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Nothing happened in the GAA last weekend, apart from a thousand Iliads, a thousand local rows
The traditional snug area of Slattery’s Pub in Rathmines has hosted many a post-match chat. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Timesight o’clock on Sunday evening came and I wasn’t feeling any less annoyed, so I messaged a couple of other grumpy old men and canvassed their thoughts on the possibility of a pint.
Our first game in the Dublinand as I walked in, I saw a familiar figure nursing a pint with another reasonably grumpy, but slightly younger-looking man.
“Well Colm, fancy meeting you here. ” My friend’s rather woebegone facial expression told me all I needed to know.
“Oh. Wait. Were you playing championship down home today? ” He had been, and his demeanour did not lie.
It too had not gone to plan. I’d have happily stayed drinking with him for the evening, but he had the look of a man with gripes to air and entirely unreasonable opinions to voice, and these are most effectively delivered when you’re speaking to someone who knows what the hell you’re talking about. Physical distance from his home club appeared to be no impediment.
Apparently he had driven back up the motorway with his drinking partner – and some sorrows to drown – in the passenger seat. This is, of course, a sacred rite. I wouldn’t dream of intruding on another’s grief ... and besides, I had some gripes to air myself. I told him I was on a similar mission and he told me he’d find me later.
My team-mates arrived and our game was picked apart in forensic detail, with that unique and beautiful cocktail of victimhood and self-righteousness that this brings out in people.
‘I left school without filling out CAO form’: Louth GAA’s Sam Mulroy insists Leaving Cert ‘doesn’t define you’It was a beautiful evening in Dublin and we were able to sit outside until 10.30pm or later. After the initial sting of disappointment was dealt with, we moved on to the other adult teams in the club, and how they’d got on, and by the time Colm had joined us we had all talked ourselves back into good form.
The conversation turned to the idea that we had all just been playing championship football in August, and what a difference it made to be playing in decent weather.
“Yeah, but in my head August is for All-Ireland semi-finals,” someone said. “I still can’t get used to it. ” This is a stubborn point of view, one which you still hear even the odd club player coming out with, regardless of how much easier their life has been made.
Given that the first rule of post-championship defeat debriefs is that you never, ever contradict something someone in your circle of trust says, no matter how ludicrous, I bit my tongue. In many respects, nothing happened in the GAA world last weekend that a critical mass of Irish sports fans cared about. It was basically a free weekend, in a long line of free weekends, until the county finals begin in earnest at the start of October and a few of us can start tuning back in for the provincial and All-Ireland club championships. Newcastle United goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek punches the ball clear in clash with Liverpool.
Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images I wouldn’t necessarily even disagree with that characterisation. Watching the Premier League at the weekend was a reminder that there’s a marketplace out there, and some organisations are rather more adept at hoovering up attention in that marketplace than others.
But as I stood outside Slattery’s in the late summer heat, with night falling and the city becalmed, I felt a great communion with the common Gael . I couldn’t agree that the GAA has “given up August” to its competitors, as people often say at this time of year.
How many other GAA players were at that very moment having conversations exactly like the one we were having, about the game that had got away from them earlier that day, or the win that had come out of nowhere, or the ridiculous moment around which a game had hinged? Nothing happened last weekend, apart from a thousand Iliads, a thousand local rows.
The story might be more difficult to pin down, and the emotions so much more diffuse, but neither the story nor the emotions are any weaker for that. This isn’t just a tale of attendances, although more than 100,000 people must have played, or paid at the gate, or tuned in to a streaming service to watch a club game last weekend .
It’s about the level of engagement of those attendees. For many of them, this weekend was as important or more important than anything they’d seen their intercounty team do all summer. And that importance would have manifested itself in different ways, whether as joy, annoyance, rage, or despair. Whatever emotions were felt, they were strongly and intensely felt.
One of our number was intent on disappearing across the road to Rody Bolands for one more, a sentence which I believe I had last heard during George W Bush’s second term, so I left him to it. Monday mornings are depressing enough as it is after championship defeats – but on weekends like last weekend, at least you know you’ve got company.
‘I left school without filling out CAO form’: Louth GAA’s Sam Mulroy insists Leaving Cert ‘doesn’t define you’What triggered catastrophic flood on the Nepal-Tibet border? Fortycoats, ‘Felt Jesus’ and the time Aonghus McAnally said bum instead of bottom Get an in-depth look at the weekend's action and the best analysis of upcoming fixtures in our weekly newsletter
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