Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE HAVE HAD OUR SHER OF BAD LUCK!
Former Louth Star on THAT controversial goal in 2010 final
THE day after the 2010 Leinster football final, Shane Lennon and a group of his Louth team-mates jumped in a taxi and hit for Dublin.
They’d been to the races in Dundalk but found it hard to keep a low profile after what happened 24 hours earlier – when Joe Sheridan’s illegal goal for Meath bizarrely denied Louth a breakthrough Leinster title – so figured the big city might offer some anonymity.
But when they jumped out after arriving in Dublin, the first person they bumped into was, remarkably, Sheridan who hopped out of a nearby taxi along with a Meath colleague.
It just about summed up a madcap couple of days and 10 years on Lennon still hasn’t mustered the enthusiasm to pull out the DVD of that game to watch it back.
Strangely, it’s a Leinster title that nobody truly won, Louth denied in monstrously unfair circumstances and most Meath folk acknowledging that there’s an asterisk next to their achievement in the history books.
Louth great Lennon told Irish Sunday MirrorSport: “It’s not a video I’ll ever sit down and watch from start to finish, that’s for sure. I had a goal chance myself that I put through the keeper’s legs but the ball went wide. Normally when you put it through the ‘keeper’s legs it goes in.”
Those were the small margins that went against Louth all day, contributing to an episode that few in the GAA will ever forget.
Lennon added: “It’s unfortunate because Paddy Keenan’s block at the end was nearly one of the highlights of that season. It was up there with Conor Gormley on Steven McDonnell in 2003 but it was forgotten about when the ball popped up and Joe carried it in over the goal-line.
“Loads of great things like that happened that year so as players we’d all still have great memories of 2010.
“Beating Kildare in Navan that summer was a huge win, they’d been in the Leinster final the year before and they ended up getting very close to the All-Ireland final in 2010.
“To be honest, straight after the final, in our dressing-room, we didn’t realise how controversial the ending was. We knew it was dodgy and that it wasn’t a goal but we didn’t realise how blatant it was until we saw all the replays and stuff afterwards.
“I know Joe well, he tried to get his boot to the ball, he was trying to do his best and I absolutely wouldn’t hold anything against him.”
THE proposed 2020 Formula One curtain-raiser in Austria has been given the green light.
Austria’s Red Bull Ring has been long pencilled in to start the season – and yesterday it emerged that its two races, which are scheduled for July 5 and 12, have now been signed off after talks between F1 bosses, circuits chiefs and local authorities.
Back-to-back races behind closed doors at Silverstone in August are expected to be confirmed as well.