Sport

Back to knockout Championships after all those years

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Kerry won the last pure knock-out All-Ireland SFC, beating Galway in a replay in 2000.<br /> Pic Ann McManus
Kerry won the last pure knock-out All-Ireland SFC, beating Galway in a replay in 2000.
Pic Ann McManus
Kerry won the last pure knock-out All-Ireland SFC, beating Galway in a replay in 2000.
Pic Ann McManus

I FINALLY got round to watching the first couple of episodes of ‘Life on Mars’, the TV cop series set in 1973 and 2006.

Huge shirt collars apart, the men’s fashion is quite cool, I reckon (revealing my old fogeyness by using that very adjective).

My (much younger) wife demurred, although we did agree that the sludgy brown wallpapers and the awful attitudes were a reminder that ‘the good old days’ weren’t actually so great.

Nor was the dreadful ‘variety’ show of that name, which I insisted on watching as a Seventies child in order to avoid going to bed, while not even enjoying it.

That might be a metaphor for the forthcoming Championship campaigns.

The players cannot be expected to be at their best, given all the restrictions on training, the bizarre build-up, and the lack of crowds – as well as the fear factor about Covid-19.

Everyone who’s fit and well would prefer to be at the games, rather than staring at a screen, whether it’s a TV, computer, ’phone, or tablet.

But we’ll sit up and watch it anyway – and it’ll be like the good old days, rather than ‘The Good Old Days’.

You don’t actually have to be as old as me, or all that old at all, to remember straight knockout Championship football (or hurling) – it just feels that way.

The same goes for inter-county action at this time of year, and into November and even December.

The ending of both those traditions came, rather fittingly, at the start of the new millennium.

The last League to encompass winter and spring football concluded in 2001.

The last knockout Championship had come in 2000, with football then following hurling’s lead of several seasons earlier by opening ‘the back door’ – with the difference of the big ball code allowing all the losing teams through it, not just a select few (or two, the finalists in Leinster and Munster).

The innovation had been bad enough in 1997, as far as traditionalists were concerned, with two Munster teams contesting the ‘All-Ireland’ Final, Clare and Tipperary reprising their provincial decider, with the same outcome in favour of the Banner. Tipp had denied Leinster champs Wexford ‘their’ place in the national decider.

The next year was even worse, with Offaly ending up as All-Ireland champs despite losing the Leinster decider before trailing in an All-Ireland semi-final replay which was ended early in error by the referee.

It was quite the relief when the 1999 Final was fought out between Cork and Kilkenny, not least because they’d won their respective provincial titles.

Football made matters much worse for the old guard first time out, though, with the 2001 All-Ireland SFC Final won by Galway, who hadn’t even reached the Connacht decider.

Yet although Derry supporters still rue their semi-final loss to the Tribesmen, Galway’s final display against Meath – who themselves had destroyed Kerry in the last four – silenced most doubters. Galway had also wreaked revenge on their provincial conquerors Roscommon in the new All-Ireland quarter-finals (as had Derry against Tyrone).

The All-Ulster Final of 2003, the All-Munster versions in 2007 and 2009, sent shudders down a few more spines, but tradition has re-asserted itself over the past decade.

Indeed Cork in that somewhat strange season of 2010 are the last winners of ‘Sam’ who hadn’t also won their province earlier that summer.

Mostly that’s due to the ‘domestic’ dominance of both Dublin and Kerry, with nine and seven consecutive provincial triumphs respectively.

Only Mayo and Tyrone have managed to buck that trend in even getting to All-Ireland Finals – in 2016, 2017, and 2018 – when they weren’t provincial champs.

Obviously we’re back to the old ways of only the four provincial winners going on to the All-Ireland series, which will end before it starts any debate about a team’s motivation this year.

There’ll be no point ‘taking it easy’ (as if anyone ever really did); we’re back to win or bust.

Some things never change, though – Ulster will provide the most intense, entertaining football championship.

Whether it’s the familiar, contemptuous match-up of Donegal and Tyrone or the freshness of a first Championship clash between Derry and Armagh for almost a decade, Ulster always produces some promising pairings.

Monaghan and Cavan go at it again first of all, after the latter stunned the former last year, and although the hosts will be favourites in Clones you wouldn’t bet a whole pile on them winning. Antrim, Fermanagh, and Down, all on the same side of the draw as those two in the preliminary round, will all think they can make it to the final.

For those who don’t, there surely won’t be any complaints about all the training for only one game, not in this year of all years.

Of course, ‘How far will we get?’ isn’t just a question for the teams and supporters - it applies to the Championships as a whole.

This virulent virus is here, there, and everywhere, not just north of the border.

Reporters aren’t relishing sitting up and out at Level 7 in Croke Park – but we know how privileged we will be to get to the games, any games.

Those who wished that the clock could be turned back to knockout championships won’t have wanted it to come in this way.

The ultra competitiveness of football in the Nineties may never return, but at least this year we’re back in the ‘one shot’ arena, where the favourites might, just might, be caught cold and knocked out.

Still, we’ll all be thankful when we get back to what became normality over the past two decades, even if that usually ends up with Dublin or Kerry lifting the Sam Maguire, just like in the good old days...

* Just one more thing – Happy Birthday, son.