'When the invite came to tog out against the Croke Park staff, I played it cool, but I was already wondering if my hurl needs a fresh grip.' Harry Murphy/SPORTSFILE
On The 42Keep playing
'We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing'
Andy Moran rolling back the years is the envy of middle-aged men the country over.
A PENNY FOR the thoughts of the Balla player who was standing on the Ballyhaunis pitch in their relegation play-off against Ballaghaderreen on Sunday, when he spotted Andy Moran coming off the bench and heading his direction.
Really, he was on a hiding to nothing. What do you do in such a situation, up against the most popular man in Mayo right now, possibly ever?
Rough him up? What credit would you get for doing that to a 42-year-old man, albeit one that owns two gyms and is in serious physical shape.
Try a bit of sledging? That would be like shooting Bambi and saying you’ve developed a taste for venison.
For Moran, there was risk of sorts, but not much. Coming on with his side down five points, anything he contributed would have been praiseworthy.
Scoring two points straight off the bat was impressive, but his cuteness to set up a goal with a quick free showed that his body is still able to perform the messages sent by that big, beautiful football brain.
Given his occupation, Moran has had the time and opportunity to stay in good enough shape for a cameo with his club.
Andy Moran. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
In the same way as you are going to get a haircut if you hang around the barbers all day, spending your working day in a gym, you are going to fit in some stretching and a little work to keep the muscles and joints limbered up.
And then, there’s just the love of putting on a kit and boots and losing yourself in a game.
It was the same affliction for other All-Ireland winning managers. Pete McGrath was just 38 when he led Down to the All-Ireland in 1991 and was still occasionally playing for Rostrevor.
Mick O’Dwyer played his final game for Waterville at the age of 48, the same year he led Kerry to the Centenary All-Ireland title.
Festival
While McGrath and O’Dwyer were no doubt assets to their clubs, you have another huge bracket of people who love the game so much that they eagerly sniff out a chance to play in a non-competitive setting.
On Sunday, we had a festival in our hurling and camogie club. The day started with some Go Games and then there was a mini hurling/camogie tournament for all parents, coaches and U14 hurlers and camógs.
Sunday's Festival of hurling and camogie.
The rules were simple: don’t be a dick. If a young player was picking the ball up, let them at it and encourage them. Most obeyed that missive. In an example of growth, I did so.
But it still didn’t stop me from putting a shift in, running round like a headcase calling for puckouts, striking from long distances and, when the chance was there, sprinting into contact against fellow adults.
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After the first game for the red team, we had a break during which time my back, ass and hamstrings seized up. I train around five times a week, but what you realise is, it’s all in straight lines of running or lifting weights.
Side stepping, or running into 15 stone men is not part of my regime. And I was meant to be careful with a ruptured tendon in my foot four weeks previous.
Later on, as the others were easing their way into pints, I was easing myself into a bath of Epsom salts by 9pm, with a big glass of whiskey. I read that Páidí Ó Sé swore by such medicine after a hard run over Mount Eagle.
By 9.10pm, I dozed off in the bath. For all of Monday, I was like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. The stairs were the north face of Everest. Coming back down was even harder. It was a price worth paying.
Delusions
It’s not just me that suffers such delusions.
On Sunday, there was a match staged in Belfast between the Bredagh team that the late Jody Gormley played on and managed to the Down 2006 Junior championship, and his home club of Trillick.
The former sports writer Paddy Heaney was on that Bredagh team and a midfield partner of Gormley, 20 years ago. Heaney is now in his early 50s, and when the idea was floated, he was completely committed.
Since leaving journalism, Heaney has established a thriving gym and virtual training programme in his home town of Maghera. He trains every day, frequently twice.
He is one of the most competitive people you could ever encounter, and this spirit translates into a VO2 Max reading of 56, which puts him into the very top tier of aerobic capacity for a man of that age.
The day before, he was having a chat with a friend, Johnny McKaigue, where they were discussing how people fail to understand the demons within. How they repeatedly do the same things over and over and make the same mistakes.
The talk turned to the following day’s match, when Heaney said he was going to avoid all contact and do as little as possible.
McKaigue looked at him with wide eyes, shaking his head before asking, ‘Have you not listened to a word of our conversation?’
The Bredagh and Trillick players who played a game in memory of Jody Gormley on Sunday.
So Heaney went up. He warmed up in the appropriate way and kicked a few balls.
“Two minutes into the game, it was like being on cocaine,” he told me.
“I was in full game mode. You forget your age.”
Even at that, he had a moment of clarity. He decided to make use of the rolling subs rule and dodged around the middle for the rest of the game, marking Jody’s brother, Eoin.
He had one accidental collision. On Monday, he could barely walk.
Growing old(er)
At the back of it all, you realise something.
A lot of men grow older but they don’t grow any wiser. In a sporting sense, whatever about real life, most men plateau in their maturity once they turn 16.
But when we get older, we forget how to play, in the realest sense.
Once the ball goes in, the game is on. It’s a game.
I still remember my first game of football, and the 1-2 I scored at U12 for Tempo Maguires against Irvinestown. Never mind that 15 other goals could have been scored that day, I still recall my tap-in from a goalkeeper’s fumble. I felt the exact same thrill on Sunday.
Just to take stock, I’m 47 years young. I wasn’t much of a player, some would say at all.
I have four children that depend on me, and a wife that just about tolerates me.
If this is pathetic, then I refuse to apologise.
Not everyone has that. Some people quit playing and might never touch a ball the rest of their lives. I envy that restraint.
So much so, that next month, the GAA media have a game against the Croke Park staff, played in Croke Park.
I’ve played there twice before in charity matches. When the invite came to tog out for this, I played it cool, but I was already wondering if my hurl needs a fresh grip.
Croker: trying to look at home. Harry Murphy / SPORTSFILE
Harry Murphy / SPORTSFILE / SPORTSFILE
And sure. I know it will leave me unable to walk for a week afterwards.
The entire spirit of those moments is summed up for me in the car park beside Armagh’s Athletic Grounds.
In five-foot high graffiti, there is a quote from George Bernard Shaw that reads: ‘We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.’
To all those demented and tortured souls among us, even if they are still dragging their bones around a five-a-side court once a week, I salute you all.
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'We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing'
A PENNY FOR the thoughts of the Balla player who was standing on the Ballyhaunis pitch in their relegation play-off against Ballaghaderreen on Sunday, when he spotted Andy Moran coming off the bench and heading his direction.
Really, he was on a hiding to nothing. What do you do in such a situation, up against the most popular man in Mayo right now, possibly ever?
Rough him up? What credit would you get for doing that to a 42-year-old man, albeit one that owns two gyms and is in serious physical shape.
Try a bit of sledging? That would be like shooting Bambi and saying you’ve developed a taste for venison.
For Moran, there was risk of sorts, but not much. Coming on with his side down five points, anything he contributed would have been praiseworthy.
Scoring two points straight off the bat was impressive, but his cuteness to set up a goal with a quick free showed that his body is still able to perform the messages sent by that big, beautiful football brain.
Given his occupation, Moran has had the time and opportunity to stay in good enough shape for a cameo with his club.
In the same way as you are going to get a haircut if you hang around the barbers all day, spending your working day in a gym, you are going to fit in some stretching and a little work to keep the muscles and joints limbered up.
And then, there’s just the love of putting on a kit and boots and losing yourself in a game.
It was the same affliction for other All-Ireland winning managers. Pete McGrath was just 38 when he led Down to the All-Ireland in 1991 and was still occasionally playing for Rostrevor.
Festival
While McGrath and O’Dwyer were no doubt assets to their clubs, you have another huge bracket of people who love the game so much that they eagerly sniff out a chance to play in a non-competitive setting.
On Sunday, we had a festival in our hurling and camogie club. The day started with some Go Games and then there was a mini hurling/camogie tournament for all parents, coaches and U14 hurlers and camógs.
The rules were simple: don’t be a dick. If a young player was picking the ball up, let them at it and encourage them. Most obeyed that missive. In an example of growth, I did so.
But it still didn’t stop me from putting a shift in, running round like a headcase calling for puckouts, striking from long distances and, when the chance was there, sprinting into contact against fellow adults.
After the first game for the red team, we had a break during which time my back, ass and hamstrings seized up. I train around five times a week, but what you realise is, it’s all in straight lines of running or lifting weights.
Side stepping, or running into 15 stone men is not part of my regime. And I was meant to be careful with a ruptured tendon in my foot four weeks previous.
Later on, as the others were easing their way into pints, I was easing myself into a bath of Epsom salts by 9pm, with a big glass of whiskey. I read that Páidí Ó Sé swore by such medicine after a hard run over Mount Eagle.
By 9.10pm, I dozed off in the bath. For all of Monday, I was like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. The stairs were the north face of Everest. Coming back down was even harder. It was a price worth paying.
Delusions
It’s not just me that suffers such delusions.
On Sunday, there was a match staged in Belfast between the Bredagh team that the late Jody Gormley played on and managed to the Down 2006 Junior championship, and his home club of Trillick.
The former sports writer Paddy Heaney was on that Bredagh team and a midfield partner of Gormley, 20 years ago. Heaney is now in his early 50s, and when the idea was floated, he was completely committed.
Since leaving journalism, Heaney has established a thriving gym and virtual training programme in his home town of Maghera. He trains every day, frequently twice.
He is one of the most competitive people you could ever encounter, and this spirit translates into a VO2 Max reading of 56, which puts him into the very top tier of aerobic capacity for a man of that age.
The day before, he was having a chat with a friend, Johnny McKaigue, where they were discussing how people fail to understand the demons within. How they repeatedly do the same things over and over and make the same mistakes.
The talk turned to the following day’s match, when Heaney said he was going to avoid all contact and do as little as possible.
McKaigue looked at him with wide eyes, shaking his head before asking, ‘Have you not listened to a word of our conversation?’
So Heaney went up. He warmed up in the appropriate way and kicked a few balls.
“Two minutes into the game, it was like being on cocaine,” he told me.
“I was in full game mode. You forget your age.”
Even at that, he had a moment of clarity. He decided to make use of the rolling subs rule and dodged around the middle for the rest of the game, marking Jody’s brother, Eoin.
He had one accidental collision. On Monday, he could barely walk.
Growing old(er)
At the back of it all, you realise something.
A lot of men grow older but they don’t grow any wiser. In a sporting sense, whatever about real life, most men plateau in their maturity once they turn 16.
But when we get older, we forget how to play, in the realest sense.
Once the ball goes in, the game is on. It’s a game.
I still remember my first game of football, and the 1-2 I scored at U12 for Tempo Maguires against Irvinestown. Never mind that 15 other goals could have been scored that day, I still recall my tap-in from a goalkeeper’s fumble. I felt the exact same thrill on Sunday.
Just to take stock, I’m 47 years young. I wasn’t much of a player, some would say at all.
I have four children that depend on me, and a wife that just about tolerates me.
If this is pathetic, then I refuse to apologise.
Not everyone has that. Some people quit playing and might never touch a ball the rest of their lives. I envy that restraint.
So much so, that next month, the GAA media have a game against the Croke Park staff, played in Croke Park.
I’ve played there twice before in charity matches. When the invite came to tog out for this, I played it cool, but I was already wondering if my hurl needs a fresh grip.
And sure. I know it will leave me unable to walk for a week afterwards.
The entire spirit of those moments is summed up for me in the car park beside Armagh’s Athletic Grounds.
To all those demented and tortured souls among us, even if they are still dragging their bones around a five-a-side court once a week, I salute you all.
Shine on you crazy diamonds.
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