Wednesday 1 May 2013

THE FIRST BUDS OF SUMMER BLOOM

“LAWLOR, get your fat hole up that hill.”

Sometimes Horse Regan’s booming voice wakes me in the middle of the night and I jolt, half afraid that he’s coming to get me again. It was 1998 and I had just started a Journalism H Dip at NUI Galway. H Dips these days are like bank overdrafts – most everyone has them but they’re only a short term solution to get you to where you want to go. Back then, though, they were big business.

So too was the college hurling team.

And like a second-rate clown who thinks he can juggle more than two balls I decided to try out for the team. It didn’t seem to bother me that I was stone wall useless. Being such a gentleman it didn’t seem to bother Horse either. Horse was our Sports Officer, the side’s manager and he called all the shots. Thanks to him, and despite the fact that I was considered entirely dispensable at junior B level back home in Kilruane, I was suddenly drafted onto the 1998 NUI Galway Fitzgibbon Cup training squad. It helped that my friend and classmate Terence Fahy, who was on the Clare team at the time, was one of the college’s best hurlers. He introduced me to the lads and I was left be. Jesus, though, was I overawed! Finbarr Gantley, Gary Hanniffy, Darren Hanniffy, Dara Coen… a heap of All-Ireland winners across all grades.

And me. Running up a hill in Daingean alongside them. With a fat arse and Horse roaring at me.

He could see I was struggling but deep down I think he admired the fact that I wouldn’t give up. That and the fact that I actually managed to lap Dara Coen. ‘Think of what good the training will do,” Horse roared as I wheezed past him. ‘’Twill benefit you in May back home if nothing else. We’ve the Fitzgibbon in March but you think of May – you’ll be on fire back home.” In other words, you’re complete shite but you’re a good fella to have around the place.

Still, fate deals all sorts of hands. The words of John Cahill, one of our managers back home, rang through as I tried to find my way. JC has been over every team in the club by now and once took charge of a junior side that wasn’t too fancied to say the least. JC, though, had some great advice. ‘Lads,” he advised as we trailed our opponents by 15 points at the break. “The longer ye stay in this dressing room the longer ye stay in the championship.”

With such wise counsel embedded in the inner chambers of my mind I wafted around the college team like a bad smell. We played a Fitzgibbon league game against UL and as there were exams I was one of only seven subs to tog. With about 15 minutes left, and men going down like front line soldiers, Frank Keane, our coach, went through the dregs of the squad, enquiring if any of us was a forward. Turns out I was the only one they had – and even still it’s debatable as to whether I actually fit the criteria. Much to my sheer mystery - and the shock of my housemates from Nenagh (JP Guilmartin, Mick Grey, Gunner Kelly and Tom Conroy) who had turned out to cheer/jeer me at every chance - I was thrust in for the last quarter. I think the ham roll I’d finished just an hour earlier repeated on me but I hit a few balls, got a point and was unlucky for a goal.

With a pep firmly in my step I threw the books aside again the following week and went down to UCC with the boys. We had no goalie and so the utility man (I was equally hopeless in a number of positions) was this time thrown into the line of fire to face Johnny Enright and the rest of his hotshots. I was a bag of nerves, so anxious that I could barely hold the hurl, but I didn’t let myself down too badly at the same time. Only let in two or three.

A couple of more training sessions and I regularly made the college intermediate team. Gradually, though, if I’m being honest, every passing week showed my teammates and managers just how bad I was. After some self-counsel I decided that my best days were positively behind me and I was suddenly struck down by a mystery virus which took me out of the line of fire.

College ended soon enough anyway and I returned to the safe confines of the Kilruane junior B team, alongside such luminary talents as Cronan Casey, where I felt a lot more at ease. Until I was taken off against Lorrha.

Now, being taken off in a junior B game is about as humbling an experience as you can get. When I was asked afterwards by our manager what was wrong, the immortal words of another Kilruane man, Paddy Spain, came into my head.

Thinking of the lofty position I had commanded with those All-Ireland winners just a few weeks earlier I attempted to explain my demise - using Paddy’s classic line. “Des,” I said. “’Tis like this. It’s hard to flap with the penguins when you’ve soared with the eagles.” He looked at me in both bewilderment and pity.

There’s a message in all of this. It’s May, the evenings are longer, and apart from a cracking league final to look forward to this weekend, the championship also starts. And no matter how awful I was there’s a huge part of me wishes I was still sledging away at some level. For those of you who are, the hard work and the winter graft is now complete. The ground is hard and the crowds are coming. There is much hope and promise in the air. It’s surely the best time of year.

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