Simon McDonald,
Sizzle
Heywood Community School, Co Laois
Senior Category
IT SOUNDS LIKE a really bad story line straight out of some American TV show. It’s a story full of clichés, soppy one liners and overcoming adversity to triumph against all odds.
The Heywood U19 boys’ basketball team reached the All-Ireland Cup Final for the first time and anticipation had all but overcome a school in love with an excuse to celebrate. Not that you would think it to watch the 13 lads sprawled out on the seats of the bus as it crept through the mind- numbingly dreary Dublin traffic.
I remember my pocket buzzing and whipping my phone out to read the text. The moment stuck with me because I started to type my reply but never finished. It would be 40 minutes later, sitting in the waiting room of Tallaght hospital, that I would take out my phone and read what I had started to write.
In 40 minutes the text I had started had become an obsolete and incomplete snapshot of time; they were words that didn’t seem to have any meaning anymore.
We were happy and positively care free. Alan was complaining of desperately needing to go to the toilet and getting good- natured slagging. My phone buzzed in my pocket; another good luck text and I felt a big stupid grin spread across my face.
In the background the pantomime that was Alan’s bladder was reaching a comedic climax. I started on my reply trying to best sum up what was happening but kept being distracted by laughter.
Alan’s last words were: “Thank f***! I’m absolutely bursting!” As the door opened, a truck pulled up to the side and we all laughed as Alan jumped back before leaping out and making a mad dash through the stationary traffic. The laughter followed him and I took a brief glance at my phone before looking up, framed there in front of our eyes, a moment stopped the laughter, a flash of the blue car, the black of Alan swept off his feet as the two disappeared from view behind a truck. A soft dull thud, the nauseous sound of screeching tyres and silence.
Mr Bowe jumped out of the bus and he too disappeared behind the truck. Running down the road my eyes were drawn first to the blue taxi, widescreen frosted with spider web-like cracks before my eyes were pulled, almost drawn down to the twisted motionless body of Alan.
But he was alive! It was the most harsh setting; the side of a busy, noisy road with a sharp wind cutting across as our friend lay in tears of pain. People took off their coats to keep him warm. We didn’t have the benefit of knowing how that day was going to end and each of us dealt with that in our own way.
I kid you not, and I take no dramatic licence here whatsoever, but as he was hoisted into the back of the ambulance, a collective chorus came from the lads watching with wide eyes, “No bloody way are we losing this match!”
Arriving at the arena, there was an audible buzz of cheering. I felt a shiver run up my spine, as I walked onto the court, the crowd littered with friendly faces and the score board reflecting De La Salle’s hold over Heywood.
The first two quarters were a frantic barrage of attacks and one-upmanship. but with 40-odd seconds to go, we were 62-60 up when something unexpected happened; the ball was stolen in our own half and brought down the court to our basket. It was thrown up and rolled teasingly around the ring as if in the knowledge what power it held.
As the ball slowly began to shift its weight, in the good old Hollywood traditions of dramatics, the clock approached zero seconds before the ball decided to drop off the ring where it was caught, and the remaining two seconds appeared in good time.
The arena erupted as the horn signalling the end sounded to the sight of the entire team running onto the court, unrestrained outpourings of happiness, big grins on our faces as, one by one, to the sound of applause, we accepted our medals.
One post-match celebratory water fight later, we arrived at the hospital. Walking around in a procession of giggles and hushes, we waited at the side door as Alan’s bed was turned around to see us and he began to cry as John handed him his medal. The rest of us just smiled at him, making victory gestures through the glass before silently leaving.
