Pundits and jumpers
Nostalgic documentary looks at 40 years of laughs, threats and lost friendship on iconic Sunday Game
PAT SPILLANE reveals he has been threatened with being maimed or killed over some of his comments on RTÉ’s The Sunday Game, while Michael Lyster explains his predilection for colourful jumpers in a new documentary charting 40 years of the GAA highlights programme that has become a national institution.
Spillane also explains his ‘puke’ football pronouncement, Marty Morrissey reveals how he made up with Brian Cody after a testy interview following Kilkenny’s four-ina-row, while Kilkenny hurler Richie Hogan reveals he didn’t watch the discussion over his controversial red card this summer.
‘The Sunday Game is one of the remaining rituals of Irish life,’ says original presenter Jim Carney.
Sunday Game editor Glen Killane also reveals how he got death threats over changing the much-loved theme tune.
‘The outcry was quite extraordinary,’ he says.
‘I’m 100% happy to say now, I got that completely wrong.’
In the nostalgia-filled trawl through the country’s biggest sporting moments since the programme’s inception in 1979, the cameras go behind the scenes on the pre-show discussions.
RTÉ sports presenter Des Cahill says: ‘They are allowed say whatever they like.’
Meanwhile, Spillane, the Sunday Game’s longest-serving pundit, says he has had a rollercoaster journey on the programme.
‘I’ve been threatened to be killed, threatened to be shot, threatened to be maimed, the house burned down, I’ve had them all,’ he reveals, albeit light-heartedly.
But there was a very personal cost in the wake of his stinging criticism of former teammate and Kerry manager, Ogie Moran, in the
’90s. He said: ‘It was difficult because of being honest and calling something as I see it,’ Spillane reveals. ‘Do I regret it? I regret friendships that broke up over it. Was I incorrect? No.’
Contrary to popular opinion that players have a media blackout, Armagh star Oisín McConville says he has always been glued to the panel’s discussion of his games. ‘I watched [it all], I wanted to hear what someone with ten All Ireland medals thought of me, I wanted to hear what Pat Spillane thought of me,’ he says.
Presenter Michael Lyster says he feels privileged to have been at the helm for nearly four decades.
‘If you said to me back then, you will be in that chair for 35 years I would have said to you: “Are you having a laugh?”,’ Lyster says.
The recently retired Galwegian explains how his years of colourful jumpers were all down to his age.
‘I didn’t want to do the shirt and tie for the very simple reason that in 1984 I was 30,’ he says.
Spillane sums up the appeal of the show, saying: ‘Maybe we are doing something good and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’
Sunday Best – 40 Years Of The Sunday Game will be shown on RTÉ One on Wednesday, December 4, at 9.35pm.
‘One of the remaining rituals of Irish life’
‘Maybe we are doing something good’