IN the words of that great St Gall’s veteran Mickey Culbert, there's no better feeling than the feeling of grass under your feet.
It's hard to beat Rossa Park in spring time.
Particularly this spring time.
Chilled blue skies, an imperious looking Black Mountain threatening to go a deeper shade of green and the sound of small feet and the thud of 100 O'Neill's footballs bouncing true from the once forbidden sod.
There was something truly life-affirming about the night as the adjoining fields of O’Donovan Rossa, Sarsfields and St Paul’s came alive at six o’clock.
In their unmistakable red and white jerseys, the St Paul’s camogs squeezed through the gates of the top pitch for the first time in four months.
Through the blue railings at the far end of Rossa Park, you could see the next generation of Sarsfields hurlers down below being put through their paces, each of them smacking heavy, black tyres with their tiny hurls and racing back to the starting line again.
The lush green acreage of Rossa Park itself has never felt more essential to the lives of the children who lightly scarred its surface last night.
Boys and girls ranging from roughly U6s to U11s had booked their patch for their first session in what seems like an eternity.
Some kids were happily drowning in luminous yellow bibs, others grappled with their over-sized mouth-guards while the O’Neill’s ball was treated like an imposter in the early throes of the coaching sessions dotted around the field.
Every single coach walked around their patch of grass with a spring in their step: encouraging, cajoling, demonstrating, but most of the time joking with the kids.
Maggie Flynn, O’Donovan Rossa’s chairperson, wandered from group to group with a permanent smile.
“It’s just wonderful to see the kids back,” she said. “It’s been too long. We had a banner welcoming all the children for their first night back.”
Last night was the first time since mid-December children were allowed to play outdoors together, in pods of 15, as sanctioned by the Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride and the Stormont Executive.
It’s been a long time in coming - too long, as Maggie rightly points out.
Like every juvenile coach the length and breadth of Ireland, Rossa’s U9 mentor Kevin Logan has been counting down the days since April 12 was announced as the day kids could return to outdoor play.
Children in the 26 counties, meanwhile, still have another agonising fortnight to wait before their day of emancipation following the GAA’s decision to allow the ‘Wee Six’ to go first due to the better COVID landscape and vaccination roll-out here.
“Our last training session we had Santa here,” Kevin says. “That’s the last time we seen the kids and many of them haven't seen each other since - and now we’re past Easter.”
The last thing you want to do is to distract Kevin and his merry band of coaches – Connor, Ray and Vincent - who put on a brilliant and light-hearted session.
‘Hands up Luca.’
‘Keep the ball tight to your chest Dominic.’
‘Great kicking, Aidan.’
There wasn’t a wrong word spoken as the kids laughed among each other and were also pictures of intense concentration when it came to thumping the ball over the bar or into the net.
This was pure freedom.
For the adults, it was important to breathe in and appreciate that life is made up of moments.
The last 13 months have had a ravaging effect on everyone, especially children.
Without the merest hint of anger or bitterness, Kevin says: “I think it has been too long. And I don’t know what we’ve achieved.
“These kids are coming out of a pandemic - something that we never experienced growing up. And kids don’t play in the street the way our generation did.
“So for clubs like ours providing this structure is what they need.
“My idea when they’re playing,” Kevin adds, “is that they make decisions... I think sport allows kids to be leaders, to be physical, it teaches them how to win, how to lose, how to get up and dust yourself down, and to be creative.”
At the end of their first session in four months, Kevin tells his U9s: “We’re not doing player of the week - this week is just about getting back, we all just wanted to get back.”
He pulls a box of treats from no-where and the kids shout into the fading light: ‘A haon, a dó a trí – ROSSSSSSAAAAA!’
You ask Kevin how he felt the first session went, he replies: “Chaos, hectic, loud and all over the place – great to be back.”
