Cork has had
Noel Horgan having looked recently at some of the most versatile hurlers turns his eyes to their football counterparts
Being Liverpool is a curious sort of a document looked at from the vantage point of July 2020 with Liverpool on the cusp of their first league title in well over a generation. Back when it was filmed the new regime headed by the Fenway Sports Group were just getting their feet under the table and, undoubtedly, the decision to go ahead with the fly on the wall series was theirs.
It’s a decision that their freshly installed manager, Brendan Rodgers, probably rues to this very day as it probably didn’t do his reputation any favours. Whether the depiction of the Antrim man is a fair or unfair representation of how he behaved in front of the cameras, it gave an unfair impression of his seriousness as a coach and as a manager.
At Liverpool – despite the way his tenure petered out – at Glasgow Celtic and now at Leicester City, Rodgers has shown himself to be an excellent coach and a serious football man, but it was in Being Liverpool that the meme of Rodgers as football’s answer to David Brent was born.
There’s the famous scene with the envelop which he says contains the name of the player he knows is going to let the team down by the end of the season. There’s the scene in his house where there just so happens to be a giant portrait of the man himself.
Still despite all this, and despite it being an obvious misstep by FSG, it’s worth viewing to see how far the club has come in the eight years since it was filmed. It’s worth seeing the level FSG have managed to raise Liverpool to from the dog days of the Hicks and Gillett regime.
It’s fairly fluffy stuff and there’s little of any great substance to it, but all the same this is probably a less polished version of what we’ve seen from FC Barcelona or Manchester City in recent years. For a Liverpool fan it’s still a much watch and it’s probably not something Jurgen Klopp would agree to.
Being Liverpool is available to view on Amazon Prime.
– Damian Stack
ICK O’Dwyer will always be remembered as the man who built the greatest ever Kerry team.
Between 1975 and 1986, Micko steered the Kingdom to eight All-Ireland titles, going agonisingly close to masterminding an unprecedented five-in-a-row in 1982 when Seamus Darby’s last-gasp goal enabled Offaly to prevail by a point in the final.
Needless to say, his name is inextricably linked with the most glorious era in his county’s illustrious history, but, arguably, it diminishes the recognition he deserves for his contribution to Kerry football as a player.
The fact is Mick O’Dwyer was a household name long before he took on a management role with Kerry, and he’s entitled to be ranked as one of the most complete players ever to don the Green and Gold jersey.
He won his first All-Ireland medal when Galway were put to the sword in the 1959 decider – lining out at wing-back, a position he filled again during Kerry’s victory over Roscommon in the 1962 showpiece.
Then when the passing years and some severe injuries combined to limit his mobility in the twilight of his career, he transformed into one of the game’s most prolific score-getters, playing a leading role as a potent corner-forward when Kerry achieved back-to-back titles in 1969 and 1970.
He was chosen as footballer-of-the year in 1969, an honour bestowed on another Kerry man 12 months later. His name was Tom Prendergast, who began his inter-county career as a moderate corner-forward before blossoming into a wing-back of the highest calibre.
That Prendergast – who, after bringing the curtain down on his playing days with Kerry, helped Fermoy to achieve Cork county junior football championship glory in 1974 – benefited enormously on being redeployed as a defender goes without saying.
So too did Kerry of course, as was also the case when Ger Power joined such as Mikey Sheehy, Pat Spillane, Eoin Liston, John Egan and Co in one of the most devastating attacking units ever to grace Croke Park.
To be fair, Power was a highly accomplished wing-back,