1. The whole day was a bit like a walking tour of Dublin or our family history. On the way up we called Grandad and learned 1965 was his 1979 and 2021; he would have been 20 at the time of that Galway-Kerry final and a lot older if he’d been holding out for his native Fermanagh ever playing in one.
After parking the car we made our way towards a familiar haunt only to learn it’s no longer there: the Porterhouse Whitworth is now the George Bernard Shaw and there was no room in that inn for us to get our usual pre-match feed. But we got it just across the road in the Bald Eagle and then we walked along the Canal where the poor kid had to put up with the old fella at what had been the ticket pick-up spot before the All-Ireland in ’92. By that stage he had only ears and eyes for the looming and ever-closer Croker.
Then it was down along Clonliffe Road, this country’s boulevard of broken dreams. Right now, Andrew, who wins this game is a mystery; we don’t know who’ll be happy or sad. By five o’clock it’ll be a fact and some crowd of supporters will be walking down here with their tail between their legs.
Finally Jones’s Road. A river of people which would sink the hearts of anyone in NPHET or the arts but lift anyone else’s. Security checking our bags and then electronically scanning our tickets; no lifting anyone over the turnstiles these days. And then it was up the mass-grey steps and up to the second-last row of the upper Hogan, towering right over the endline in front of what was the Canal End back in Sheehy’s time but is the Davin End now.
Ghosts and colour combine for Kieran Shannon’s fabulous account of the familiar rhythms of All-Ireland final day.
2. Yet I am struck equally by a couple of landscape photographs on the wall. McCarthy made himself a highly accomplished lensman. One shows round bales under a flurry of clouds that seem no more than a few yards above the shorn field. “Taken two fields back from the house here,” he notes. “When I shot it, I felt I could have reached out and pulled the clouds down onto the ground. They were woolly. Five minutes later, they had gone back up in the sky.”
The other photograph focuses on a water scene, some still stretch in dappled light. The fancy words? Sylvan and bucolic and autumnal. “Taken in Doneraile Court, up in North Cork,” he clarifies. “An old estate. Fantastic place to visit. I love the autumn, all the colours. I took it standing on a little bridge there.
“It’s like scoring a goal. You have to be watching for the opportunity. I have a good eye. You have to be watching out the whole time. It’s all about light and opportunity.”
Another pick from the pages of the Irish Examiner: PM O’Sullivan meets Justin McCarthy.
3. Scouring the footage of an FA Cup classic
for your face among the looped faithful,
I carefully pause and drag the timeline.
Half-time finds us three-nil down,
pretending to study the match programme,
gripping insipid tea for the warmth alone.
But on the hour, the colour-bled crowd
abandon flip-up seats as Paul Rideout scores.
John Davies finds poetry in, eh, Tranmere Rovers versus Southampton.
4. But… how? Almost every part of his life has been paid for by two of the most embarrassing, meme-able moments in the history of sports. He is single-handedly responsible for giving boxing credibility to Jake Paul, who, after flattening Askren in April, will fight former UFC champion Tyron Woodley on Sunday. And Askren’s epic five-second fail against bitter rival Jorge Masvidal will live on forever in the GIF Hall of Shame. Shouldn’t there be sadness around every corner?
From above the whir of his golf cart engine, Askren shakes his head and says, “We’ve all taken bad L’s in life. I took two really bad ones. I don’t care if you remember me by those.”
ESPN’s Ryan Hockensmith meets Ben Askren, a man knocked out by Jake Paul.
