A real sporting hero, local or global, must be more than merely a gifted player
ELDRICK has been playing X- Box. Or is it PlayStation? I never even made it past the first level of Space Invaders, so I am never very sure which it is. Let’s call it X-Station, or make that PlayBox. Eeny- meeny, X- Station it is so. Anyway, the box containing the soccer game for this X- Station device arrived in Medders Manor illustrated with a likeness of Cristiano Ronaldo.
I rate the Portuguese people highly, with their lazy summer barbecues and their red wines created from infinitely obscure grape varieties. They must be just about the most civilised race on earth. But the bould Cristy is not my cup of tea, or my glass of port.
The picture on the X-Station box showed the striker in full rutting, strutting, look-at-me pose. And I found I was indeed looking at him each time I walked along the hallway for days where the gaudy packaging for the game lay discarded with Ronaldo’s bulging eyes staring out at passers-by.
His mouth was open in mid-roar, celebrating yet another goal scored with swagger and scorn and aggression. It was an arresting image, disturbing and powerful. The manufacturers clearly reckon Cristy is the right man to sell their merchandise to young computer gamesters.
But is he really a sporting hero?
I confess I had no time for him over many years. He never quite struck me as a team player. It was only after he shipped an injury during the final of the European Championships that my view of him softened. As the Portuguese victory unfolded without his direct input, he embodied the tensions of a watching nation, attempting to influence affairs by jumping up and down on the side-line. Cristy smply could not be contained on the bench. Hilarious yet touching. You would scarcely see the likes at an under 12’s game.
I decided to ask a representative sample of teenagers to nominate their sporting heroes. The sample quartet comprised the passengers in The Jalopy on Eldrick’s school run. Three lads, one lassie. Two of the lads opted for footballers. Former Chelsea striker Drogba, said one. Brazilian legend Ronaldinho, suggested the other. The lassie went with Irish hockey goalkeeper David Harte, being a net-minder herself. Eldrick thought long and hard before naming golfer Tiger Woods.
Drogba – a diver. Ronaldinho – too much partying. Harte – gone to Holland. Woods – serial adulterer.
These gods have feet of clay, I suggested. What about the local heroes? I attempted to make a case for our friend Nick, now in his sixties, who competed in hurling for three counties. A triumph of modern re-constructive orthopaedic surgery, Nick continues to play team games against lads young enough to be his grandchildren.
Or there’s Eddie who came from a provincial club no one in the rugby establishment had ever heard of. He went within a whisker of being selected for Ireland only to have his career at the top level cut cruelly short by injury. Eddie may be found these days directing mini-rugby sessions in his home town.
Or never mind David Harte, let’s hear it instead for Kathy who played a cup final when six months pregnant. All the spectators spent more time watching to see if her waters would break than looking at the match. Maybe the opposition defence did the same as she emerged at the end with a medal and no ill effects.
Maybe, responded the teenagers. But Drogba not only made a fortune from his career in soccer, he also persuaded both sides of a civil war in his native Ivory Coast to stop killing each other. And Ronaldinho showed that there was more to him than fat pay cheques and Parisian night clubs, returning to Brazil to play down the leagues for buttons.
Harte may have made a career for himself in the Netherlands but he comes back regularly to Ireland and runs clinics for young goalies who may some day follow in his footsteps. And while his scandalous personal life does not bear scrutiny, Tiger Woods heads a foundation which has awarded scholarships to thousands of students who would otherwise be languishing in poverty.