"Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust." - Jesse Owens
“AND the 1999 GAA Allstar goalkeeper award goes to Kevin O’Dwyer from Cork,” announced Michael Lyster as faces around my table in the Burlington looked at me for my reaction.
It was somewhat similar to the Oscars when they immediately pan around to the losers who are clapping the winner and feigning genuine affection, but I continued to slurp on my vegetable soup, seemingly unfazed by the fact that I had not won the much-coveted bronze award.
Word had filtered round the media bandwagon all that week that, in Armagh’s breakthrough year, they might obtain two or three Allstars. McGeeney and Marsden were definites, but if the Orchard county were to bag three gongs then a portly wee ginger goalie with slightly eccentric jerseys was the surprising favourite.
The reason I wasn’t overcome with concealed resentment was that a few hours prior to the awards ceremony the BBC had taken me down to the banqueting room for a pre-awards interview and the floor staff were doing a run-through of the ceremony.
While being interviewed and asked about the potential of myself receiving an accolade I saw the big screen behind me go through all the winners and, lo and behold, Armagh were only receiving two. Although somewhat disappointed, at least I had two hours to prepare myself and a few of my friends and family not to get their hopes up.
Individual awards go against the very essence of what we call team sports, but show me a player who genuinely frowns upon receiving them and I would safely say he is either the most honourable of human beings or a complete liar.
We are conditioned in our Association to receive awards from underage football through. My own club and hundreds of others will hold presentation evenings for all our blossoming club players in the next few weeks where the manager’s son or daughter will inexplicably pick up the joint-player-of-the-year award in case anyone complains, which they always do.
I have a friend who is the absolute lifeblood of our club’s underage set-up and he refuses to give out player-of-the-year awards because he genuinely doesn’t believe in rewarding individuals. While I totally admire his stance, I can remember back to playing football with him and he collected more than his fair share of dust-gatherers.
We then progress to the acclaimed dinner dance when we get older and the highlight of the evening is when the players-of-the-year are announced. In county football it is no different.
I remember one year when I bagged the Ulster GAA Writers’ Personality of the Year Award which I was delighted to receive. Yet a few of my county comrades poked fun at me by saying it was like receiving the U14 most-improved player award as it bore little evidence of my footballing ability.
I recall telling a packed Great Northern Hotel in my acceptance speech that this was a huge honour for me and that I had worked extremely hard on my personality all year. I revealed that I had seen Jarlath Burns win it the year before me and I kept telling myself that I had a much better personality than him.
The Allstars ceremony, although frowned on by some, is a night where the cream of our Association are honoured and spoilt a little. I think that is richly deserved as these are amateur men who tirelessly give of their time with precious little acclaim. More importantly it’s a chance to socialise with your peers and let your hair down and feel appreciated for the countless sacrifices you have made that season.
The three Ulster recipients this year were hugely deserving and I had the pleasure of sitting beside a tired and weary Mattie Donnelly at the Aghyaran Gala dinner on Saturday evening and I couldn’t help but admire the Trillick man.
It would have been very easy that day to send some lame excuse as to why he couldn’t attend as quite a few others might have done in the same situation. I asked Mattie who he voted for in the Allstar Player of the Year awards and he told me that his vote went to Lee Keegan, the eventual winner.
I was somewhat surprised at this due to the Mayo man’s shenanigans in getting Sean Cavanagh sent off in the All-Ireland quarter-final, to which he replied that Keegan was the still the best player nominated.
It was a decision that didn’t go down well in the Dubs camp as they are disappointed if they don’t win all the big awards. I felt Tipperary should certainly have received more than one award.
And I suppose the shock was that Mayo’s David Clarke ended up with the goalkeeping slot, even though he didn’t start in the Connacht Championship and was inexplicably dropped for the All-Ireland final. In some way, I can see that as some form of recompense for everything he went though.
From a hurling perspective, Austin Gleeson receiving an Allstar, Young Player of the Year and Player of the Year was arguably excessive. I know that it didn’t go down well with Tipperary’s Séamus Callanan, who scored 13 points in the final and has every right to feel aggrieved.
On leaving a truly entertaining and enjoyable celebration night with the good people from Aghyaran (which is as hard to spell and say as it is to find), I walked out with Mattie Donnelly and intimated to him that he would be probably doing precious little tomorrow given his tired state.
He informed me, on the contrary, that he would be playing for Trillick in the last league game of the season at noon the next day. A true Allstar. It’s just a pity he’s from Tyrone.
