Football

Cavanaagh' tribute from Tyrone singer 'Datsun'

By Paddy Heaney

N o major controversy is complete without a song being released about it and the Sean Cavanagh saga has now ticked that box.

Under his alias, Datsun Donaghy, the Tyrone actor Conor Grimes has recorded 'The Sean Cavanagh Song' which was posted on YouTube on Sunday night.

Less than 24 hours after going on the website, Grimes's tribute to the Tyrone midfielder had received nearly 4,500 hits.

Written to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's song The Boxer, Grimes's paean to Cavanagh includes the lyrics:

"I do declare that some people say that a Gaelic player's life just isn't fair, but your soul is free when you are 10-feet in the air."

Some of the other lines are slightly less poetic but the admiration for Cavanagh is always abundantly obvious.

In one of the opening verses, Grimes sings: 'When I was a cub with my family and living in Tyrone, I was sent to the Academy but the sport I started out to play was basketball,

'I did excel and I learned my trademark shimmy which has served me rather well for which way I go no-one can ever tell.'

Grimes said he felt "compelled" to write the song because he was so annoyed by all the negativity which engulfed the Tyrone team after joe Brolly's criticised the tackle Sean Cavanagh made on monaghan's Conor mcmanus.Grimes, a father of three "mad Tyrone fans" aged 12, 10 and eight, stressed that he detected an anti-Tyrone bias in rTE's coverage long before joe Brolly launched his half-time tirade.

"I was driving up from county Clare and I was listening to the game on the radio. I was rushing back to see the game at my da's house. We were listening to it on rTE.

"Every time the commentators spoke I was screaming at the radio. one of the boys told me I was going to take a heart attack. But the commentators were so negative about Tyrone. It would have made your blood boil," he said. although Grimes's motivation to write the song has stemmed from the recent media storm, his lyrics make no reference to the controversy.

"There was this negative image coming across about Sean Cavanagh and I didn't like that," he said.

"Big Sean Cavanagh is an inspiration. my boys watch clips of him on YouTube.

"once I sat down to write it, I made a decision not to put anything negative in it."