Sport

Enda McGinley: Penalties: the ultimate donkey-kick moment, frozen in time

David O’Leary is the clearest first memory I have.

I was a year or two, too young to recall Kevin McCabe and the sliding-doors moments in the ’86 All-Ireland final.

O’Leary’s was the last of Ireland's perfect five against Romania in the 1990 World Cup.

The one where, in living rooms around the country, all sense of decorum was lost as we roared and jumped like eejits.

That tournament of course had more than its fair share of infamous penalties, most notably from Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle, whose spot-kick shockers turned out to be the first instalment in England’s torturous relationship with the 12- yard kick.

A free shot with only the keeper to beat, they are easy to understand and simple to re-enact.

Consequently, they are the 'go to' activity anywhere there is a set of goals and a ball.

Gaelic football obviously can’t quite match the stomach-churning tension of soccer’s penalty shootout but they are still big moments and anyway, as we like to remind ourselves, with a heavier ball and smaller goal (and previously, a proper 14 yards from goal), our penalty is tougher than its soccer cousin.

Penalties are the ultimate frozen moment in time.

Before the kick the possibilities are huge.

A split second later the ramifications are just as significant.

It combines the skill and mental stress of a golfer's putt with the nerve of a duelling cowboy.

The player versus the goalie.

If you ever want to know why teams struggle with the favourites tag just stand up to hit a high-pressure penalty kick.

Odds are in your favour.

There is a mass of space at which to shoot and one goalkeeper standing hopelessly in the middle.

No one's tackling you while you stand close to goal with all the time in the world to hit it.

It should be a done deal.

Problem is, everyone is watching you.

Just like a team carrying the favourites tag are supposed to win you are supposed to score.

Only this time it wouldn’t be a collective failure, it would be a personal one.

A personal embarrassment.

It’s you letting your team down and giving the other team a huge boost.

And so, the mind games begin. The goalie, is there a side he prefers?

Is there a side you prefer? Does he know this?

In the modern game it’d be highly likely that he’s seen a few previous kicks of yours. Or has he?

Do you go for power? Do you place it? Place it high, low, keepers right or left?

Is the goalie not standing central? Is the cocky keeper giving you an open side?

Do you go to that side or is that what he is wanting?

Maybe you should try to throw him the wrong way.

Do you give a wee look at where you want to put it, or do you use the look as a double bluff?

Maybe just put the head down and drive it straight down the middle?

Or maybe wait for him to make a move as you make your run up before putting it to the other side?

They talk about that on TV, don’t they?

But then others say the worst thing to do is change your mind.

Maybe you should go the whole hog and try a Panenka? Okay, maybe not.

Then there’s the goalkeeper.

He’s there looking at you smiling or maybe giving you his best Clint Eastwood: ‘Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?’

Presumably they are asking themselves a similar litany of questions but from the very different perspective of having nothing to lose and everything to gain.

This is there chance to be a hero and oh how goalkeepers relish that.

I think I hit two in competition. One in an U14 Championship final. One in an U16 League final.

That short list should tell you all you need to know. Scored the first one. Missed the second.

On the second one, missed might be an understatement.

Thanks to COVID-19 and needing something to watch, some clubs have come to uploading old games to YouTube.

Somehow my club unearthed an U16 final from 1997.

Even the highly non-HD video could not hide the hilarity of my penalty ‘effort’.

The memories came back.

As always, the penalty spot was a bit worn to say the least but I was in luck, there was a nice wee sandy mound so I placed the ball on it.

‘Perfect, that’ll give me a good clean contact,’ I thought to myself while obviously forgetting that I wasn’t hitting a 45.

Then in a moment of ridiculous over-confidence I decided to go for the top-right corner.

I’d tried one when kicking about a few weeks previous and it had pinged in off the metal and even though it registered at the time as a fluke my 16-year-old brain decided, yep, that’ll be a perfect option in a county final.

That wasn’t quite enough though.

For some reason I thought the top corner still mightn’t do it so I thought I’d be best trying send the keeper the wrong way through a cleverly disguised run up.

It’s a county final after all, can’t leave anything to chance.

My run up, which started a good 14 metres back, took on what appeared to be some form of a dog-leg left shape.

It certainly perplexed the goalie who stood fixed to the spot, possibly thinking, where the hell is this guy going?

I struck the ball, cleanly of course, thanks to the goalkeeping tee-shaped mound of sand I had put it on.

It flew up, to the right…. and kept flying up and to the right.

The camera didn’t even bother panning to find it.

Like one of those arty films you were just left ponder the ball's final resting place.

The only reason of course I can tell the story is that in the end we won the game.

I even done some useful things but, thanks to COVID-19 the stand-out moment of my underage years is now that penalty.

Beckham, Waddell, Baggio et al.

I feel your pain.

The wonder of WhatsApp meant my wife, the doting partner she is, had it shared.

In fairness, the ridiculousness of it meant I shared it too.

Several minutes later I got a message from the ultimate penalty taker of my playing days, Stevie O’Neill.

It was a picture of Donkey from Shrek.

With the GAA season looking like a forlorn hope at this stage we’ll need to find anything we can to keep each other entertained.

I’m hoping that’s my bit done.