TV VIEW:THERE'S A fair old chance 2012 will be a vintage year for those who like their sport from the vantage point of an armchair. Although, to be honest about it, even if we won Euro 2012 and a couple of dozen Olympic golds it'd be hard to top Ji Dong-Won's 93rd-minute winner yesterday for sheer loveliness.
A quite delightful start to the year then, and if it’s true that things can only get better then we’ll be well and truly laughing in 12 months’ time, if a little worn out from open-top bus parades.
Granted, the economic stuff threatened to dampen our sporting spirits but still, it’s sad to see 2011 go.
Too many telly highlights to mention, really, but Kevin O’Brien’s wagon wheel was one of them.
Hands up how many of you turned over to Cash in the Celebrity Attic or Knots Landing when Ireland were 111-5, needing just the 217 to beat England from 25.5 overs? Mortified.
And then, on your return, there was O’Brien’s wagon wheel on the screen, looking for all the world like the solar system, as some of us ruefully observed at the time. “If you went away for an hour you’ll be AMAZED,” howled Ravi Shastri, as O’Brien hit boundaries left, right and centre, and all the places in between. Amazed wasn’t even the half of it.
A definite 2011 highlight, then, England as stunned as Warrenpoint Town/Cliftonville when they were given two sixth-round JJB Sports Irish Cup matches away to both Crusaders and Dungannon Swifts. The man plucking the balls out of the Cup, live on BBC Northern Ireland, mistook a six for a ten, which is an easy enough mistake to make. “I think there was a little glitch there,” noted Jackie Fullerton, upon realising there was no one left in the cup for Nortel to play.
But unfortunate things can happen on TV, of course – just ask Richard Keys and Andy Gray.
Coincidentally enough, the peerless Ted Walsh was on Leopardstown duty that week and while explaining to us why Ballyhaunis – the horse, not the town – had to have a tongue tie applied to keep his tongue strapped to his bottom jaw, we thought he was actually referring to Richard and Andy.
“There’s probably a lot of humans could have their tongues tied to their bottom jaws too – and there’s a few you’d hope would choke themselves,” he said.
That might have been the feeling, too, up in Tir Conaill for the RTÉ panel who issued a fatwa on the county’s Gaelic football team early in the summer.
“Remember that tribe in Iraq, the Shi’ite tribe? Well, we’ve been watching Shi’ite football. You know, there are people who go to the Hague for war crimes – some of the coaches nowadays should be up for crimes against Gaelic football,” said Pat Spillane, noting that “Donegal have the Taliban of GAA defences”.
“Remorseless, fanatical underdogs,” said Joe Brolly on the only occasion he actually agreed with Pat in the entire year.
But sure, where’s the harm in being a remorseless, fanatical sporting underdog? If you’re remorseless enough, you can put the cat in the sack and secure yourself a summer holiday in Polkraine. “It is time to feel happy now,” as Giovanni Trapattoni told RTÉ – specifically Eamon Dunphy and John Giles — after the trip was clinched with that play-off triumph against Estonia. Happy days.
And then we were drawn against Spain, Italy and Croatia. Way to burst our joyous bubble, Uefa. “And it’s no easy, Croatia,” Trapattoni warned us, lest we thought that’d be the gimme in the group. Spain and Italy? “Many famoos players,” he told Tony O’Donoghue, ominously.
Never mind, we’re there, and that’s the main thing. And even if our Polkraine holiday only lasts 270 minutes plus added time, it’ll be a right blast.
Beautiful football? Maybe not. “We’re not Barcelona, we’re never going to be, Bill,” as Liam Brady reminded us, “we haven’t got Messi or Iniesta or Xavi playing for us.”
Which called to mind Pat Nevin’s observation on the BBC during a Sunderland v Blackburn clash, just a handful of days after Barcelona put on a masterclass against Real Madrid: “There are more hoofs here than at the Grand National . . . it’s like watching a David Attenborough documentary with two yaks banging into each other.”
Barcelona, sort of the Red Rum of football, don’t, of course, go in for yak-banging. “They killed them Bill, killed them,” said Giles after their Champions League final annihilation of fanatical underdogs Manchester United, despite being up against Michael Carrick’s sizeable midfield presence.
“You were purring with pleasure, John, weren’t you,” said Bill O’Herlihy.
“I was, Bill,” said Giles, stroking his whiskers.
Weren’t we all? Team of the year. Of any year. A footballing XI with a wagon wheel like no one on earth. Well, apart from Kevin O’Brien’s.
Cheerio 2011, thanks for the memories.
