’m at in the morning, it’s her I’ll stop and smile at, her in her small corner and I in mine.

Imagine the time between knowing you are alive to birdsong, the smell of cooking, the sound of children, the laughter of others. And that instant when you hover on the precipice. . . an instant. Neither here. Nor there. Who knows how long it is. Does the world slow down, ending in slow motion or is it over. What do you hear? At that stage, do you care? Do you really give a fuck? Do you now? Will you then? Will it be too late?

The home detritus forgotten. All the menialities, trivialities, banalities. The ties, that tie you to what. What really matters? In the end nothing. Have you done a good job. Or a bad job with whatever you were given. With this life you were given and what you’ve done with it. Did you try hard, were you honest. Did anyone care. As the last bits of gas bubble out will you be happy or sad. Good or bad as the song says. Will you even care?

Will time pass slowly, will you get the chance to look again at what you did. To pause. Will a great voice say to you, with the benefit of hindsight now, would you like to reconsider that, would you do that the same way? Would you do different?

And what then? What if your answer was no? That’s it. I made my choice, I took my chance and that’s what I did then. I wouldn’t change jack.

And, with the people gathered around you, what if there was someone there you didn’t care for. Would you be able to summon the last bit of your very being and tell them to get out, to go away. Imagine the last sound echoing through your dead ears was a fool you couldn’t bear in life, now destroying your very death. What would you do? Sit bolt upright in the bed assuming you were in a bed and tell them to fuck off. They would of course be offended. But what of your offence? You can’t offend the dying. Can you?

Or would you be better saying nothing. Letting yourself die without them knowing what you really thought. But at that stage would you really care.

Would you?

There are many symptoms of the credit crunch around the country these days. There’s been much talk about admission prices to GAA Championship matches being too high and club fundraising being badly hit. But, as always, when Mammon closes a door, someone else opens a window.

In our club, we’ve noticed a new and not altogether unwelcome trend. What’s that you ask? Well, there’s more Young Under-8 Mammies In Every Saturday than ever before. YUMIES we’ll call them and yep, if its glamour you want, our indoor sessions are the place to be. And because they are there our coaching cohort is rising in direct proportion to the glamour quotient.

The economics? Well, previously YUMIES would have considered the Saturday morning training session the perfect time for a bit of retail therapy. Mugs like myself were unwitting accomplices to the Celtic Tiger in that we coached the kids so that the YUMIES could shop till they dropped. But now, with times harder, belts tighter and the credit card well and truly crunched, shredded and in the bin, the YUMIES need something else to do of a Saturday morning.

And what better way to pass the time than to cheer on every kick from young Seamus who, God help him, was born with the co-ordination of a baby giraffe on ice. His ma doesn’t see that tho’. Or the sad and sorry case of Finbar Fogarty who has recurring goldfish syndrome – every time something is explained to him he instantly forgets it – an invaluable skill in the intriguing world of international espionage but useless in the cut and thrust of an Under 8 Blitz. Still, he’s the apple of mother’s eye. Likewise young Gervaise Johnston whose father hails from Cheshire, thereby fuelling the misguided suspicion of at least one of our coaches that gaelic games are an inherited and inherent feature of the ‘Irish condition’. For them a drop of English blood is enough to taint the prospects of a successful club career. Us progressive thinkers argue our point, but young Gervaise unwittingly and effortlessly proves the opposite each time he tries to kick a ball. His sweet and fragrant mother looks on, unconcerned.

Our club decided to ignore worries about player burnout and bans on collective training – all so that we could continue our Under 8 coaching programme over the winter months. During the summer we traipsed our intrepid young team around the County with the usual mix of enjoyment and abject disillusionment. The former generated through watching all the kids build their game sense as the summer progressed, passing, moving, shooting when it was time to shoot and generally learning the ways of the gaelic warrior but most of all enjoy it. The disillusionment brought on by the occasional moron on the sideline that should know better.

Anyhow, we decided our players needed the winter practice to avoid the hedonistic attractions of foreign games and to fend off the bushrangers with the oval balls that might seek to steal our Under 8s from before our eyes. Further motivation was provided by one particular match when the opponents, dressed all in black were seen spraying on Lynx deodorant before the game and listening intently to Al Pacino exhort them to look for the inches all around them. The black Under Armour skins they all wore and the crates of energy drinks told us all we needed to know about shamateurism amongst the Under 8s.

Not that we wished to join them, or even necessarily beat them. Big hallions of cubs with scary black gear smelling of perfume don’t scare our fellas. Not when we are the better ball players – and we are. That’s a good place to be but only one way to get there. Winter indoor training.

Besides all that – we now have a secret weapon. The YUMIES. Such was the exotic and beguiling fragrance of one of the YUMIES as she floated past that Packie, a grizzled veteran of the County team with twenty three years on the senior squad, lost the run of himself mid team talk to the young fellas and muttered “Bejaze”, eyes a- glazed. Another young lady, a market researcher by profession I’m told, politely asked one of the coaches if she could record the number of touches each player had on her BlackBerry to see if there were any trends. He was overcome, beguiled even and could only mutter “yes, that’s fine.” One young executive had brought her laptop to training. We discovered afterwards she was downloading drills from the GAA website for one of the coaches. Another parent, herself an athlete of some renown, offered to assist the actual coaching. Her coaching attire raised many’s an eyebrow amongst other things but when she demonstrated how to bend and lift, the coaching session stopped and jaws dropped in wonder and amazement.

The matter of the YUMIES was discussed at a committee meeting. Some claimed they were a distraction. Other claimed this was a visible asset – greater parental involvement. The acid test was when a leading ladies designer store ran a bumper retail event offering all manner of finery, at a ridiculously attractive price. To a woman our cohort of YUMIES turned up at training – this one bringing fruit juice, that one bringing snacks, the other recording stats. Our statuesque coach doing her thing and the rest being generally helpful.

Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch? These YUMIES have just discovered a whole new way of living. And don’t they just love it!

So London’s burning. Parliament is recalled. A football international is cancelled. You would think that Regent Street was in flames, the House of Commons about to be sacked and a horde of hoodie wearing hoods lined up about to torch the Palace and to pillage any decent lookin wenches they may find therein.

Yet and still the Metropolitan Polis take their time to don their riot gear. I suppose here in the North we are used seeing skulls cracked at the slightest sign of a riot, maybe a plastic bullet or two launched at an unsuspecting teenager and watercannon hosing people off their feet. It is an unusual level of restraint by the Met. Maybe since they were embroiled in the News of the World imbroglio, they are more circumspect. That would be a first.

It would be so un-British and definitely not beffitting of and English gentleman like Cameron and his Clegg to send in the troops to blow the rioters off track. It’s one thing thumping a few Paddies on the head in far off Belfast. A different thing doing it in London.

There’s something about us people over here that means we deserve a good craic on the nut every so often, just to make us lie down. However it is a different proposition taking an almighty dump on your own doorstep with the world’s media watching and the Olympics a year off.

It confirms what we have long known that although we are apparently all ‘British’ under the one flag, in fact there are different rules for bored teenagers in London and  Londonderry.

Tell me this, what happens next year if the whole thing kicks off once again when the full glare of the Olympic spotlight is on London?

PrayForLondon was trending on Twitter, people organised Twitter feeds to arrange the clean up. It’s all terribly civilised and good natured, Dunkirkesque even.

An English Rugby fan asked me once in Donoghue’s in Baggot Street as we skulled pints of Guinness:

‘Why does no-one like us?’

My reply was ‘how long have you got?’

That perhaps explains why people on this side of the pond are watching with a mixture of disinterest and faint bemusement. The profile of the people charged with looting and public disorder was published in the Daily Telegraph with all the relish of the landed gentry holding aloft a pair of dirty socks.

A soldier steals a guitar worth £2000 and tries to sell it the next day. A Law student is caught in possession of £5000 of stolen electronics. Some other fella gets 12 months in two lots of six because he looted two different shops.

What possessed these people. The herd mentality? The lowest common denominator? Greed? The feeling they wouldn’t get caught. An orderly line in a shoe shop to try on looted shoes. Are these the demons that lie inside everyone, dormant waiting the chance to burst out? These weren’t the disaffected youth of the newspapers. It reminds me of student days and wanton acts of stupidity.

Pray for London. Indeed.

Peter: Dad which hand does Rory McIlroy lift his ball out of the hole with.

Me: I don’t know Peter. Ask Mum.

Leo: Dad you know that song Lacrimae by Moby.

Me: No.

Leo: Well it’s the longest song on my iPod.

I was walking through our utility room when one of the cats that come and go round our house ran over my foot.

I considered for an instance if it had been a squirrel or worse again a mouse or a rat what I would have done? Why do we have these varmints in a state of semi domestication in our homes. It is absurb when you think about it.

I read some woman in the Irish News today who in her spare time catches feral cats and checks them for Cat AIDS and Leukaemia. The question rising in my throat was why? Imagine having so little to do that you can spend your time chasing cats.

Who was it that decided to tame the common cat? We have one called Dylan named after its predecessor also named Dylan after Bob but pronounced Deelon. It’s a long story but the cat responded to being called in that way one time I had too much wine.

The other cat is called Mugsy after the Tyrone footballer. He is a neutered Tom. The cat not the footballer that is. He only comes into the living room at night, is rarely to be seen during the day and occasionally urinates in the old downstairs toilet which is now a cloakroom/storage room.

I’ll makes the decisions about room use Cat if you don’t mind. He will lick your foot if you have no shoes on – any cat that licks my foot deserves treatment. He’s also a bit quick to put the dukes up.

Anyhow, I know some people like Cats. I don’t. Mugsy likes me but only when he is in the living room. Elsewhere in the house he runs away or swings his claws. He’d bite you too if he had the chance.

Cats. They’re cat.