I don't need to be here

It’s December 29th and its pissing rain outside. Last night I was in Bandon where the rain was accompanied by driving wind. We were playing a 1st against 2nd hockey match and all day I couldn’t decide whether I’d rather it be cancelled or not. It wasn’t. We played, we showered and we went home, happy that the roads allowed a safe passage. Today I’m driving in the gates of the G.A.A. pitch in Kinsale, looking through the rain at the drenched pitch and wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

I don’t need to be here I’m thinking. No-one will miss me if I do a u-turn and go straight back out the gate. Staying is an unnecessary act of madness. I’ve Bolster with me though and after we had both purchased a pair of those leggings (otherwise known as tights) this morning, it was the perfect opportunity to give them a run-out.

It’s strange to feel like an outsider in a dressing room that was once a place frequented as often as your own living room. It is predominantly filled with U-21’s, none of whom I would have played any ball with before. I look over at ‘my’ seat and see there are a couple of lads occupying the area. Cheeky bastards. Unperturbed, I saunter over and one way or another encourage them to free up my space. Bolster and Searlzy probably sense my unease in the opposite corner and crack as many jokes as possible in the short time we are there. It’s bitter outside and we need some cajoling.

The session was to last 1h15mins and we were promised it wouldn’t be too bad. With the main field out of action, we are forced onto Seanie O’Callaghan Memorial Park. It’s basically a converted farmer’s field, with a generous slope. It makes Parc50 look like Croke Park.

The session was lively and played out with good intensity. Condon is running the show which gives the younger lads a clear advantage (he trained them for the last two years) as they catch onto the drills much quicker than the rest. You’d be tired after every drill but recovered in time for the next. In one of the warm-up drills you had to call a fella’s name. The realisation of my profile was emphasised when Brian Murphy told me to tell lad’s my name. We’re all only passing through.

There was 30+ there and the buzz was good. We had the odd blow-up which is rarely a bad thing. There’s been a lot of change in the camp this year and I hope they do well. Still, It was obvious even today that a few lads need to apply themselves better and there is still the usual lads missing in action. The relationship with the Hurlers has started off well and this harmony is necessary, especially with so many dual players.

I don’t know do I miss it or not. I’ve picked up so many injuries in the last few years that I’m not sure could I maintain the pace for the entire season. It was enjoyable though and feeling that bit of pain in the harder runs makes it worthwhile.

Willie Uprising

December 4th in Madrid hailed a momentous day in Belgium G.A.A.'s history as Tipp man Willie Cashin was elected Chairman of the European County Board. It is the first time a member of our club has held this position and the achievment deserved the welcome home party it was given in de Valera's the following night.

Willie has been a committed player, referee and Board man since his arrival on the continent in 2004. The club are very proud to have one of its own in the position and no doubt Willie will give it everything during his reign.

He will be joined by some of his own as the Kevin Keary/Olof Gill led campaign landed positions for Becky as Camogie Officer, Kevin himself as Club Development Officer and my good self as Coaching Officer.

I'm told the vote between myself and Denis Reidy was as close as it gets and that it was a rousing speech from Olof Gill that sealed it. Olof probably wished that all the wonderful things he said about me would never be repeated but alas, with Kevin Keary on the megaphone that was unlikely to ever happen.

Now I must deal with the painful title of 'committee man' even though my position by its nature should be one of the furthest from any committee table! From the many emails in circulation from the incoming committee, it is clear that there is plenty of energy and new ideas floating around so hopefully 2010 can be another great year for European G.A.A.

5-a-side

After ten months of 3 or 4 nights a week playing hurling and football, I was struggling to get motivated to head out to FCI training in Nossegem. Sometimes, it’s nice just to kick back and do something different. Not to different of course. For now it means 5-a-side and a bit of hockey but I’ll have to get out to soccer after Christmas to keep my place.

We (Belgium G.A.A. lads) play 5-a-side every Wednesday in the BSB at 9. Its good craic, not too intense and you work up a good sweat. I don’t know is it the fact it’s indoor or what, but it never gets too heated. I probably annoy fellas with the constant chat and goading but I’ve yet to find opposition willing to give it back, although David Collins does it in his quiet way but we could get more into it.

The last couple of times I’ve been home myself and Bolster arranged 5-a-side games up in Bishopstown. Selection criteria are pretty strict. I insist on keeping it old school (the Kinsale lads I’d have played with. I also like to use it to keep in touch with some of the ex-Belgie lads like Eoghan Kelly and Wolfey. Kelly has become a regular and is now a firm fixture on our list. By coincidence he works with Shane.

I picked the teams a couple of weeks ago and we ran riot. I genuinely didn’t weigh them in my favour but accusations flew so I had to stand down last weekend. I previously opposed the young fellas inclusion, probably purely because I’m not in on that banter. They got the call this time though and we dragged them up from U-21 training.

Myself and Bolster were separated which was always going to lead to trouble. Now, Bolster would be one of my best buddies but that just means the importance of getting one over each other is greater. We both harass each other for the hour and on this occasion they were keeping just ahead of us. We were chasing it late on and I was reaching my boiling point with him and all his sh1te so I went for the ball with a little more gusto than previously. Cue a mild wrestling match and angry words. No great effort was made by anyone to quell the brewing storm. Next ball I get Bolster charges in with a shoulder to the head. I was not happy. I could smell blood though, Bolster had lost the head. We came back and won. The journey home was as pleasurable a one as I’ve had.

Those games are always the most competitive. It’s like the bitterness from backs and forwards just carries through and fellas are up for it. It rarely boils over though and myself and Bolster had buried the hatchet a few minutes later. although why Mick Sull’s arm was covered in blood when he took his top off remains a mystery. I think in the pick-up Basketball world, they call it ‘Jungle Ball’.

Monday night I joined Cathal Fitz and as they were short I brought along Wolfey. Turned out Wolfey was in school with half of the lads there. It must have been below zero and no-one spoke for the first twenty minutes because we were so cold. It was all GAA heads but the game was more like the ones we have in the BSB, more tentative on account of the lack of depth of history to the relations. Maybe more enjoyable though as you are less likely to be kicked from behind, be scratched, have your jersey torn of ya or have your character and ability dissected viciously.

5-a-side is definitely a very sociable way to have a sporting evening but it’s still a poor substitute for proper training. Somes fellas make it their outlet too early and whilst I enjoy it, I’ll get back to serious business in January. There will be a few Christmas battles up in Bishopstown between now and then though.

Cross Fertilisation

Ross Grainger’s blog (http://rossgrainger.blogspot.com) was one of the things that got me thinking about writing this blog. His is more insightful and covers a wider range of topics. Every week though, he writes a witty report about the FCI match that week, hence the link to me thinking about it. In one of his early entries, he describes his first trip out to FC Irlande, which you can read below;

FC Irlande’s home pitch is just on the outskirts of Brussels, a nightmare to get to with public transport. If Belgium splits I’ll end up living in one country and playing football in another – Flanders. I showed up for my first training session knackered and out of breath, having run fifteen minutes up-hill from the Viaduct bus station.

When I got there I found about 40 lads running furiously and being yelled out by a short bloke with a heavy Irish accent. It was classic training ground berating, “Lift ure knees, cam aaan, put it drew to da end!” I sauntered over and introduced myself.

“Are you the gaffa?”
“Nah I’m the trainer. Are you a new fella?”
“Yeah, I’m a mate of Andy’s. He plays for the thirds.”
“Da turds, eh? All right, join in there yeah. No worries,” he said. He looked at the England shirt I was wearing. “Ya know dis is FC Irlande not FC England don’tcha?” I laughed.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Ah we’ll letcha in anyway. Ya better be good.”

That was my first meeting with Dave, our trainer. He’s a Gaelic football player from Cork who gets a small fee for running us into the ground on Monday and Wednesday nights. I took a shine to him straight away and went to join in the punishment. This was September.

I still laugh when I read this. First thing to clear up is that the job did not have an accompanying fee, in case someone gets the wrong idea. Second point is that Ross turned out to be one of those missing pieces of the jigsaw that propelled the Firsts to Division 1 of ABSSA for the first time. He scores goals and has a discipline and drive which I was trying to instil in lads. I have a vague recollection of him telling me one night that he spent a week on trial at Middlesbrough. He could have felt my welcome to be unwarm, fortunately he didn’t.

Anyway, introduction out of the way (main reason for it was to reciprocate the honour of having my blog posted as a link on his!), as my two year tenure went on I tried to involve him more in training, taking the warm ups and the like, in the hope I’d pick up a few things off him. He knew his football and is a positive upbeat character to have around.

Now he trains the team and he would always have been my choice when I departed. I’d brought them to a certain point in terms of physical training and discipline but the time was right to drive on with the football side of things.

We still discuss training and the like. I shared a drill with him down in de Valera’s a few weeks ago. I haven’t used it for GAA yet but Ross tried it out at soccer last week. He reported back on how it went, pointing out the pitfalls and improvement points. This is cross fertilisation, as they call it now in relation to taking drills from one sport and applying in another. It’s good to exchange ideas and learn from other games. The area I’d like to improve a lot next year is warm-ups. They become boring and repetitive but are very important because they can set the tone for the session. Ross is strong in this area.

I just finished Billy Morgans book and it’s (cross fertilisation) a practice he has applied since his days in Strawberry Hill in the 70’s or 80’s. GAA wouldn’t be on the course spec of their PE course. Still, Billy said he took a load of stuff from it and incorporated it into his sessions in Nemo and with Cork.

I’m a big believer in it and took a lot of hockey drills, adjusted them and used them for G.A.A. As hard as it may be for some to believe, I learned a lot from a Rugby man called Trevor Collins who I got down to train Kinsale in the winter of 2003. He was very good on running technique, speed work and handling.

My parents threw me into every sport along the way; tennis, hockey, G.A.A., soccer, rugby, cricket and basketball. You can’t soak up enough from the different experiences. I took something from all of them.

I look forward to the trips out to Nossegem in January to get new ideas and discuss different methods with Mr. Grainger. Along the way, I’ll do my best to tap into the ideas of others too. It’s definitely the way forward.

Retracing Your Steps

I mentioned earlier in the year that you don’t need a GPS in Ireland. Our signposts actually work quite well. Drive anywhere in the country and you will pass through towns and pass by signs that evoke thoughts of great G.A.A. strongholds and their famous warriors. I’m too young to be nostalgic but a trip down to see my Aunt in Durrus on Tuesday last dug up many memories of football and hurling matches over the years. We seemed more often to go west than any other direction and there was a fair share of big days down in that part of the country.

We passed through Innishannon first, probably one of the best venues around to play a match. To get from the dressing rooms to the pitch you had to run down the bank through the crowd. It was the scene of my first adult Championship game when a fantastic goal from substitute Barry Gray ensured Courceys season came to an end and we marched on to the South-East final.

We followed the Bandon River into the town it was named after. The wet mucky December day in 2001 when we went head to head with that mighty Ilen Rovers team seems a distant memory. Our hope of causing a major upset was on course at half-time but fell away after the break.

The following year I’d take my Senior bow there against Carbery, marking a whippet from Barryroe called Harrington. We had a good battle and it opened my eyes to the pace and physicality of Senior Football.
The twin cities of Ballineen and Eniskeane host the St. Marys club in their marvellous G.A.A. grounds. More challenge games against Carbery and Beara took place down there. I marked Alan O’Regan in the Beara game and I couldn’t combat the huge height difference. He took me for two goals. A humbling experience.

You pass by Ballinacarriga next. We played Randal Og there a week before the Hurling Championship in 2001. Dad was training the team and he was experimenting with the idea of starting Blondie in goal and me in the forwards and then switching us depending on how the game was going. Blondie was priceless. Before a game a few years ago, he gave one of the lads two phones and two different sets of instructions of what to say depending on which phone rang!

You hit Dunmanway next. Dohenys country is a footballing stronghold. They took us to the cleaners in Drimoleague in the U-21 County in 2000. There was a lad Stevie Collins in the opposite corner to me and he ran riot early on. Ricky was in America and William Cummins was training in the Curragh. He was released but only made it down for half-time. The obituary was written at that stage. I’d have my own battle with Collins two years later when Carrigdhoun played Dohenys in the SFC down the road in Clon. He was the fastest and trickiest fella I ever had to deal with but i kept with him, just.

You see the signs for Skibbereen and it reminds me of a great trip we had down there to play a West Cork league game. Dad had organised a bus and off we went. As we travelled down on Tuesday we couldn’t quite recall the result. I think we snuck it by a point. We stopped in Rosscarbery on the way back and it was the start of an almighty session that continued long into the night when we returned to Kinsale that night.

Drimoleague comes next and I already mentioned the U-21 fiasco. In 2001 we played a County Semi-Final against Adrigole down there. I marked John Loch and he proved a handful. He tragically died a couple of years later. Two pieces of play defined that day. The first was Ricky’s marshalling of Brendan Jer to the point the latter saw red late in the game. The second was one of the best goals we ever scored and came from a marauding run from Kenny. That was a big win for us.

The final venue of note was the home pitch of Caheragh. When we passed it we couldn’t place it. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. I’m still not sure what village it is affiliated too. We played a challenge game down there one night and I remember Corcoran being carted off to hospital. I pulled my hammer the same evening. The work they’ve done with their grounds since is amazing and they now have very impressive floodlights. It shows what a bit of ambition and drive can do.

I’m sure in years to come; I’ll be heading off on my holidays somewhere and be looking up at the departures screen. I’ll be telling my kids of those epic G.A.A. days in Maastricht, Luxembourg, Zurich, Dubai and other far flung places. Nothing like it.