FR Liam McClarey, our team chaplain when we won the All-Ireland in 1993, had an audience with his Holiness the Pope in Rome last Thursday. Liam played on the Glack team that won the Derry Junior Championship in 1981. The competition is called the Joe Brolly Cup (after my late grandfather) and as my father […]
DERRY only know now that Dublin are not superhuman. Brian Mullins was giving us one of his intense team talks in the changing room after training one night and said: “Every sportsperson is only human. They only have two arms and two legs like you.” I said, “What about Maradona?” “F**k off Joe” he said. […]
THE bad news for the rest of us is that the conservatism that threatened to bring an end to Dublin’s dynasty has been replaced with the adventure that created it in the first place. “Balls out football,” as Pat Gilroy calls it. As we saw on Sunday against Tyrone, Dublin are in annihilation mode. I predicted […]
THE Dublin and Galway game on Saturday began with the usual musical diazepam. If the soldiers whose lives were pledged to Ireland had been marching behind this singing they would have come over very sleepy, then changed their minds and gone home. The mood didn’t improve after the throw-in. Éamonn Fitzmaurice was co-commentator on RTÉ. He has […]
DUBLIN’S opening two boring defeats in the league prompted me to ask the question, “Why won’t they kick the ball in to Con O’Callaghan?” For those games, he was a peripheral presence, traking back and tackling round the middle third, taking a handpass at the last minute in a crowded defence. What a waste. Like […]
THE difference between Dublin, Kerry and the others is that the big two are capable of making decisive contributions in big games. The Mayo-Kerry game on Saturday evening provided a perfect example of this. With the sides level and two minutes of injury time left, Mayo, with the wind, were in control of the ball. The […]
“We had very little money. None let’s be honest. I was a backward child. Not forward. But on the pitch that’s when things levelled out. Makes no odds on the green grass if you haven’t two shillins to put together. It doesn’t matter a damn what you own or how much money you have. When it […]
I WATCHED the Derry game in Smyths in Ranelagh with Sean Muldoon from the Loup. Three Englishmen were in the booth with us and were intrigued by the game. We explained the rules to them – three points for a goal, a point for a point, the solo, the bounce, the tackle. They could not […]
IT is being suggested by some southern commentators that in the event of a United Ireland, the new Ireland should immediately join the Commonwealth of nations, where we would bask in the great bounty of living under the shelter of his glorious Majesty and his family. This is a great boost for all of us in […]
THERE is a five-year old chess sensation nicknamed ‘Tweedledum’ who is currently setting the chess world alight. A video emerged of him last week, playing in a tournament against a seasoned chess master from China. The child sucks on a piece of lace, yawns and looks all around him as his 50 year old opponent […]
