By Steven Doherty

“You know what I like about Dublin?” “Buck all!”

Sport has taken quite a kicking in recent times. Between cyclists taking too many puffs on their asthma inhalers, American footballers taking the knee during the national anthem and Serena (a ‘quare big article’ as she would have been called at the AOH Hall disco back in the day) throwing her toys out of the pram, we appear to be living in the age of cynicism.  For those of us used to reading our newspapers from the back page forward, front page headlines, unwelcome and negative, tend to send a chill down the sports fans’ spine.

Gaelic football has got a sore touch too. All Ireland champions Dublin are facing a constant backlash over financial doping and a myriad other advantages. Elsewhere the state of the game is constantly questioned and its reputation has slunk to an all-time low. Defensive football is public enemy No.1. Fifteen men behind the ball. Blanket defending. Puke football. Too many hand passes, not enough kicking. Slaughtneil’s Padraig Cassidy soloing the ball at his leisure and not a sinner daring to tackle him. You get the drift. Audiences are down. Guerning is up. As hurling shines, football is left huddling in its cold, dark shadow.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Edmund Burke probably wasn’t as big into his GAA as most readers of the Gaelic Life, and he definitely never togged out for the great Glack Reserves team of the 1990s as this writer notoriously did, but his famous words can certainly be aimed at the modern game. Croke Park administrators – the game’s power-brokers and fat cats, sit on their well paid hands and do nothing.

And yet, while our beloved game lies prone in intensive care, life still flickers just enough to sustain our waning interest. For every half dozen disheartening games, there’s undoubtedly still a clinker. You just have to choose your matches wisely.

And the further down the food chain you go, the better the product gets. Club games tend to quicken the pulse more expeditiously than its inter-county big brother. Dig deeper and shinier gems can be unearthed. Under 20 football and minor football were both an absolute pleasure to watch this season, as the AFL vultures circled above us, encouraged and unchallenged, readying themselves to swoop for the tastiest talent.

<palign=”center”>The Remedy

I take my son (two left feet) and my daughter (two right feet) to under 8 training at our local club. If I’m being honest we don’t have the new Anthony Tohill or Ciara O’Sullivan on our hands, but they enjoy going and the wife chases us out the door either way.

And I’m glad she does, for this, my friends, is where the game’s wholesome nutrition can be found.

If defensive football represents football’s ills, underage football is the prescription. Where the modern game is racked with caution, rigidity and fear, the young cubs, in every club and county in Ireland, play with joy and abandon. And with a smile on their face.

It’s the game at its purest – honest, fast moving, end to end football, jam-packed with drama and fun. It’s the antidote to the cynicism and ‘game management’ that festers in the senior ranks.

I dare anyone to attend any of the phalanx of ‘Go Games’ blitzes throughout this province and not leave with a goofy smile on your face.

There’s always one kid, off his wee face on Kellogg’s Coco Pops who wins the ball around midfield and hares off soloing the ball in the wrong direction, much to the consternation of his team mates and howls of laughter of the watching parents and watchful coaches. That wee lunatic is usually a relative of mine.

‘Go games’ boast a great mix of talent and abilities– boys and girls, exciting prospects and future county stars, butter-fingered wee hams and well-fed bombers. But they’re all made welcome and encouraged to play.

Over anxious parents are primed and ready to run onto the pitch with a remedial Capri Sun, some words of encouragement or a “don’t be affrontin me out there!” There’s a fine line between the fabulous and the bizarre, and the thrill-o-meter is always up around ‘90’.

Goals rain down like Freddos from the tuckshop, and when the wee rascals score by God they know how to celebrate. Note the Marco Tardelli levels of euphoria when the size 4 busts the back of the onion bag, the net left hanging flabby like a grandmother’s teet.

It’ll take you back to your own time playing underage, playing with your friends, your brothers, your sisters, when anything seemed possible. Days of our lives where we dreamed of one day representing the county.

The ultimate male

And we all had heroes, some of us still do.

This writer’s admiration for the great Patsy Bradley of Slaughtneil – part man, part machine, chiselled out of the granite from nearby Carntogher Mountain by the sporting gods themselves, is well documented. Arms like motorway pylons, meaty thighs glistening in late summer sun; Patsy is quite simply the ultimate male. Some would call it man crush. Indeed the wife was slagging me off the other night about Patsy until I uttered the words “Don’t make me choose!” She soon piped down.

But something got muddied along the way. We grew up. We wanted to win, by any means possible. Money was mentioned. We forgot the joy. Footballers still dream of running out at Croke Park. But these days that’s a little like riding the tiger – exhilarating while it lasts but don’t expect a happy ending.

That umbilical link to the underage game was cut; the connective tissues became frayed and torn.

‘Where modern football can leave a horrid and acrid taste in even the most wide-eyed of sports lovers mouths, underage football sparkles with minty goodness and long-lasting freshness.’

So the next time you’re watching the Sunday Game and guldering at the screen, or sitting at a half filled stadium and thinking about asking a hapless steward for an unlikely refund, don’t despair. Instead, make a point to go down to an under 8 game at your local club and remember what it’s all really about. Just don’t eat too many Coco Pops before you go.