Blue Monday

By Steven Doherty

‘Success – the ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm’

Karate Kid bad guy, Sensei John Kreese, was on my mind last week. But I’ll come to that later.

What is it about defeat that can hurt so much? You’d think I’d be used to it. For every Slaughtneil dual star with their pocketful of winner’s medals there’s a hundred players with empty ones. Players like me.

Who among us can forget that short two week spell, back in the early 1990s, when unfancied Glack featured in both a minor championship final and then a reserve championship final?  We lost both. What the Mid-Ulster Observer quite rightly called ‘Glack’s Golden Generation’ had failed to deliver on the biggest stage. I can remember the disappointment, but it was tampered a little by the belief, mistaken of course, that there would be other finals. Other chances to win medals. Plenty more shots at the title. I was wrong. I never played in another final, didn’t even come close.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed a long (some might say too long) and unrewarding sporting career – soccer, rugby, basketball, skimming stones. Jack of all trades, and certainly master of none. But best of all I love playing Gaelic football – the greatest sport in the world. (After hurling.)

Some men are born great. Some attain greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them. I was mediocre. Possessing a strong but wayward left peg, I had hands like Jeremy Beadle (his small one). And a strong sense of my own health and safety. I played alongside my brother. Simon is a year younger than me, but much the better footballer. Fearless. Strong and skilful. He was the classy Cuban cigar, rolled on the legs of a beautiful woman, to my Lambert & Butler. We would argue like cat and dogs on the pitch, but playing with him down through the years are among my most cherished memories. That’s the great thing about the GAA, you take the field with those you grow up with – brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbours. The bond starts early and is eternal. We’d win together, but mainly we lost together.

As you got older, and the end of the road was fast approaching, defeats became harder to take as the chances of success slowly but undoubtedly diminished. Desperation sets in. The heart remains strong, but the hunger is not yet sated. The body is weak and slow, and breaks down. With wains to rear, the wife looks at you like you’re having an affair if you suggest going to training.

You hit the late 30s and no longer understand the language of the changing room. You’ve been left behind in every sense, and there’s no coming back. Damn the onward march of time! A man now in his 40s, the game has left me behind forever. A seemingly endless supply of grey nostril hair protrude south from my nose, a daily reminder, if one was needed, that I’m an old man. That I’m done.

The wife, a beautiful and fragrant woman, knew to look at my face as to whether we had won or lost, but would ask the question anyway. By no means a GAA woman, fair play to her she’d feign interest with a ‘how did you get on?’ ‘We were beat’ I’d mutter. ’Well beat. But I scored a point.’ That was usually an exaggeration.

Defeat becomes all the harder to take. Sunday night in a GAA household can be a cold and cheerless place. Eye contact is avoided. Tempers quick to snap. The Angelus blaring from the TV never sounded so bleak. Not even an episode of ‘That’s Life’ could lift the family spirits.

Monday’s are even worse. Back to work, or school and the game revisited and forensically discussed.

The Monday morning run to Lidl, in the wake of a bad defeat, is not for the feint-hearted. The bargain hunters, the cheap tat hoarders, the ‘big shop’ customers and the secret drinkers all rubbing shoulders under the same ‘low cost’ roof. The intoxicating smell of the unmanned bakery draws you in for a Belfast Bap or a swanky croissant, as the European supermarket Pied Piper plays his tune.

The buzz, the aggression, there’s something very feral in the atmosphere as folk elbow their way to join the mega queues. A full trolley load or just two items, it matters not – you will wait your democratic turn and bite your lip. Dirty looks are given and received. You consider buying some cheap, favourless chewing gum but you know it won’t lighten your mood. A united nations of cashiers man the tills, immune to the frustrations and barely hidden anger around them. Minimum wage doesn’t stretch to empathy.

And just when you’ve just about given up on humanity – disillusioned and broken, Josef from Poland says “£4.95 total, thank you please”. Buoyed by the savings made- ‘that woulda cost me at least a twenty quid in Sainsburys’ you think, you bid farewell one more time, with one last decision to make – which round button to press on leaving? Angry red or smiley green…the choice is yours.

God loves a trier and I took up Zumba for a short but successful period, after finally hanging up the Mikasas. A natural, this endeavour culminated in myself lifting the Derry & District Over 40s title. But I missed the physicality of football. I quickly found out that throwing a shoulder into the woman beside me was very much frowned upon in the Zumba game. Recriminations and suspensions quickly followed before I was finally shown the Zumba door.

Anyways, back to Karate Kid and Sensei John Kreese, (whom some of you more mature ladies may remember as the hunky detective from Cagney and Lacey). One of the greatest movies of all-time, The Karate Kid, teaches us many lessons. The titular character, Daniel LaRusso, applies the life lessons that Mr Miyagi has taught him, and eventually good overcomes evil and Daniel wins the local karate competition.

But I missed the biggest lesson of all. Sensei Kreese directs his young Padawan Johnny to sweep Daniel’s injured leg, an unethical move. He was prepared to do anything to win. Kerry great Paul Galvin’s manager would pull him aside before he ran out to battle in the coliseum with the words: ‘Whatever it takes, Paul’. Whatever it takes – straight from Sensei John Kreese’s playbook.

Maybe if I had been more like Paul Galvin, the Doherty medal cupboard would be as full a Catholic school. Maybe if I had taken on board the teachings of Sensei John Kreese. Maybe if I had swept the leg.

#GlaicAbú