ANTRIM footballer Patrick McBride talks about ‘flattening the curve’ and making individual sacrifices for the common good in trying to fight the coronavirus.
Before the deadly Covid-19 swept through the globe, an individual sacrifice was something that McBride directly benefited from. But in just a few short weeks, the definition has changed beyond recognition.
With the GAA’s season grinding to an abrupt halt last Thursday and Antrim’s promotion hopes paling into the background, McBride has found an entirely different perspective.
“I’d say the first day the GAA made their announcement I felt disappointed,” said McBride.
“But now I think there is a lot more to life than football. Like, there are people close to me who are elderly and then you think of the nurses and doctors who are going to be put under serious pressure. It’s not fair to be thinking of yourself or thinking of your sport."
The St John's man is following the advice issued by public health bodies that include social distancing, washing your hands and your mobile phone.
“The way I look at it is: it’s a sacrifice that you have to make as an individual. When you make an individual sacrifice you usually get a reward for it.
“When I mean an individual sacrifice, I mean not going on holiday so that you can play Championship. But this is different. This individual sacrifice is for other people. You’re obviously disappointed you can’t play sport but at the same time your focus should be on others instead of yourself.
“You are depending on society to ‘flatten the curve’. If you have people that are not going to make that sacrifice and just go out, then it’s going to last longer. But if you can nip it early and listen to all the advice you’re being given…”
The Antrim management team have tried to keep the squad connected as much as possible during these uncertain days. Each player has been given an individual training programme, but there are even limits to that.
“We’ve been given training to do,” he said.
“It’s gym work and running and it’s up to the players if they want to work on their own skills. When it comes to the gym work I don’t know if gyms are going to stay open and I don’t know if I want to be mixing around gyms. If you’re surrounding yourself with people in a gym it is sort of selfish as well.
“It’s easier to run because you’re in an open space. You don’t know whether to keep yourself ticking over or do you keep yourself in peak condition? I’ll just train the way I have been training.”
McBride had been one of Antrim’s driving forces in 2020 with Lenny Harbinson’s men putting themselves within striking distance of a promotion berth after thumping leaders Limerick in Portglenone at the start of the month.
A school teacher at Coláiste Feirste, McBride plans to wile away the spare hours by watching Netflix.
“You probably will appreciate your sport more when we do go back to play,” he said.
“At the minute, Netflix is getting a serious hit. I downloaded the Die Hard collection, so I’m going to watch the whole lot of them.”
