WHEN Professor Niall Moyna said last month that Gaelic football was “probably the most boring game in the world to watch,” he was only repeating something I have been saying for a decade. Something I got lambasted for. “He doesn’t understand the modern game.” “He is a dinosaur.” “The game was just catch and kick […]
WHEN the well known badge kisser Mickey Harte was being presented with the keys to his new Renault in Celtic Park, proudly wearing his Derry tracksuit, he said that his Tyrone assistant Gavin Devlin was “the best coach in Ireland.” The best coach in Ireland went on to play an offside trap in a game […]
IT is a terrible irony that Jimmy McGuinness’s system won Michael Murphy an All-Ireland medal yet ruined his best years. As a young footballer Michael was so good it was cartoonish. Here was a real life Hotshot Hamish, fetching impossible high balls and driving them to the net like Tony Yeboah, the ‘keeper standing there wondering […]
THE games for the new rules over the weekend had all the drama of a plate of warm scones, though the final was fun. To be fair, I played in an All-Star game in Donegal after they won the All-Ireland and scored 1-2 in the first half against the most fearsome defensive formula the game […]
JIM Gavin has the air of a fresh faced young Mormon selling bibles door to door. Serene as the buddha, he could persuade you of almost anything. Imagine him as a US trial lawyer, beaming down from a gigantic billboard, with the slogan: Honest Jim Gavin, Trial attorney. Just because you did it doesn’t mean […]
AT the weekend, we brought our 14 day old to Knockmore to meet her people. On Sunday morning, we strapped her into her carrier and walked up to the pitch for the Senior Ladies Championship semi-final against Carnacon. The Knockmore girls are the county champions. They are also the league champions, having won that in […]
A MODERN coach/manager has finally broken ranks to say what we are all thinking. This week, Professor Niall Moyna, a state of the art expert who has managed DCU to four Sigerson Cups, was a selector and advisor to the St Vincent’s All-Ireland winning club team of 2008 and an integral part of Pat Gilroy’s […]
‘THE rules of Piggy in the Middle: Two players pass a ball to each other, while a third player tries to intercept the pass. The third player is called the Piggy in the Middle. After each successful pass, the players on the outside chant ‘Piggy in the Middle.’ Little did the creator of Piggy in […]
YOU probably haven’t heard of little Tommy Loughran, the coal man’s son. He is 13 years old, two footed and fast. Last weekend, his tiny club Lissan met Glen, the giants of Derry club football, in the Derry U-14 championship final. The Wattys’ management assigned two of their children to mark Tommy. So, the two […]
NOW that the exhibition football is over, it is back to the real stuff. The stuff of the heart’s core. Last weekend, we were up at Ballaghadereen to watch Knockmore against Ballagh (as the locals call it) in the first round of the Mayo Senior Championship. It was a very poignant day, the first Ballagh […]
