A COUPLE of weeks ago, I dropped ‘Er indoors’ into Newry to do the ‘big shop’ and I’d already spotted my get-out-of-jail card on the way into the city in the guise of an underage blitz in Camlough.
So while she gained pleasure in filling bags with stuff the house is already coming down with, I sat with the window open at Carrickcruppen GFC, reading The Irish News and watching the various sides on show like a scout on the lookout for the next Oisín McConville or Colm Cooper.
I listened intently as one manager started to line out his excitable troop of U8s and it instantly took me back 40-odd years. I could fully empathise with the kids as they waited with giddy anticipation to find out where they were going to play or, as was the case with me four decades ago, whether they would get a game at all.
We are always told children are different nowadays than they were years ago. Yes, these kids were well kitted out with all the best gear, all of it matching and wearing better boots than I ever had. But here were children feeling exactly the same emotions and exhilaration that every footballer over the last 50 years must surely have felt at their age. Looking on, it was great to see that playing the game of Gaelic football still holds the same excitement for an eight-year-old now as it did when I was a child.
The coach gathered all of his players around him and was about to name his team when something happened that I found surreal, which totally shattered my blissful walk down memory lane. Unbelievably, I heard a seven-year-old say something I had never heard on a pitch before.
As an eight-year-old, I desperately wanted to play at midfield, the hallowed position of respect that everyone coveted, the position that all 30 players in the panel really wanted. Failing that, I was happy enough to play anywhere in the forward line. Yet here I was in October 2015, listening to a curly-haired, doe-eyed, cherub-faced youngster shouting: “Can I be the sweeper?”
Now, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever the lad hadn’t a clue what that position entailed, or was aware of the negativity associated with it. I suppose he was just hoping to fill a position that seems to be the most talked-about phenomenom in our game. Regrettably, that youngster’s ambition is reflective of the way our games are being played and, more importantly, coached.
I went to a MacRory Cup match a few weeks ago. The competition is a shining light in football, one I have previously held up as the very blueprint for our game. Yet that night, one team in particular played with 13-men behind the ball.
In a minor match I went to during the summer, I watched as half-forwards from both teams were constantly being told to track back and fill the hole. This advice was being given to them at their opposition kick-outs, so in essence they played as half-backs for the whole game. After 40 minutes, one of the lads was substituted and was visibly confused. When I later enquired as to why he was taken off, I was told that he was giving nothing up front. This was essentially the truth, but only because he was being told to play as an extra defender.
I know we are all sick and tired of listening to the same old arguments that attack is the best form of defence and that the game lacks creativity, but there are a few teams out there who still live by these ideals and are still succeeding.
Over the course of the summer, I spoke to a few Crossmaglen supporters who were pessimistic about their club’s chances of retaining their county title, never mind anything else, without the services of Jamie Clarke and an injured Aaron Kernan. Yet they put in one of their best ever county final performances against Armagh Harps and have shown Cargin the road, making their way to another Ulster Club SFC semi-final.
Perhaps this is too simplistic, but if the whole footballing world tried to mimic Donegal’s system, why are they not now trying to replicate the likes of Corofin, last season’s club champions? Or a relatively new Crossmaglen team who are still able to hold all the aces by playing a pure brand of kicking football, which is ambitious and reliant on all of their players being good kick-passers and having confidence on the ball?
I heard one man saying last week he was going to the Cross match against Cargin, not to support them in any shape or form, but simply to watch a decent brand of football, free from the modern-day suffocation tactics which have ruined our game.
Crossmaglen might not win the Ulster title. In the semi-final, they will come up against a Kilcoo team who know how to play football, as well as mix it physically. But in the midst of all the passion and rivalry, you will find two teams who are hell-bent on attacking, rather than getting men behind the ball. And with absolutely no disrespect to defenders, I could practically guarantee no-one in the Crossmaglen U8 team wants to play sweeper.
CONGRATULATIONS to my neighbour Peter O’Brien, who collected an Allstar award and was named Player of the Tournament at the recent Asian Games in Shanghai.
Peter, from Ballard, which is in the suburbs of Mullaghbawn, now plays for Singapore Lions and is the grandson of Mick McCann, the honorary president of my own club. At one time, Mick managed and coached my father, which gives you some idea of his age.
Mick, who has had a colossal impact on our club over the years, will be extremely proud of Peter’s accomplishment, even if he did play for the Shane O’Neill’s club before heading to Asia.
I am reliably informed that Mick never played my father as a sweeper either.
