Locker Room: They used to say of the Native Americans that, critically, they failed to spot on the horizon those boats which would carry their doom because they had never seen such shapes and their eyes were accustomed to looking for other things. It was a mistake you wouldn't think you'd see made twice.LockerRoom
And yet. Coming down O'Connell Street yesterday, happy, blithe crowds of Mayo and Kerry people spilled merrily out from the footpaths and onto the tarmac. It was as if they'd never seen cars before in their lives I thought, as I ploughed through a couple of hundred of them, thus single-handedly easing the ticket crisis a little.
Croke Park. Late. Mayo are already out on the field with nearly half an hour left before the throw-in. Some of them are going to need reading material to kill the time.
Asking around, trying to borrow an opinion for myself. Nobody is too keen on Mayo. Flighty, is what they are. The consensus among the nabobs of hackery is that Kerry are Kerry and Mayo are Mayo. So it is and so it shall be.
Mind always wanders before the throw-in. Must be big-match nerves. Start composing little lists of likes and dislikes in case the GAA want to ask me. Like Mayo's red jerseys. Bit more flash, in keeping with their native self-confidence.
Don't like tubby tenors who "lead us" in singing the national anthem. Croke Park on All-Ireland final day is about the one place where we don't need leading in singing the thing. Adjust scope on my telescopic rifle but can't get a bead on the bugger.
Mayo have shuffled their forwards. Ingenious. Briefly Conor Mortimer establishes a bleachhead at full forward. Trevor goes to the right-half forward spot. Everyone else except Ciarán McDonald is somewhere other than the spot they were picked in.
It starts well for Mayo. A goal and a point up, scored after four minutes. Already they are in the position they best like: the final is theirs to throw away.
Two minutes later it begins to look ominous. The Gooch rises as if levitating and fields a ball on the 21. If I were related to The Gooch I'd get religion and pray hard every time he goes out on a field. And when he'd come home I'd feed him.
I was in Killarney recently, and in the outlet mall at the station there was a big car which Dr Crokes were offering in a draw. Ten euro a ticket. There was nobody around to give the €10 to, but I'm mailing it to the club with instructions that I'm not interested in the motor but I'd like to buy The Gooch a meal.
Anyway, the Gooch catches, feeds Willie Kirby for a point. If I were John Maughan I'd be shouting, "Do I not like that?"
The Mayo forwards are playing in the Mayo tradition: subsisting through famine. Conor Mortimer and Ciarán McDonald provoke near hysteria every time they touch the ball, but you can close your eyes and tell Mayo are struggling. The outbreaks of hysteria are getter fewer and farther between.
I love the two lads. When did Gaelic footballers begin to get so flamboyant? I remember Noel Lynch of Meath had a pretty blinding blond Afro years ago, the sort of hairdo you'd need planning permission for in a built-up area, but Westmeath never gave him the platform with which to etch his barnet into the national psyche.
Mortimer reminds me of the story of Seán Thornton, the bleached midfielder who signed a couple of years ago from Tranmere to Sunderland. Arriving on the windswept training ground the first day with his earlobe bejewelled, his hair peroxided and his boots matching, he drew a sad shaking-of-the-head from Bobby Sax, an old coach. "You'd better be good, son, you'd better be good."
And Ciarán McDonald? What's left to say? He's struck two sublime points against the traffic in this first half and everyone in Mayo loves him. They'd swear, in fact, that they always have. I once had a long, rather bizarre and heated argument over the phone with a woman from Mayo. We were discussing the topic of Ciarán's hair, which he was then marshalling into a splendid ponytail. Being the ace wordsmith that I am, I had called him "the ponytailed Ciarán McDonald".
"Why did you call him that?" screamed the woman down the phone.
"Because he has a ponytail," I said back, devastating her with my wit.
"You know what I mean," she hollered.
"No, I don't. If he had a beard I might have called him the bearded McDonald. If he had big feet I'd call him Flipper McDonald."
"What were you trying to tell people about him?"
"That he has a ponytail?"
"And who has ponytails?"
"Ponies?"
"Don't be smart."
"People in advertising? Bicycle couriers? Artists? Who?"
"You know who."
"Who?"
"Homosexuals. You were saying that he's a homosexual. You're a homophobe."
This was news to me and, I'm sure, had it been brought to his attention, to Mr McDonald, who I'm sure isn't gay but has every right to be if he so desires.
Anyway, since then I've always been careful about the ponytail issue, and now I dither before describing his do de jour as cornrows lest I get a call accusing me of accusing Ciarán of being black, which I'm not, and which he has every right to be if he so desires.
Mind wandering badly now. Twenty-one minutes gone. Kerry have nine points on the board and the firm of Moynihan and Russell representing them on the bench. Every time I look back at the action Kerry are clipping over another point. Before half-time I'm playing a little game with myself, trying to spot the first Mayo person to get up and leave, shaking his head in conspicuous, mock sadness as if beating the traffic or getting an early pint wasn't what's on his mind.
Before half-time - quite a way before half-time - Mayo bring David Brady on for Fergal Kelly. There's not much you can say to a man like Kelly at a time like that. Big day, everyone here and you get hauled off before you're warmed up properly.
Anyway, Brady is on for 30 seconds when The Gooch leaps like a carrot-topped salmon and pulls down another high one. This time he skins the Mayo defence and puts it in the back of the net. Genius. Game over.
Early in the second half I go to unplug my laptop and accidentally unplug the TV monitor which four of us hacks are sharing. It won't come back to life. We only get monitors for big days in Croke Park and they're such a treat that what I've done is a crime for which I deserve to be flung from the upper deck of the Hogan. The lads just shrug. Nothing on worth watching anyway.
Mind rambling again. I remember being at one-sided basketball games in the US where they would have promotions to keep the crowd interested. If the Knicks, say, score 110 points everyone in the crowd gets free pizza. So in a game that's as dead as a Dana presidential bid the crowd would be apoplectic, urging the boys to pile on the scores. What would 80,000 slices of pizza cost? Kerry are on 1-19 and relaxed. Just say we all got pizza if they score 20. It would stop all those people leaving.
Mike Frank scores the last point for Kerry. An emphatic punctuation mark at the close of business. Strikes me that I'm not old, but I've been here to watch Kerry in 15 finals since 1972, seen them win 11 of them. Any wonder that, when it comes to these September pageants, Kerry are always Kerry and the rest of Ireland are always the supporting cast.
