Sport

Brendan Crossan: Zooms, virtual waiting rooms, empty grounds, the kids and Joe Brolly

Empty stadia has been the abiding image of the last year Picture: Margaret McLaughlin.
Empty stadia has been the abiding image of the last year Picture: Margaret McLaughlin. Empty stadia has been the abiding image of the last year Picture: Margaret McLaughlin.

On Tuesday morning, I was sitting where I’m sitting right now. Where I have been sitting for the last 12 months. At the dining room table.

Hunched over. Unrelenting back and hip pain. Eyes burning. The WhatsApp pinging. Ageing a year with each passing lockdown shift and wondering is it time for another coffee yet.

Sitting in yet another virtual Zoom call waiting room as the icon spins. Hoping that it’s my last-ever zoom call.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have known what a Zoom call was. Now they're an integral part of remote living.

If it wasn’t for COVID19, I wouldn’t be sitting at this dining room table. I’d be in Belgrade at a real press conference, not a virtual one, ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s opening World Cup qualifier against Serbia.

And then living it up in some trendy coffee shop watching the world go by.

Still, it was nice to see Seamus Coleman and some of my equally haggard-looking colleagues on my computer screen on Tuesday morning – and being suitably inspired by the words from the Irish captain. A role model if ever there was one.

After a short interval, another virtual waiting room on zoom before Stephen Kenny appeared on screen.

As he sits and gives thoughtful answers to every question put to him, you’re left wondering when is this man going to get a break.

As I type up the quotes, the Sylvanian Family toy-house to my left rattles in time with the pitter patter of the keyboard.

This dining room table and a passive-aggressive toy-house rattling or Belgrade.

Take your pick.

At the risk of sounding smug, I comforted myself with the knowledge that I’d been to Belgrade before, five years ago when Ireland drew 2-2 – a time when Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane were enjoying the warm after-glow of Euro 2016 - and Jeff Hendrick was ripping it up.

This time last year the world radically changed.

We were all despatched to our homes fearing what lay ahead and wincing at Robin Swann's grim warning that up to 15,000 people could perish in the first wave.

There were tears as the school gates were padlocked and parents were introduced to a thing called Seesaw. Another bane of our lives.

My then three-year-old son called it the 'Co-Co virus', unbeknown to him he would never set foot in his nursery class again.

Under rolling turquoise skies, my daughter and I went running, as kids’ sports – and, as it transpired, kids in general – were put in cold storage.

I wondered when Rosa would play football again or take flight on the lush green sod of Naomh Éanna – or when Shea would be doing more messing than listening to Coach Seamas and talking about Ben 10.

What ever happened to the Tír na nÓg every idyllic Saturday morning? I grieved for their stolen childhood.

Every Thursday night at 8pm we applauded the NHS instead of funding it.

It was perfect Boris bombast.

But this was no time for dissent.

It’s been the quickest and longest year of our lives.

For the last 12 months, The Irish News sports team has been glued together by WhatsApp. There is the morning cry for GAA stories.

Some days the jokes fly on the group chat. Some are better than others. Other days it rarely pings

Yep. It’s a year of our lives we’ll never get back.

Last summer we all stayed close to home. The Antrim club championships in hurling and football kept us sane.

There were limited crowds and ‘live’ streams – but as soon as the delayed inter-county season got underway the gates were locked to punters as the 'R' rate climbed.

I remember driving along that impossibly straight stretch of road that leads to the old market town of Clones to watch Monaghan and Cavan in the Ulster Championship.

It should have been bumper to bumper, hamburgers, hats, scarves and headbands and quickening our stride up Clones hill.

But it wasn’t like that at all. This was Clones in winter time. A howling wind, not a sinner around and Creighton's doors closed.

I couldn’t decide whether the Cavan and Monaghan game was a classic or just another run-of-the-mill game.

That’s what a crowd does – it plays tricks on you. Delightful tricks.

As the season trundled along, the small group of reporters didn’t know whether to be happy or sad at these games. Happy to be out of the house and having a purpose for the day, or sad because empty terraces only reinforced these desperately bleak times.

That majestic piece of music and film The Sunday Game put together – Boys of Summer and ‘This Too Shall Pass’ – lifted our spirits, but only for a little while because we’re still waiting for this to pass.

In 2020, every inter-county game felt the same. No matter how much crowd noise Sky Sports piped into our living rooms, the empty terraces and the shouts of players and coaches told the real story.

Unless you were from Cavan, 2020 was a soulless kind of year.

The All-Irelands came and went. One of the most moving moments of the entire year was Antrim hurling captain Conor McCann laying a wreath on Hill 16 to remember those innocents who lost their lives on Bloody Sunday 100 years ago, and the haunting music that accompanied the Creggan man’s walk.

We imagined a different kind of Joe McDonagh final day that day where there’d be thick nests of saffron in the Hogan and Cusack Stands and the roars would reverberate and swirl and somehow stay inside Gaelic football’s wonderful colosseum for longer than a roar should.

All the while we forgot about the kids as everyone got carried away with the importance of elite status and furlough schemes that kind of in a way kept the kids away from the fields for longer.

On Wednesday night, I took up residence in the back room to report from my back room – not Belgrade – with Ben 10 figures and strewn Lego sets across the floor.

The Republic of Ireland ended their goal drought but came up short in the end.

Another empty stadium. Another virtual waiting room via zoom from Belgrade and Stephen Kenny reflecting on what might have been.

It’s the first anniversary of lockdown. It feels like I haven’t left this dining room table.

The unrelenting back pain. Eyes burning. Zooms and more virtual waiting rooms and spinning icons.

And the WhatsApp pinging with bad jokes. Will this ever pass?

Before turning the lights out, I lifted The Irish News and read the front page headline. ‘Silenced Brolly likens RTÉ to North Korea’.

I laughed the hardest I’ve laughed all year, and it felt wonderfully cathartic.

Thanks, Joe. Never change.