We all stand together
Sport’s fierce culture wars are taking a back seat as unity of spirit wins out in these strange times
AT A time when there is an apocalyptic, Old Testament feel to world events, a bit of light relief is more necessary than ever.
Not surprising then that of all the various skills challenges whizzing around in the internet ether, Padraig Harrington’s tutorial in iron play, from his own extensive back garden, quickly hit the million mark. And not because of the valuable lesson for the average golfer who needs to quieten his inner Tiger Woods in an attempt to go harder, faster, further.
Or because of the synchronicity of Harrington’s swing, like a Swiss timepiece as he does a good impression of a human pendulum, smoothly striking one ball after another in the direction of the flag and green with his house in the foreground.
No, it’s the edited version that Conor Moore – aka Conor Sketches – put up, the sound of breaking glass in the Harrington house added to each shot.
Just to prove he is game for a laugh, the three-time major winner replied with a shot of a broken window from a different day on his home range in Dublin.
Waterford Whispers is an Irish satirical news website that has a large following and Mallow News is like the renegade from across the border, its own tagline giving a flavour: ‘Fake news and comment from Mallow, the town that killed Oliver Reed™’.
Routinely coarse, it tends to veer from laugh out loud to wilfully offensive, often all in the one sentence.
Sample update on the global pandemic: ‘Every county in Ireland now has the coronavirus. We should get it to install the broadband.’
Another on Saturday hinted at the sporting culture wars that used to bubble underneath the surface of any regular weekend of action, and the age-long battle for hearts and minds: ‘RUGBY: Coronavirus Now Eligible To Play For Ireland.’
The equivalent of a two-footed, studs-up take on the lightningrod issue of eligibility and the movement of players in world rugby.
But what these unprecedented times have done, for the most part, is to bring about a unity of spirit. A collective sense that all of sport, just as much as all of society, is in this together.
That it doesn’t matter what you play, what you do, or where your true sporting interest lies, just as long as that passion continues.
As the line nearly goes in Father Ted, that would be a sporting ecumenical matter.
Right now, it’s not about pitting one sporting code against the other.
The everyday battle for hearts and minds that seems so important when it is being fought has been parked as the message goes out to just keep active, that exercise in all its forms is key to maintaining physical and mental health.
A trip to the historic Hill of Tara site in Meath last week revealed the country’s wide palette of interests: walkers, joggers, kids with hurleys, others kicking a ball – all making use of the wide open spaces. Another get-out-of-thehouse expedition to Bettystown beach revealed the same, including one father and son launching a rugby ball at each other in their best Johnny Sexton impression.
All over the country, various versions of same are being enacted.
With the regular sporting schedules in lockdown, a wave of mini-skills sessions has rippled across the world.
Hence Harrington’s online clinics and Lionel Messi taking on the loo roll challenge by doing keepie-uppies to beat the band with Limerick hurler Cian Lynch and a whole host of other county players putting an individual spin on the trend.
Saturday night’s Channel 4 screening of the brilliant Diego
Maradona documentary captured the player’s joie de vivre for the game amidst the complex portrait of a soccer star who had the world at his feet, and yet who was imprisoned by that same talent.
It is a documentary that reminded of the soccer skills learned on the street; the countless hours on his own fine-tuning that first touch.
If you tried hard enough, you could draw a line between a Maradona Rabona (where he kicks the ball behind his standing leg with the opposite foot) to the stunning individual clip posted by Longford’s Cian Cassidy who re-tailors it for Gaelic football – the way in which he throws the ball up and kicks it over the bar with his other foot in similar fashion almost defies logic.
There are countless other examples of players getting creative. Wexford’s Ciaran Lyng doing a soccer-style flick pick-up on the run before kicking a ball over the bar. Cork All-Star Patrick Horgan putting his own sublime spin on keepie-uppies by somehow keeping a sliotar in the air for 30 seconds with just the heel of the hurley which is only about an inch thick.
Before outdoing that by keeping the sliotar in the air using either end of the hurley – alternately. That clip has the same hypnotic quality of the famous Maradona warm-up where the ball seemed to be attached to his foot via a piece of string, albeit a very long one.
Whatever reaction Dublin footballer Ciaran Kilkenny received to his own skills challenges, it paled alongside the posting of a clip of his mother doing a 30-second roll lift challenge on Mother’s Day – the commentary as Gaeilge for good measure – which was guaranteed to raise a smile.
Countless GAA clubs and players have got in on the act, Wexford’s Hurling365 account putting up a steady stream featuring club and county players.
Former Ireland international John O’Shea could be found doing a two-ball challenge.
Right now, it doesn’t matter what the sport, what the activity, once the interest endures. And there is always room for a bit of light relief. One of Shane Stapleton’s latest OurGame videos is one most club players can identify with as balls flew out of grasp or out of shot, the Cuala All-Ireland winner playing the wall-ball challenge for laughs.
Fermanagh Gaelic footballer Sean Quigley has always played to his own beat, never a fan of the defensive systems that weren’t exactly custom-fitted to his own attacking talents.
Always a bit of a character in the game, he couldn’t resist a joke at his own county’s expense: ‘With all these videos going up of different GAA drills for kids to do during isolation... I can only imagine the children of Fermanagh sprinting up the garden to get behind the ball..!’
A bit of light relief amidst the dark rolling news updates.
The culture wars can wait. The times we live in show the value of sport.
Any sport.