‘Team spirit is an illusion glimpsed in times of success.’
WHO SAID THAT?
I’ll tell you who said it. It was Steve Archibald who said it.
It is one of the greatest-ever quotes about sport. If we said its provenance was one of the more austere poets, you’d swallow that. I know I would have.
And there’s something of the end-of-times cynicism of it that I – forgive my personal tastes – delight in.
Only someone who went through the hard times, the deprivations and the boredoms of, say, a Charles Bukowski, is entitled to gaze down on the human condition and smite it such.
Big Archibald had served his time as a car mechanic, staring up at sumps of Ford Cortinas. A squirt of oil in the eye was an occupational hazard.
He was a Barcelona player in 1988, living it up in Catalonia in his sporting prime at 28 having played for the Fergie-era Aberdeen and won the Scottish title, before starring for a glamour-laden Spurs side in the early ‘80s.
A few years later, Archibald was leading the line for Clyde. Hey, you’d be cynical too.
Like most great sayings, it is not a universal truth. There is a thing called team spirit and it doesn’t even have to come in a team sport. Just look at the strangers, bringing it in for The Real Thing at the end of a marathon when they might have bullied and coerced each other through the last six miles.
And we are giving ourselves a pat on the head here, but when it comes to club GAA championship wins, this is a unique quality. Not to be folksy about it but there are scant enough opportunities for communities to come together. And when it goes right, fallen comrades are often the very first to get a mention, such as the late Lorcan Branagan after Clonduff’s first win in 26 years on Sunday.
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Stephen Clonville and Charlie Carr hold the late Lorcan Branagan's jersey aloft as they lift the Frank O'Hare Cup. Bryan Keane
Bryan Keane
When it comes to this time of the year in the GAA, it can often be the highlight of many people’s lives and following in Mayo’s All-Ireland triumph this year, there appears to be something in the air and long droughts are being broken every week.
Chances are, these droughts highlight the changing image of county finals. Since the mobile phone became a permanent appendage on the arm of every teen, there is a great demand to make everything look sensational. Hence, the arrival of flares into GAA grounds.
The final whistle of county finals has become cinematic. Super slo-mo images of tiny children in full club kit running onto the pitch. The vanquished collapsing to their knees, swallowed by the turf. The victors, pumped with adrenaline, sheer relief and the natural high of achievement, seeking each other out and holding on for dear life.
There is a mass exuberance. A dopamine overload that carries through everyone in the parish.
If you have ever been close to the celebrations that greet a county title, you will see people who normally detest the sight of each other embracing like they themselves had been the midfield engine for the previous hour.
It’s strong tack.
Even at that, the relief at winning is never as strong as the disappointment of losing.
Teams and supporters take their time in leaving the pitch. The usual run of things will be that the cup is brought home and a fuss is made.
It wasn’t always like this. I can clearly recall a Sunday evening in our local village, when Tempo Maguires beat Teemore Shamrocks earlier that day in the 1991 county intermediate final.
My uncle, and goalscorer that day, Peter, got the keys of my grandfather’s flat-bed timber truck with ‘Bogue Brothers’ above the windscreen. The players clambered onto the back and, without anything to grab and steady themselves, had to rely on their core stability as the truck jerked, and the brakes were pumped out of madness and badness to send lads scattering.
In my memory, the only people out on the street were my father, local shop owner Frank Howe, and I. When my father asked Frank if he was ‘going in for one’ to the Nally Stand Bar, he laughed as if it was a ludicrous proposition. I’m not sure who was the most embarrassed on the street that night, but it was stiff competition.
That’s all flipped now.
Some take this to serious lengths. On the several times in recent years that Dunloy have won the Antrim hurling title, their parades have been off the scale.
When they won their first football championship last year, it was a similar story.
Not all though. Some see it differently. In the last week, I have heard of one mother of a prominent club footballer preparing for an upcoming county final.
To her, it represents dread. Her son is no stranger to letting his hair down after a sporting goal has been reached.
When asked about the upcoming fixture involving her son, she shook her head sadly and expressed the wish that they might lose. At least then he might be back in the house by Monday night, rather than fetch up somewhere on the Thursday.
The drinking sessions now on Monday are a young man’s game. It is best enjoyed by those with few responsibilities and a carefree attitude. We say young men, but now ladies teams and camogie sides have claimed the tradition for themselves. Good on them.
They are heavy-going, though. Equal parts stag-do, road trip, a sometime fashion parade and jovial jamboree, they can go on for days with mobile phones mysteriously losing signal when the real world threatens to invade this sacred space.
Kilmacud Crokes celebrate winning the Dublin ladies' championship. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Some of it is also the greatest pile of performative nonsense, of course. Lads trying waaay too hard and the chronically online sitting in horseshoe formations with heads stuck in phones.
And don’t get us started on the trend for teams to travel great distances to get their photograph taken outside The Boar’s Head Pub in Dublin, because they’ve seen Kerry doing the same.
But as Monday draws to a close, there will be those that want to push the boat out another day.
The former Donegal footballer Michael Hegarty used to express his dismay at the fellas determined to drag the arse out of it, telling players at a subsequent meeting, ‘Even a dog wouldn’t go drinking on a Tuesday.’
But yeah, I’ve done that myself.
And Hegarty is right.
To all those facing into county finals over the next month, enjoy the occasion, get everything you want out of it, and make sure to tell your mammies you are safe and well.
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Is team spirit an illusion glimpsed in a time of success? Not in county final season
‘Team spirit is an illusion glimpsed in times of success.’
WHO SAID THAT?
I’ll tell you who said it. It was Steve Archibald who said it.
It is one of the greatest-ever quotes about sport. If we said its provenance was one of the more austere poets, you’d swallow that. I know I would have.
And there’s something of the end-of-times cynicism of it that I – forgive my personal tastes – delight in.
Only someone who went through the hard times, the deprivations and the boredoms of, say, a Charles Bukowski, is entitled to gaze down on the human condition and smite it such.
Big Archibald had served his time as a car mechanic, staring up at sumps of Ford Cortinas. A squirt of oil in the eye was an occupational hazard.
He was a Barcelona player in 1988, living it up in Catalonia in his sporting prime at 28 having played for the Fergie-era Aberdeen and won the Scottish title, before starring for a glamour-laden Spurs side in the early ‘80s.
A few years later, Archibald was leading the line for Clyde. Hey, you’d be cynical too.
Like most great sayings, it is not a universal truth. There is a thing called team spirit and it doesn’t even have to come in a team sport. Just look at the strangers, bringing it in for The Real Thing at the end of a marathon when they might have bullied and coerced each other through the last six miles.
And we are giving ourselves a pat on the head here, but when it comes to club GAA championship wins, this is a unique quality. Not to be folksy about it but there are scant enough opportunities for communities to come together. And when it goes right, fallen comrades are often the very first to get a mention, such as the late Lorcan Branagan after Clonduff’s first win in 26 years on Sunday.
When it comes to this time of the year in the GAA, it can often be the highlight of many people’s lives and following in Mayo’s All-Ireland triumph this year, there appears to be something in the air and long droughts are being broken every week.
Chances are, these droughts highlight the changing image of county finals. Since the mobile phone became a permanent appendage on the arm of every teen, there is a great demand to make everything look sensational. Hence, the arrival of flares into GAA grounds.
The final whistle of county finals has become cinematic. Super slo-mo images of tiny children in full club kit running onto the pitch. The vanquished collapsing to their knees, swallowed by the turf. The victors, pumped with adrenaline, sheer relief and the natural high of achievement, seeking each other out and holding on for dear life.
There is a mass exuberance. A dopamine overload that carries through everyone in the parish.
It’s strong tack.
Even at that, the relief at winning is never as strong as the disappointment of losing.
Teams and supporters take their time in leaving the pitch. The usual run of things will be that the cup is brought home and a fuss is made.
It wasn’t always like this. I can clearly recall a Sunday evening in our local village, when Tempo Maguires beat Teemore Shamrocks earlier that day in the 1991 county intermediate final.
My uncle, and goalscorer that day, Peter, got the keys of my grandfather’s flat-bed timber truck with ‘Bogue Brothers’ above the windscreen. The players clambered onto the back and, without anything to grab and steady themselves, had to rely on their core stability as the truck jerked, and the brakes were pumped out of madness and badness to send lads scattering.
In my memory, the only people out on the street were my father, local shop owner Frank Howe, and I. When my father asked Frank if he was ‘going in for one’ to the Nally Stand Bar, he laughed as if it was a ludicrous proposition. I’m not sure who was the most embarrassed on the street that night, but it was stiff competition.
That’s all flipped now.
Some take this to serious lengths. On the several times in recent years that Dunloy have won the Antrim hurling title, their parades have been off the scale.
When they won their first football championship last year, it was a similar story.
It would do the heart good.
Not all though. Some see it differently. In the last week, I have heard of one mother of a prominent club footballer preparing for an upcoming county final.
To her, it represents dread. Her son is no stranger to letting his hair down after a sporting goal has been reached.
The drinking sessions now on Monday are a young man’s game. It is best enjoyed by those with few responsibilities and a carefree attitude. We say young men, but now ladies teams and camogie sides have claimed the tradition for themselves. Good on them.
They are heavy-going, though. Equal parts stag-do, road trip, a sometime fashion parade and jovial jamboree, they can go on for days with mobile phones mysteriously losing signal when the real world threatens to invade this sacred space.
Some of it is also the greatest pile of performative nonsense, of course. Lads trying waaay too hard and the chronically online sitting in horseshoe formations with heads stuck in phones.
And don’t get us started on the trend for teams to travel great distances to get their photograph taken outside The Boar’s Head Pub in Dublin, because they’ve seen Kerry doing the same.
But as Monday draws to a close, there will be those that want to push the boat out another day.
The former Donegal footballer Michael Hegarty used to express his dismay at the fellas determined to drag the arse out of it, telling players at a subsequent meeting, ‘Even a dog wouldn’t go drinking on a Tuesday.’
But yeah, I’ve done that myself.
And Hegarty is right.
To all those facing into county finals over the next month, enjoy the occasion, get everything you want out of it, and make sure to tell your mammies you are safe and well.
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Celebrate Good Times GAA Gaelic Football Hurling