First things first. In my own native county, congratulations to Clonduff camogs who climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to lift the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship title – an achievement that is truly magnificent for the south Down club.
Dunloy also deservedly beat St Thomas’s, Galway in the All-Ireland club hurling semi-final, a win that puts them one game away from achieving immortality.
What a day for Ulster teams, and it further cements the status of the All-Ireland club series that means so much more to a great many people at parochial level.
We witnessed a fantastic World Cup final last Sunday, by soccer’s own standards, too.
When I say ‘by their standards’, I mean it in comparison to some of the finals we witness annually at both county and club level in the GAA. Don’t get me wrong, I love soccer, played a bit in the off-season and support Liverpool.
I had grandfathers and great-grandfathers who emigrated to Liverpool to find work and, while tough times ensued, they created a good life for themselves and repatriated money home to keep a number of farms working.
That’s part of it, yes – many would say misplaced sentiment given the professionalism and commercialism now prevalent in the Premier League.
Kieran McGeeney would rightly attribute success in life and sport to an accident at birth – meaning we could be lucky to be born at a time and place that increases our chances of ‘winning’.
I disagree slightly on that point. Nonetheless, this same point Geezer makes applies to where we are, who our parents are and many of the things we take for granted in this life.
Sport is a further extension of this again. And one thing rarely applicable in sport (as in life) is sentiment.
Individuals and teams, whether in Gaelic football, hurling or soccer all, share a common relationship when it comes to this. Sport cares little for ‘deserving’. The exception? Last weekend, of course, when it came to Lionel Messi.
Many would say that winning the World Cup cements his status as the greatest of all time (GOAT for short).
I still contend that Maradona was the greatest player I witnessed.
Some of my earliest childhood memories are of the maestro himself playing for Napoli.
I would argue that Messi has been always supported by the creme de la crème of the playing fraternity at club level – those players of Barcelona and now PSG.
Maradona was different in that he single-handedly took a relegation-threatened Napoli side and made them champions.
He had no supporting superstars.
Indeed, in many instances, he played with a raging hangover and God knows what else. Could Messi do that?
People talk about the ‘Hand of God’ – certainly in footballing terms, my perspective on Maradona was that he was ‘divine’ in terms of footballing ability, yet he also displayed all the natural weaknesses of a human as well!
We could argue all day on who was greater between Pele, Maradona, and Messi, but many would agree that Ronaldo (the Portuguese one) would not slip into the top five.
Of course, the egomaniac Cristiano would argue that he is, of course, the number one.
Cristiano could, I am sure, rhyme off more than a few stats that would back up his opinion, but I am inclined to agree with Mark Twain when describing the persuasive power of statistics to bolster weak arguments, noting there are ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’.
Cristiano, in GAA terms, would be chased out of any club or county set-up.
It would have been unlikely that his ego would have grown to such dizzy heights at our local club in any regard.
Praise in one’s own locality is as rare as hen’s teeth. Loved and venerated players only come along once or twice in a generation.
The recently retired Michael Murphy I would describe as one.
Peter Canavan also.
The modern day David Clifford, it could be argued, has assumed this mantle and, given his relative youth, the man could become one of the true greats of the game by career finish.
The beauty about our game and indeed the parochial nature of our sport is that you are rarely far away from a kick on the rear end.
This humility is normally nurtured early via our association with the local parish. Whether this is a club operating at junior, intermediate or senior level, it is the very beauty of meeting GAA superstars in their own right, on a cold Tuesday night hanging over a fence, which makes the GAA what it is.
We are sometimes quick to forget the impact of COVID on our society and, only this year, advice such as social distancing and travel restrictions has been consigned to the past.
The return to some sort of GAA activity for both the younger and older members of the playing population was a life-line, as it was for many fans and individuals themselves who had retreated inward during those two years.
I would contend that it was the return to GAA activity and not professional sport being played in empty foreign stadiums that made more of a positive impact on our psyche.
I happened to be on O’Connell Street last Sunday evening after the World Cup final, when throngs of Argentinian fans assembled in the middle of the street.
Flags, singing fans, chanting and cars honking took traffic to a semi-standstill.
It still would not come close to matching some of the many celebrations GAA clubs and counties have experienced over the years after such equivalent final wins.
Granted Dublin is no Buenos Aires – those Argentinians were not on home soil.
But just a couple of miles to the north of O’Connell Street was an equivalent of a World Cup taking place in Croke Park – with Clonduff winning an All-Ireland intermediate championship.
No egos, no GOATs, no money involved, no commercialism.
The exact same feelings as Messi and Di Maria and other multimillionaire footballers.
The big difference is these players live behind high-rise walls with incredible wealth.
If we want to be sentimental about sport, our GAA players may not always have the same fame or privilege, but we are nonetheless on a human level, much luckier than our professional counterparts.
Our GAA stars are players of purity.
