Keeping sleep at bay as Chiefs end drought
MAYBE 2020 will be the year that long, excruciating waits are ended in ticker tape fanfare and glory.
Liverpool’s 30-year drought without a league title will soon be a mere memory, while on Sunday Kansas City Chiefs bridged a 50year gap to win the Super Bowl.
I stayed up until some ungodly hour watching the action unfold from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, and as an impatient barman used to regularly say to me and my comrades back in the day when we were still up socialising at that kind of hour, ‘Have you no Mahomes to go to?’.
The talented Chiefs quarterback certainly didn’t always look at home in the biggest game of his young career, but he came up with the crucial plays when it mattered most, helping to inspire his side to a rousing fightback, overcoming a ten-point deficit in the fourth quarter to triumph 31-20.
Given my sometimes peculiar working hours and the pressure of reaching deadlines, staving off tiredness has become pretty commonplace for yours truly, so staying awake during Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s half-time show at the Super Bowl was a doddle.
I don’t normally like all that showbiz razzle-dazzle, but for Shakira and J-Lo I made an exception, and in fairness they sizzled hotter than the hounds of hell.
Whatever about the Colombian star assuring us that the hips don’t lie, my eyes certainly don’t betray the truth this morning as there’s sacks under them that are greyer than an elephant’s hide and larger than a Tesco bag for life.
The pop culture glitz and glamour at a match is all a bit alien to me, as when I’m not queueing for a urinal I prefer to spend time at the half-time break discussing the first-half action and trying to predict what may or may not happen when the game resumes.
That said, we just do things differently in this part of the world, and Philomena Begley and Sandy Kelly belting out ballads in G.A.A. headquarters wouldn’t have quite the same appeal as Shakira and J-Lo strutting their stuff.
The American approach transported me to a thirty-somethings holiday sipping cocktails on a balmy beach, whereas the suspicion is if we tried it on these shores it would be more like rocking gently in a retirement home.
I managed to remain fixated on the television with match sticks keeping my eyelids from hitting the floor boards, but by the time the interval show was over I’d almost forgotten what the bloody hell I was watching in the first place.
Going off on a tangent for a moment, the half-time entertainment during the Wexford-Clare game on Sunday afternoon was something worth watching in the flesh and more in keeping with the actual sport - swarms of delighted children with hurls in hands rushing on to the green swathes of the pitch for some precious time on the hallowed turf, and who knows, a future Lee Chin or Tony Kelly may have been among them.
Anyway, back to what had me up in the wee hours and burning the candle at both ends, the sensational Super Bowl showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a long way from being an expert on gridiron, but I do tune into the highlights package intermittently to see how the season is progressing, and when Super Bowl Sunday comes around I’m willing to forego a few hours’ sleep for the big occasion.
Going to bed at close to 4 a.m. when you know you’re going to be woken by an alarm, or a child that’s full of beans, a few hours later is probably not the healthiest approach, but hey, sometimes you’ve just gotta roll with it, and mercifully the game was well worth the sacrifice.
If the flip side dictates that I have to work in an almost zombie-like state and am reduced to spouting nonsensical drivel, that’s the price I have to pay, and what’s new you might say?
The Chiefs kept fighting until the end, with Patrick Mahomes showing an admirable work ethic with three straight touchdown drives in just over five minutes in the final quarter to turn the game on its head, and I’ll just have to show the same gladiatorial spirit.
Watching the Super Bowl can also be somewhat educational. Hearing commentators use the word trickeration, apparently some sort of horrible variant of the trickery, was a new one on me.
Kansas City Chiefs and Liverpool have illustrated they know every trick in the book, and if they are really showing the way and 2020 is to be a year that painful waits are ended, maybe this summer Mayo can finally lift the curse and get their hands on the Sam Maguire Cup.
There’s probably more of a chance of me entertaining the crowd by doing a dad dance during next year’s half-time show at the Super Bowl.