REMEMBER DAVID BECKHAM’S documentary? If you’re like me you’ll have watched it and forgotten about it soon afterwards because, well, memories are full and content keeps churning.
But there is one bit that sticks in the mind because it addresses an area of paramount importance in modern team sports: the movement of players from the dressing room to the field. In Beckham, part two, to a montage of 100 Mile High City by Ocean Colour Scene, we see United of 1999 running out at what looks like Selhurst Park. Alone.
The team looks formidable, full of menace and purpose as they jog towards the fray while the crowd jeers. For far too long we’ve seen both sides emerge together, led by the referee, once the keepers have dabbed one another up.
The great Leeds United team, led by Allan Clarke, run out for a game against Manchester United in 1970. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
I thought this had been going on for nearly forever, so institutionalised have I become to the routine. To my mind the Liverpool and United players running out separately at Anfield for the 3-3 in 1994 was an exception, but the Beckham documentary provides valuable evidence that there were other instances of teams running out on their own back then.
Perhaps the best thing about it is the lack of kids in the picture. We each have an unpopular view on sport, and this is mine. One of them anyway. Children have no place hanging around the tunnel before professional football games. I am, of course, fully prepared to be a hypocrite if someone wants to offer one of mine the chance to hold hands with a big centre-half and shuffle in a confused manner behind Michael Oliver as he grabs the match ball and strides towards the Sky cameras.
Until that day, I can’t take all of this high performance talk seriously; it’s tough to buy into the idea that every sports science i and been dotted and t crossed to get players to the physical and mental pitch of a huge game – only to then ask them to do a babysitting job first.
None of us would consider that in our own, less critical, jobs. Imagine you’re about to do the most important thing you do all week, it’s the one time when you need to really lock in. And then a gang of kids are produced and you have to walk them around the place for two minutes, before gently nudging them toward their parents.
It gets worse. Some years ago, the Ireland football team were standing for the pre-match formalities as the rain pelted in. So one player gave his jacket to the child in his care. Then the next and the next one did it. Another Kodak moment for the digital age. No! What needs to happen here is the kids get lashed on while the players stay dry and fit for the 90 minutes plus stoppages to come.
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If, as Ben O’Connor might call him, Little Johnny gets a dose of the sniffles as a result then that is the price of winning a home friendly against Latvia.
With that seamless and winning segue into the world of Gaelic games, let’s talk about what happened before the Munster Championship game between Cork and Tipperary in Thurles on Sunday.
Now, they still have their priorities right in the GAA world to the extent that the teams run onto the pitch separately. There might be a mascot involved in some cases – but it is one child and not a whole team of them. Kids are given useful tasks like performing a guard of honour with flags or providing the half-time action – the kind of stuff that builds confidence and makes them feel part of the day rather than hangers on.
But in other elements of the grand entrance and pre-match carry on, things have taken a bad turn.
On Sunday Cork took to the field early, really early. They jogged on, some in their quarter zips, and did what would pass as a decent training session for many a team.
Cork have legions of supporters. Maybe better to do your training a bit before and lobby for a later on-pitch arrival – weaponise that crowd. As it was, the roar was muted compared to what would have been heard in years previous.
A section of the Cork crowd at Thurles on Sunday. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
It was all set for Tipp to upstage the Rebels. The stadium DJ gave AC/DC’s Thunderstruck a spin while waiting for the home side. No All-Ireland for originality will be won with this song choice, but you’d respect the effort at least. AC/DC are the official rock and rollers of rural places, or at least they were way back when, so Tipp’s older support base at least will have felt something stirring. And then their boys took to the field wearing the famed blue and gold . . . under bibs. Bibs! This is not the stuff of Thunderstruck.
I know I have not got at least a master level degree in pre-match recruitment and primers, and have therefore no right to speak on this. But is a proper entrance not more impactful than yet another cone drill or small-sided handpassing game? And if you cannot go without the drills, maybe just take the 10 seconds needed to pull on the bib after you’ve run out.
The Tipperary Senior Hurlers take to the field at FBD Semple Stadium ahead today's showdown with Cork pic.twitter.com/jA8I06zGeQ
But it’s all about the routine now, a point driven home by a combination of the Cork senior panel and the stadium DJ.
Again, he reached for a classic and soon Life is Life, by Opus, was throbbing from the tannoy. We all know this well from Maradona and his glorious warm-up for Napoli before the Uefa Cup semi-final against Bayern Munich in German in 1989.
Laces open, hopping to the rhythm, the ball in his full and joyous control as sport and performance art merge to create a scene that resonates as much now as nearly 40 years when he was tapping it out in kangaroo leather. Getting touches in, being spontaneous, having fun. Just maybe Maradona knew something about how to get ready for a game.
Life, as Opus says, is life. La la, la-la, la. As the beat dropped and the chorus rolled on Sunday, Cork’s players were in a perfect line, doing a robotic walk with arms and legs going up and down to get whatever ligaments and muscles activated. It was the moment where the past met the present and decided it wasn’t sure it liked what it saw.
So, yeah, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be if we are pining for teams to come charging onto the pitch like demented mules and tear into each other from the off. We’re about more than that now.
Only sports science extends to psychology too, and we have to be able to see the value of a decent ring walk. How many of our core sporting memories are teams taking the field?
David Sole and Scotland walking, not running, before playing in England for Grand Slam in 1990. The Chicago Bulls’ entrance to Sirius which spawned a thousand imitators. Leitrim hitting the Croke Park turf in 1994, the greatest GAA moment in the television era. The Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania Six, not something that could have been improved with a high-viz bib.
The run out and pre-game warm-up is the stuff of dreams, we’ve all been kids and imagined jogging down the tunnel as the dark and clatter of studs gives way to colour and 60,000 battle cries. This is the very moment players and support are in communion, each spiking the potency and confidence of the other.
It’s a legal hormone-altering, performance-enhancing act that we’ve denied ourselves out of adherence to incomplete sports science. All teams need structure and control, for sure, but you also need to know when to run free and take it all in.
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Welcome to the bib time: GAA's grand championship entrances running on empty
REMEMBER DAVID BECKHAM’S documentary? If you’re like me you’ll have watched it and forgotten about it soon afterwards because, well, memories are full and content keeps churning.
But there is one bit that sticks in the mind because it addresses an area of paramount importance in modern team sports: the movement of players from the dressing room to the field. In Beckham, part two, to a montage of 100 Mile High City by Ocean Colour Scene, we see United of 1999 running out at what looks like Selhurst Park. Alone.
The team looks formidable, full of menace and purpose as they jog towards the fray while the crowd jeers. For far too long we’ve seen both sides emerge together, led by the referee, once the keepers have dabbed one another up.
I thought this had been going on for nearly forever, so institutionalised have I become to the routine. To my mind the Liverpool and United players running out separately at Anfield for the 3-3 in 1994 was an exception, but the Beckham documentary provides valuable evidence that there were other instances of teams running out on their own back then.
Perhaps the best thing about it is the lack of kids in the picture. We each have an unpopular view on sport, and this is mine. One of them anyway. Children have no place hanging around the tunnel before professional football games. I am, of course, fully prepared to be a hypocrite if someone wants to offer one of mine the chance to hold hands with a big centre-half and shuffle in a confused manner behind Michael Oliver as he grabs the match ball and strides towards the Sky cameras.
Until that day, I can’t take all of this high performance talk seriously; it’s tough to buy into the idea that every sports science i and been dotted and t crossed to get players to the physical and mental pitch of a huge game – only to then ask them to do a babysitting job first.
None of us would consider that in our own, less critical, jobs. Imagine you’re about to do the most important thing you do all week, it’s the one time when you need to really lock in. And then a gang of kids are produced and you have to walk them around the place for two minutes, before gently nudging them toward their parents.
It gets worse. Some years ago, the Ireland football team were standing for the pre-match formalities as the rain pelted in. So one player gave his jacket to the child in his care. Then the next and the next one did it. Another Kodak moment for the digital age. No! What needs to happen here is the kids get lashed on while the players stay dry and fit for the 90 minutes plus stoppages to come.
If, as Ben O’Connor might call him, Little Johnny gets a dose of the sniffles as a result then that is the price of winning a home friendly against Latvia.
With that seamless and winning segue into the world of Gaelic games, let’s talk about what happened before the Munster Championship game between Cork and Tipperary in Thurles on Sunday.
Now, they still have their priorities right in the GAA world to the extent that the teams run onto the pitch separately. There might be a mascot involved in some cases – but it is one child and not a whole team of them. Kids are given useful tasks like performing a guard of honour with flags or providing the half-time action – the kind of stuff that builds confidence and makes them feel part of the day rather than hangers on.
But in other elements of the grand entrance and pre-match carry on, things have taken a bad turn.
On Sunday Cork took to the field early, really early. They jogged on, some in their quarter zips, and did what would pass as a decent training session for many a team.
Cork have legions of supporters. Maybe better to do your training a bit before and lobby for a later on-pitch arrival – weaponise that crowd. As it was, the roar was muted compared to what would have been heard in years previous.
It was all set for Tipp to upstage the Rebels. The stadium DJ gave AC/DC’s Thunderstruck a spin while waiting for the home side. No All-Ireland for originality will be won with this song choice, but you’d respect the effort at least. AC/DC are the official rock and rollers of rural places, or at least they were way back when, so Tipp’s older support base at least will have felt something stirring. And then their boys took to the field wearing the famed blue and gold . . . under bibs. Bibs! This is not the stuff of Thunderstruck.
I know I have not got at least a master level degree in pre-match recruitment and primers, and have therefore no right to speak on this. But is a proper entrance not more impactful than yet another cone drill or small-sided handpassing game? And if you cannot go without the drills, maybe just take the 10 seconds needed to pull on the bib after you’ve run out.
But it’s all about the routine now, a point driven home by a combination of the Cork senior panel and the stadium DJ.
Again, he reached for a classic and soon Life is Life, by Opus, was throbbing from the tannoy. We all know this well from Maradona and his glorious warm-up for Napoli before the Uefa Cup semi-final against Bayern Munich in German in 1989.
Laces open, hopping to the rhythm, the ball in his full and joyous control as sport and performance art merge to create a scene that resonates as much now as nearly 40 years when he was tapping it out in kangaroo leather. Getting touches in, being spontaneous, having fun. Just maybe Maradona knew something about how to get ready for a game.
Life, as Opus says, is life. La la, la-la, la. As the beat dropped and the chorus rolled on Sunday, Cork’s players were in a perfect line, doing a robotic walk with arms and legs going up and down to get whatever ligaments and muscles activated. It was the moment where the past met the present and decided it wasn’t sure it liked what it saw.
So, yeah, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be if we are pining for teams to come charging onto the pitch like demented mules and tear into each other from the off. We’re about more than that now.
Only sports science extends to psychology too, and we have to be able to see the value of a decent ring walk. How many of our core sporting memories are teams taking the field?
David Sole and Scotland walking, not running, before playing in England for Grand Slam in 1990. The Chicago Bulls’ entrance to Sirius which spawned a thousand imitators. Leitrim hitting the Croke Park turf in 1994, the greatest GAA moment in the television era. The Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania Six, not something that could have been improved with a high-viz bib.
The run out and pre-game warm-up is the stuff of dreams, we’ve all been kids and imagined jogging down the tunnel as the dark and clatter of studs gives way to colour and 60,000 battle cries. This is the very moment players and support are in communion, each spiking the potency and confidence of the other.
It’s a legal hormone-altering, performance-enhancing act that we’ve denied ourselves out of adherence to incomplete sports science. All teams need structure and control, for sure, but you also need to know when to run free and take it all in.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
GAA losing the run of ourselves Soccer Tunnel vision