If you are, or ever have been, involved in the GAA then you will know how closely knit it is an association. Yes of course there’s great rivalries between clubs and counties but for the most part all that is left on the field and off the field there are great friendships and alliances formed through a common love – the GAA.
That’s why at times of great sadness, no organisation or group comes together better or more powerfully than the GAA. We saw that too clearly over recent weeks when the awful news about up and coming Galway hurler, Niall O’Donoghue, came out. First, as always, it came out about his untimely death before soon it emerged that he had taken his own life.
Once again the horrors of suicide were all over our front and back pages and once again the GAA world had been turned upside down by a shocking tragedy. Naturally it isn’t a subject that is often broached in the GAA or in many sports but the whole subject of depression and suicide are as prevalent in the GAA and in all other sporting bodies in Ireland in 2013 as they are in any group or portion of society. Just because we are involved in sport, it doesn’t mean that we are shielded from the problems of real life and the falsehood that because people are involved in sport, they won’t be depressed or suicidal is slowly but surely being killed off but it still exists, unfortunately.
Just a day after Niall O’Donoghue was laid to rest in Galway, a former inter- county hurler, Cork’s Conor Cusack, posted a brilliantly written and amazingly honest blog telling of his own personal battle with depression over a period of eight long years. Within hours it had gone viral on the Facebook and Twitter, had appeared in many national newspapers and within 24 hours the very same Conor was sitting in the Prime Time studio in RTE telling his story, superbly and so very bravely, to Miriam O’Callaghan.
The response that Conor has received and the discussion and debate that his brave blog have generated is absolutely priceless and I have no doubt that it will help thousands of young (and not so young) people who find themselves in a similar situation, not just in the GAA or in Ireland but all over the world, now that our green planet is such a small place with social media.
Having known Conor Cusack since we first clashed on the hurling fields at U-12 level and later having sat next to him in Secondary School at Midleton CBS, I would have always classed myself as a friend. Of course life moves on and so do school mates and you don’t see each other as often as you used to and while I would have heard rumours, I had no idea what Conor went through and probably never would if he hadn’t written hisbrilliantly powerful blog.
That’s why it’s so important to talk about such things and if you suspect that someone might be going through their own battle with the ‘dark cloud ofdepression’ then please do your best to talk to them and at least offer them an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on – it might be just what they need to turn that corner. And remember it could easily be the star player on your team as much as the lad down the road who hardly talks to anyone. If you haven’t read Conor Cusack’s blog then I urge you to check it out at http:/ccusack111.blogspot.ie/ or find his Prime Time interview on You Tube or the RTE Player and watch that.
WHY OH WHY FERGIE?
I know I probably think the same thing every year around now, but it seems to me that there are even more sports autobiographies this year than normal. There seems to be hundreds of them, allfighting it out against each other for their share of the Christmas market.
Not surprisingly the one that was being mentioned in dispatches for months and then exploded on its launch last week was that of Sir Alex Ferguson. I’m sure you, like I am, are sick of it by now, or within about two hours of it being launched in fact. After about an hour on Twitter Ipersonally felt as though I had read the whole book. I haven’t and would say am unlikely to read it but I just wonder does he have a kind word to say about anyone? Except Denis Irwin – Fergie said that if he was picking a best eleven of his time as Manchester United manager, then the Cork man would be the first name that he would write down.
High praise indeed when one considers the quality players that pulled on the United shirt during his two decades or more in charge at Old Trafford.Thoroughly deserved too in my opinion as Irwin was an absolutely brilliant player. It reminds me of the time when the BBC pundits were picking their best team of the first 20 years of the Premier League and Alan Hansen picked Irwin ay right back and left back in his team – now that’s praise.
Anyway, I digress. Reading all the quotes from Fergie’s book I can’t help but ask, why? Fergie (or Sir Alex as I’ve no doubt some United fans will say he should be called) had an unbelievable career as manager of Manchester United. He won virtually everything in the game, over and over again, and will go down as one of the greatest football managers of all time. He walked away, when he wanted, a most unusual luxury for a football manager, and has retired (if that is what he is?) as a very very wealthy man.
So why then would he feel the need to write a book and slate people left right and centre? Three of his targets struck me most of all. Roy Keane, David Beckham and Jordan Henderson.
It seems to me that Roy Keane and David Beckham both crossed the line that whatever else you did at Old Trafford you didn’t do and that was to grow bigger or more powerful than Sir Alex. In his book and in the interviews he’s done he puts it that, ‘nobody is bigger than Manchester United’ but I think it was nobody could be bigger than Sir Alex. If you did that then you were a gonner.
He blames Roy Keane’s famousinterview with MUTV for his exit and he blames Victoria for Beckham’s end at United but I can’t help but believe that the real reason is that they were bigger and more powerful than the boss and that was a no no.
When asked about the comments in the book, Roy Keane mentioned loyalty and I think he’s right. There is no doubt that Fergie would never have been assuccessful as he was without Roy Keane and I think he should have remembered that when putting his book together, instead of trying to settle as many old scores as he could.
The oddest one of all though is Jordan Henderson. Fergie goes on about his running style and other bizarre things about a young man who never even played for him? What’s that all about? Of course to Man. United fans it won’t change the way they think about Fergie but for most of the rest of us I think this book has seen him slide down in ourestimation, and for what?
END OF THE ROAD FOR RULES?
So have we finally come to the end of the road for the International Rules series? Surely. Surely, there is no way back now for an event that has been on life-support for quite a few years now. The 116-37 debacle of a second test in Croke Park must be the final nail in its coffin. This meant that the two game series finished on an aggregate victory for Ireland on a score of 173 to 72.
Time now gentlemen, please.
Of course people have been calling for an and to the International Rules, for a variety of reasons, for many years now but the difference between then and now is that this time around the Irish public voted with their feet. In the past a ‘section of the media’ may have been calling for an end to it but yet Croke Park would be full, this time around though those ordinary GAA people showed that they have had enough of it. Just 28,525people attended the second test in Croke Park. It is said that it takes at least 33,000 paying customers to make it viable to open Croke Park for a match. Over the two tests, the 2013 version saw the smallest aggregate attendance in the history of the series in Ireland. As they might say in court, I rest my case.
But don’t expect the International Rules Series to be consigned to history that easily my friends. Not if the top brass in the GAA have anything to do about it. Get rid of a ‘lovely junket’ of an all expenses paid trip to Australia for a couple of weeks every few years? Are you mad or what? And this my friends is the only thing that has and might just continue to keep the International Rules Series alive.
GOLDEN GLOVES
Finally, a big well done to St. Paul’s boxers Rohan Date and Craig McCarthy who did brilliantly at the recent World Golden Gloves boxing tournament in Washington, coming home with gold and bronze medals respectively. In this golden age of Irish boxing it is great to see two very talented young Waterford fighters coming through to be part of this brilliant success story, let’s hope it’s a stepping stone to lots of further success for both men.
