HONOURING A HERO IN TRIALOUGH:
Football and, indeed footballers, don’t always earn due respect from those outside the game but there are enough examples to tell us that the sport does have a heart and none more so than last Sunday’s Ulster Senior League clash at Trialough.
The players from Fanad United and Derry City Reserves formed a guard of honour for Davitt Walsh who was making his first appearance in a Fanad shirt since the Buncrana tragedy where he saved the life of four month old baby girl, Riognach Ann McGrotty.
It was an emotionally charged occasion and one that the Fanad player will have fully appreciated – his team-mates and those on the opposition side coming together to add to the numerous tributes that have come his way since that fateful March day.
It’s doubtful if any day goes by for the popular Kerrykeel native without his thoughts returning to that tragedy but last weekend will have been even more significant.
His participation in the Belfast Marathon on Monday in the company of Louise James, the mother of the baby girl plucked to safety by her heroic rescuer, added another emotional milestone to two lives that changed forever forty-five days ago. They took part in the event to help raise money and awareness in the fight against muscular dystrophy, a muscle-wasting condition which affected Louise’s son, Evan, who was among those who perished in the Buncrana tragedy.
There is, they say, strength in numbers and those who lined up at Trialough on Sunday and took part in the May Day marathon can only have added to it for everyone directly affected by the drowning on March 20th that claimed five lives and would have claimed another were it not for the heroism of a modest young man who can’t ever have believed that football would, one day, feature well down his list of priorities.
SUCKER REPUBLIC:
How to become paranoid in two easy lessons.
- Watching ‘Soccer Republic’ on R.T.E. 2 on Monday night last.
For the second successive week, the panellists on the weekly round-up of all things League of Ireland failed completely to give any sort of analysis into Finn Harps’ performance in Wexford – the visitors semingly dominated the opening half and were full value for the result – just as they didn’t do for the previous week’s match against Cork City. Both their opponents were, meanwhile, given due reaction by the studio analysts.
- Watching ‘Soccer Republic’ on R.T.E. 2 on Monday night last.
In his post match interview at Ferrycarrig Park, Harps’ assistant boss, Gavin Dykes, referred to the fixture listing which sent his part-time side on two lengthy journeys from one end of the country on two successive weekends (and will do so again at the end of the season).
That prompted a bit of a backlash in the ‘S.R.’ studio where Stuart Byrne lambasted the view and suggested Dykes & Co. should just get on with it and stop complaining about long trips to away matches.
Regular viewers of the highlights show will recall a number of weeks back, the panellists referring to Dublin based St. Patrick’s Athletic’s “long” journey to Donegal for a league match – Keith Fahey commenting on the arduous trek that involved and not a body in the studio taking him to task on it or bothering to mention that Pat’s are a full-time side or the fact that it’s only three hours down the road.
Of course, I could be just paranoid.
Meanwhile, Bohemians make the long, long trip to Ballybofey this Friday night in a match Harps will need to get something from as things tighten up considerably in the bottom half of the table.
Harps first ever promotion to the Premier Division will be marked, meanwhile, in the Barca Bar in Ballybofey following this Friday night’s match with the bulk of the squad scheduled to be in attendance for an event that will include a question and answer session and a showing of some DVD footage featuring highlights from that season twenty years ago.
The cover price is 5 euro. And many a memory to be covered too.
WORDS FALLING ON REF EARS:
At least some common sense has prevailed in the disciplinary corridors of the Ulster G.A.A. establishment.
That old saying that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ was hardly in the minds of the authorities when they handed out a 24 week suspension to Donegal under-21 manager, Declan Bonner for comments he reportedly made to match official, Barry Cassidy, after his side’s Championship defeat against Tyrone in March.
Bonner, generally as mild mannered an individual as you can get, was incensed with a number of decisions taken by the referee including the sendings-off of Stephen McMenamin and Brian Waldron and the black card handed out to Caolan McGonagle.
Whatever the nature of the words deployed by the Na Rossa man, a twenty-four ban was surely beyond the pale in this instance.
Indeed there have been physical exchanges on the field of play – and indeed off it as well – that were never punished to that level.
But Bonner’s appeal to the Ulster Hearings Committee in Armagh last week has been “rewarded” with the decision to halve the ban.
As I say, some common sense but only some.
LEICESTER 1 SPORTING WORLD 0
Not being the Donegal man who placed a five euro bet on Leicester City to win the Premiership, I can’t say what inspired him to pinpoint a team who had escaped relegation with a remarkable run-in of points gathered at the tail-end of the last campaign with seven wins from their final nine fixtures.
Cynics could, and no doubt would, suggest that he may have put a fiver on all twenty of the teams in the league but even had he done that he would still have emerged with a tidy 7,404 euro profit from his lay out. But credit to him – and debit to Paddy Power – for chancing his arm and coming away with a sum that might even have bought some of that Leicester line-up before last season.
When Chelsea grabbed that brilliantly taken equalizer against Spurs on Monday night, all I could think of, however, was another Donegal man and how he would have been sharing in the joy that marked Leicester’s title triumph. But I would hazard – even Eden Hazard it – a guess that Conrad Logan will almost certainly have been pondering on what might have been from his current base in Edinburgh.
True, his present team, Hibernian, have a Scottish Cup Final to look forward to but that would surely have paled into relative insignificance compared with a Premiership medal in his locker.
Quite apart from Tottenham’s London rivals, there would have been few who would have begrudged the White Hart Laners their moment of triumph but a lot more wanted the Foxes to claim the title after one of the most remarkable seasons in top flight history.
They were inspired by the modest and hugely likable Italian, Claudio Raniero, who, along with his players and staff, could not have been more worthy winners in a campaign where the so-called big clubs with their big bank balances were left floundering in their wake.
But nobody should forget the part played by former boss, Nigel Pearson. He built this team and was in charge when they went on that run that preserved their Premiership status and thus was the catalyst for one of football’s greatest – perhaps THE greatest – fairytales.
And the great majority of us didn’t even risk a fiver on them. Happy spending, that man.
LEICESTER 2 SPORTING WORLD 0
Didn’t get to view too much of the World Championship snooker this week but did catch the most relevant frame in the Final. The one that put Mark Selby ahead 10-7 after a fifteen minute joust on the green ball that had two exhausted players making error after error and in between pulling off a number of incredible snookers.
Selby missed the easiest of pots into the corner and side pockets respectively as his opponent, Ding Junhui, kept his hopes alive of closing the gap to a solitary frame.
“They’re obviously very, very tired”, Ken Doherty noted in the B.B.C. commentary box.
At one point, Leicester native Selby started conversing with a member of the crowd who was sporting a Coventry City jersey, prompting an obviously equally tired head commentator, John Virgo, to declare: “I often wonder where they send people who live in Coventry?.”
The same Virgo was forced to apologise to his B.B.C. bosses after the semi-final between Selby and Marco Fu. This particular encounter was marked by the longest frame in Crucible history – potting out after a remarkable 76 minutes and 11 seconds (longer than your average Gaelic football match). Thinking he was off air, Virgo remarked to his co-commentator, Willie Thorne: “I wanted to watch a bit of racing this afternoon…now I’ll miss f…..Match of the Day.”.
Now there IS a miscue with the blue.
But in the end, a mere thirteen minutes after Leicester City had been confirmed as Premiership champions, Selby crowned a stunning day, year, century for the Midlands city.
LETTERKENNY UNDER-18’S PUSHING FOR GLORY:
On Saturday week, members of Letterkenny R.F.C. will be involved in a car push to help raise funds for the club and for the Jack and Jill Foundation. Not the easiest of tasks seeing as they’re pushing it from Mountcharles to Letterkenny.
But, hey, can it be any harder than trotting out at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast for a Cup Final against one of Ulster’s toughest young teams which is precisely where the representatives of the local club’s under-18 squad will be this weekend.
The machine they’ll be attempting to push, out-maul, out-jump, and, more significantly, outscore will be their Armagh equivalents, a side that has already a trophy to their name this season and won at the expense of their Letterkenny opponents.
That 11-8 defeat in the Ulster Under-18’s League Final, staged in Magherafelt two months ago – and staged is a term that, in this case, can be construed any way you like – was somewhat controversial but to their credit the Letterkenny lads got back to business in the Ulster Carpets Cup and while fortunate to enjoy home advantage all the way to the Final nevertheless proved their worth with some stirring performances mixed with the tenacity built into this young side by coaches Gordon Curley and Denis Faulkner.
“Well coached, well prepared and totally committed”, was how referee, Shane Toolan, described the team on social media and having officiated at a couple of their games this season he will have viewed that commitment and preparation at first hand.
During the campaign, Armagh acquired the service of former Ulster coach, Brian McLaugfhlin, in a capacity of consultancy coach and that won’t make things any easier than they would have been before his appointment.
But the way the Letterkenny Under-18’s have performed throughout this season with style and an ability to conjure up tries from any area of the field surely merits them a trip home from Belfast with a trophy on board the team bus.
A supporters bus will be departing from Tobins filling station on Saturday morning at 11.20.a.m. and you can contact Michael McGarvey at 087-9093111 for further details.
The game at Ravenhill has a 3.p.m. start.
10k SUCCESS:
Due to attendance at an open athletics competition in Donegal Town on Sunday, I didn’t make it along to watch the North-West 10k this year but the reports and the photographs on all media platforms suggest another outstanding success and, hopefully, a bunch of money for the charities involved.
A brilliant performance from Burtonport’s Ciaran Doherty running in the colours of Letterkenny A.C. to net his third NW 10k title and what about second placed, Danny Mooney? Not content with just this particular event he participated in a triathlon in Derry on Sunday morning before completing a second place finish in Letterkenny in the afternoon. Coming home in third spot was Finn Valley’s Mark McPaul while Maria McCambridge, formerly Letterkenny A.C., was the first woman over the finishing line ahead of local woman, Fionnuala Diver.
But a big congratulations to every single individual, runner and walker, who took part.
CLAUDIO AND BRIAN ON THE SAME PAGE:
Writing in her T.V. review of the sporting world in Monday’s ‘Irish Times’, the ever entertaining Mary Hannigan, reacting to Martin O’Neill’s assertion that Leicester’s success represented the achievement of the century even though the century was only sixteen years old, claimed it was hard to think of too many to rival it.
But went on to suggest that Donegal’s 1992 All-Ireland success under ‘Brian McEniffio’ could compare with it.
Surely not. Man for man, the Donegal team of that time was heads above this Leicester side and always had it in them to claim an All-Ireland.
Whereas I can’t ever see Ranierio’s men winning the Sam Maguire.
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