Spandex, Johnny Phelan, Van Morrison & the F**king Boat

It’s worrying that I seem to be the default option for company when the lad’s girlfriends are away for a weekend. Fortunately for the better halves, while I’m still on the straight and narrow they have little to worry about. This week it was Johnny Phelan and on Friday night we planned for two gym sessions over the weekend.
The first was Saturday afternoon. I had accepted the invitation with some trepidation. When Johnny hits lads at training, fellas pause, unsure whether to laugh or show concern for his latest victim. If you substituted in Johnny Phelan’s name in those Chuck Norris jokes you’d be unlikely to get much disagreement. No-one likes being dwarfed in the gym either so a visit with him could cause untold damage to my ego.

He agreed on my routine and was sensitive to my feelings in the early exercises before casting aside my pitiful weights for the heavier ones. We broke the session up with a 30 minute core class. In we trudged, kitted out in Belgium GAA training gear and beaten up runners. We were the only men in a group of about 15.

Women dress well for the gym here and there seems to be no shortage of spandex in the local sports stores. The beads of sweat queued up on our foreheads before the class even started. Those classes are a nightmare because they’re in studios with mirrors all over the place. It seems like every time you raise your eyes they cross paths with another participant either directly or through the medium of the mirror. Although, I’m certain they were looking at me first.

We were going ok until we got to the boat. It’s basically an exercise where you left your legs up so your shins are parallel to the ground and then left your upper body up and try and balance. The instructor brings various punishing variations into it along the way. Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl provided the back-drop for this exercise and I counted down every word to the end. The grimacing on our faces was a little embarrassing in the pristine company we were keeping.

We repeated the visit to the gym this afternoon and followed Johnny’s routine. I thought he had broken me with the first few exercises but after swallowing my pride and reducing the weight, I survived. The highlight was Power Box though.

It’s an hour long class with a load of stretching and strength exercises. However, as the name suggests, there is a heavy boxing theme in it. It was not until half way through, with sweat hopping off us that we realised the actual idea behind the boxing/kicking drills. Technique and speed were the objective, not trying to beat the shit out of the pads as myself and Johnny had been doing!!

A good weekend but maybe the last of its type for a while. Tomorrow is February 1. The self-imposed drinking ban has come to an end. The girlfriends better start thinking twice....

Help Haiti!

About ten days ago FC Irlande and Belgium G.A.A. were summoned into action to raise money to send to Haiti in the wake of the recent disaster there. Everything happened so fast, it’s hard to know where exactly it all started. It’s fair to say Conchur de Barra, owner of de Valera’s Irish pub and Denis O’Sullivan, President of FC Irlande were to the fore. Both are members of the soccer and G.A.A. clubs and had the idea of uniting both clubs to leverage the considerable resources and creativity to benefit a very worthy cause.

Within days, the city had been bombarded with flyers and posters. Raffle tickets were selling as fast as the very hot FC Irlande Ladies calendar and cookies and brownies were being sold and being devoured by the hungry masses. One FCI member donated €3,200 and there were many other sizeable contributions via the specially set-up bank account.

The efforts culminate tonight in de Valera’s where every cent spent will be donated to Haiti and doubled by the pub. The soccer club had planned a bumper day at the home pitches with all 5 teams playing at home. However, mid-week, with snow forecasted, the league cancelled all games. On Friday, the club prepared a substitute fixture list and invited two of our arch rivals (Royal British and British United) to play the firsts and seconds. Belgium GAA were fixed to play FCI thirds whilst the fourths would lock horns with the Vets. However, we woke up to a snow covered Brussels this morning and the best laid plans were scuppered.

Unperturbed, club members were dispatched around the city in club colours to sell the calendars, cakes and everything else! It is unreal what has been raised already, €32,000 by lunchtime today!! With a jam packed pub tonight, the €40,000 target will surely have been blown away by midnight.

It has really been amazing what people have done in a short time period and is a great example of what can happen when you bring a bunch of people together for a common cause! Tonight, you will see the GAA fraternity joining the soccer fraternity for what should finish off a massive effort by all concerned.

Apprentice Rocked

Rochey’s apprenticeship as Belgium G.A.A. men’s physical trainer has got off to an excellent start but is being played out against the backdrop of some bad news. Rochey confirmed last night that he has done his cruciate. The incident occurred in the Maastricht tournament last year when we were in the middle of an almighty battle with Budapest. He was a crucial part of our tactics around the middle of the field that day and it’s not a coincidence that when he was carried off, our challenge seemed to follow.

He is the latest in a long list of club members who missed/will miss big chunks of the year due to surgery or being put in a cast. Anay, Steph, Jane, Laura & Jess have all suffered while Bull, Crusher, Emmett and now Rochey are the names that come to mind.

Regardless of the impact it will have on the team, it’s very disappointed for Rochey as he is also a keen cyclist and this will sideline him for that too. The only positive is that it happened whilst living in Belgium and he can rely on excellent hospitals and affordable care. If he needs inspiration for his recovery, he need look no further than Crusher who has sped back to fitness at an alarming speed.

Selfishly, I hope he will continue to support with the training. Our first two sessions have been excellent and last night he brought us beyond the point where we have stopped in the past. Everyone went home having being pushed hard. So we wish him a fast recovery during which he continues to make a big input into the group.

Divide & Conquer?

The cynics in the ranks may suggest that there was an underlying tactic associated with splitting up the group for players meetings this year. They might also have analysed the groups and wondered was there some strategic plan to balance certain lads against each other. Or they might just have been plain suspicious. They may not have been far off the mark with any of the above thoughts!

We decided to keep groups to max 6 people rather than have one big free for all. We wanted to have more structured conversations with lads, understand where their heads are at and get more quality feedback. From our (Colin, Conan and I) perspective it was very worthwhile and the most pleasing feedback was to hear how much fellas enjoy being involved. If that’s your starting point, things can’t be so bad.

Fellas put good thought into what they had to say and had prepared beforehand. The tone was positive and there was a good awareness of the realities we face regarding varying standards of players, difficulties in ensuring fairness, quality of pitches etc. The ideas flowed and there is plenty for us to work with now.

The idea of the meetings was that the players would talk and we would listen. When they were finished we would give our thoughts and plan for the year. I did quite well in terms of keeping my mouth shut with only the odd outburst to challenge opinions. Further work required though!!

The demographics are different here. At home you’d have a more mixed bag in terms of age, background and age-old club issues simmering. All the lads here are mid-twenties (with a couple of exceptions) and working. There is no, or very little, baggage to be holding fellas back. Their interest is in how to drive the club on, not in labouring on futile points. It’s a maturity, open mindedness, whatever you want to call it. It’s good.

I dropped Colin home after and he was commenting how the night would get you up for the year ahead. I’m not sure did it have the same effect on lads but if we can live up to their expectations than hopefully they won’t be long lining up behind us.

Reaping the rewards of a quiet January

If you told me when I moved to Brussels that you could string a few days together that would involve G.A.A. training on a Thursday night, a soccer match on the Saturday and finish off with a hockey match on the Sunday, I’d hardly have believed you. Such are the options available to us here and it’s probably been the main reason I’m still here.

I’ve been threatening to give up the soccer all year to free up some time but the second team is flying high and loaded with Irish and it’s a good scene to be involved in. Still, I wasn’t going to play on Saturday but a mix of them being short, a Paul Staunton (our FCI daddy) exchange and the fact Keary was making his debut meant it just had to be done.

I’ve trained very little all year and it has been reflected in my performances. The club has a man of the match system whereby at the end of a game everyone gives their two votes. Whoever wins the most votes gets the round in. At the end of the year, the votes from all games are tallied and the winner is crowned player of the year.

I used to always get my share, regardless of whether it was 1sts or 2nds; my endeavour (rather than skill) winning favour in some hearts. I must have played 5/6 games before Christmas and I’d say I could count on one hand the number of votes I got. This annoyed me, not because I missed the adulation of my teammates but because it was indicative of the level of my contribution to the team. Saturday went better personally with a goal and the man of the match; an indication of the benefits of more training and less drinking!! We lost 2-1 though so that took away from the satisfaction.

Today I lined up with Leuven’s 4th hockey team. They hover around the bottom of the hockey world but that’s ok for now as I’m just happy to be back playing. There is an extensive blog entry pending, describing what it’s like to join a foreign team who speak a language you cannot comprehend (Flemish in this case). Snel ball and lijn are about all I can manage. You care less as you get older though.

We led 3-0 & 4-2 before needing our keeper to save a penalty in the closing minutes to salvage a draw. The €140 I spent on a hockey stick yesterday paid off with a goal but an effort to win it came back off the crossbar. Tired from the weekend exertions, I decided to finish the game in the sin bin, alongside my marker. It was a good weekend, hopefully I’ll be able to get out of the scratcher tomorrow morning.

The last sporting act of the weekend was to deliver Thursday’s training plan to Rochey. It’s always hard to know when you are planning it, how difficult it will be. All I can say to the lads who are reading this though, is that I’d have an early and light lunch! On paper it doesn’t look so appealing!

Another week ending and another beginning.

Equilibrium

Kevin Keary made his FC Irlande 2nds debut today and he travelled with me to the game. It was only 10km from Shuman but the outrageous nature of the Brussels road system meant we would spend nearly an hour in each other’s company. Kevin used to work with FG MEP Colm Burke and campaigned vigorously to try and get him re-elected last Summer. The campaign pitted Burke directly against Sean Kelly who was also on the ticket for FG. Burke and Keary failed where Kelly succeeded and so Kevin was left unemployed. Within weeks however, he had jumped ship and plonked his arse on a chair in Kelly’s office. I don’t tell you this story to blacken the good name of Kevin, just to live up to my commitment of allowing you get to know the characters in my blog a bit better.

Anyway, introduction aside, the conversation swung from holding the line in a back four, the troubles in Northern Ireland, summer holidays and on to last Thursday’s training. We both confirmed stiffness but a general positive feeling that the season is up and running. Our commitment to get in better shape this year was also expressed.

Kevin lives with our Chairman Olof (solely a house share). I quizzed him about how Olof keeps fit and expressed some worry that the gap between myself and himself was minimal in terms of performance in the running. I’ve been tipping away a bit while he has been fairly idle. In that sense, I should have a bigger edge. We were neck in neck in most runs and if I had an edge, it was minimal.

Kev described the impeccable nature of how Olof prepares his food, follows the 5 a day rule and generally restrains himself when the pints are flying. My diet has been appalling whenever I’ve been out of my mother’s cooking regime. In boarding school I survived on a bag of fun sized chocolate, two litre bottle of orange and £3 to spend during the week in the tuck shop. Looking back it showed when I played sport, I’d have been very much bit-part.

When I became a day pupil in 6th year I benefited from home cooking every day and I start to progress on teams which I would previously been on the periphery of. When I think about it now, I think my improved diet played its part.

I notice the importance of food when I go to the gym. If I’ve had my lunch at 12h and don’t eat anything between then and going at 20h, I’ll struggle to get through a session, simply because the fuel tank is empty. Even with all that said, pizza, coke & chocolate are the most prominent inputs into my diet!!

We linked Olof’s discipline to the Swedish streak in him. This then led us to analyse Irish people’s attitude to their health. We agreed that our goal is to achieve equilibrium where by poor diet and alcohol is balanced by sporting activities or other attempts to live healthier. Simple example; a booze & food fuelled December is offset by a drink free January populated by intensive trainings. How many foreigners do you know that go off it for January? Still, in our pursuit to achieve equilibrium, we only see the scales tip one way; our account is never in credit on the healthy side of the scales. Instead, we are always trying to balance the badness.

How to achieve a healthy diet in the coming months will be the challenge. I reckon it’s worth 10-15% to your performance and is definitely an important part of recovery from injury. Fending off Olof’s challenge may well be the incentive required.

Up & Running

Decent numbers were expected in BSB last night for the first training of the year and we were not disappointed. Rochey had been briefed on the plan last Sunday so he had a few days to digest and get his head round it. My new apprentice managed quite successfully to pull it off too. We had 22 plus himself and Conan. Two more were on an adjoining pitch at their rugby training and more had sent valid excuses.


We only have an hour on the pitch so its tight, especially considering you probably need that little bit extra time for warm-up & stretches when lads have been inactive for so long. There were a few new faces which is always good to see. Not so good to see however, are the old heads returning with the bigger bellies! This will have to be addressed!! Some lads don't winter well!

I'd have pulled the plug and skipped the last five runs if I was holding the whistle I reckon. Having Rochey calling the shots was good because the five you don't want to do are the five most worth doing, mentally anyway. Our approach until the end of February will be the same as we continue with more fitness work and only minimal ballwork. It's a long year so important to manage it well and keep lads interested. For the next five or so weeks it's all about just getting the bodies into decent shape and using the recovery time between runs to work on some ball handling.


The test will be next week when we see how serious lads are about getting themselves fit and whether they show up again. There is no pressure on attendance at this stage so we won't be hounding lads. I'm hoping fellas will take more responsibility for all related things to their hurling and football training this year, which means everything from sorting themselves lifts, bringing water, managing injuries to getting themselves in decent physical shape. Last night started on a positive note and hopefully we continue in the same manner in the coming weeks.

Planning Ahead

It's been hectic since coming back after the Christmas period and the blog has been neglected. I'm sure your breakfast is a more dull experience not having a regular update on all things Belgium G.A.A. However, we took a good step forward in The Oak last Friday night.

Normally I hate holding any form of meeting in a pub but in this case it's a little different as The Oak is kind of the spiritual home of Belgium Gaelic Football. It was over many a Vedett back in the winter of 2007 that myself and Conan started to scheme and plot for the first time.

It's funny to look back at our attitude then. We were willing to set up Belgium Gaelic Football club independant of Brussels Hurling & Camogie club. We were both involved in the Hurling and that wouldn't change but we wanted to do things our way. I think we had even discussed what kind of money we would need to invest to secure pitches, jerseys etc. Conan may have even bought the first ten footballs out of his own pocket. We got a good way down the road of securing a top class pitch too.

It's all happy families now though as the Hurlers and Footballers went on to win their first European Championships in the years that followed. We are more calm now and the main topics on Friday night's agenda were; 2009 reflections, B Team, Training, Player pool, Challenge games and the players meeting.

You'd be surprised at the length of the player list we have. It's pushing 50+ and a good 40 of them are live contenders. Others showed last year at various times. We are going to draw up a more definite list this week and contact the borderline cases to see their intentions. Conan is going on a big recruitment campaign and will try and tap into previous untouched markets like the Ozzies and foreigners (Matti excluded). We will cover every major town in Brussels. The more the merrier has to be the attitude.

Challenge games will be a big thing, especially given the three month gap in the football season in the summer. We already have a trip to Clare Island pencilled in and there are a few other plans hatching.

We agreed on the format of the player meeting. I know Conan was strongly in favour of having one but as written previously, I'm not a fan. The compromise will be we will meet fellas in groups of 5/6 for 30 minutes. That way we can have a more direct conversation. There is always pub talk when you are involved in a team (which is totally natural and I am guilty of engagin in it myself)and it's important to allow fellas get this stuff off their chest. The quality of the conversation will be better in small groups. Better but maybe more explosive!!

The three of us left with our to do lists. Training starts Thursday night. It will be good to be back.

Beware Elitism

Interesting conversation with Mick Sull and a couple of other lads in The Market on Stephen’s Night. In most clubs, the most valued individuals are those with the most talent on the pitch. They are the guys everyone wants to be buddy-buddy with and their opinions rarely need clarification. They can do no wrong.

Not everyone fits this bill though. Some lads will have more moderate skills on the playing field but are often neglected. In rural clubs especially, where there may only be one adult team in each code, it is easy for these guys to fade from the scene. Without games, the training is meaningless for them. They were probably tarred with a certain brush years before and given no route back.

The star player might give prove a great man on the pitch but often he will be totally incompetent training teams or in the committee room. Plenty great players fail in management or don’t have the heart to make the hard yards to drive a club forward. They will inevitably be lost when they fail to find a role when they hang up their boots.

Then you have a gap. The foot soldiers are long gone from the battlefield and now the heroes have downed their tools too. Of course there are lads in between but your pool is significantly depleted.

The Celtic Tiger coincided with a period where college registration fees were at an all time low and their doors were open to all. Multinationals flooded the country and job opportunities were ten a penny. Coupled with this, we had many exiles return to the country and also an unprecedented uprising of entrepreneurial spirit. What this has given Ireland is probably it’s largest ever pool of young professionals who are well educated, structured and driven. Many will have worked on big budget, international projects and taken all the learning possible away with them. However, as I said, some will never be the man to make the last ditch block or angle a score from an impossible angle.

A college degree and a fancy job title is not the be all and end all of course, don’t get me wrong. Ireland has spawned many a smart man who simply may not have had the same opportunities (or even wanted to pursue them) but has accumulated his own set of invaluable experiences from his chosen career path. A club needs a mix of everything.

Imagine your club is taking on a massive redevelopment project. Surely you want a guy used to managing construction projects, dealing with finance or foremen? Their experience can add great value to a club and have a more lasting contribution than the winning score in a county final. Some people can’t do both.

The point is we must run inclusive clubs where everybody can carve out a role for themselves and make a contribution. It’s good to see the lads in Kinsale realising this and trying to encourage as many people as possible to get back involved. You need all hands on deck. It’s a no brainer, there can be no losers.

Sun Rising On New Season

And so we are all back at the starting line, last season's triumphs and tragedies but a fading memory. Everyone starts from scratch and thus is full of merry hope and unbridled ambition.

The Dublin footballers are always the source of much amusement at this time of year. Stories of 06h30 training sessions followed later by an evening session decorate the back pages of all the Dublin rags. What is it about the Dubs? I had Eoin Sheanon on the phone last night still huffing after an 8km run and eagerly awaiting news of the commencement of training. They give so much so early...

The revolving door has not been so active this winter. Clux is back in Dublin but work will still have him spend some time in Brussels so we can expect to see him a good bit. He has competition as of Monday when Corkman Timmy O'Donovan lands. Timmy arrives with positive reviews from fellow clubman Liam Wolfe. We eagerly await news on anyone else that the recession washes out.

Colin was busily confirming pitch bookings this week and we head for the BSB on January 21st for our first session. Fellas are eager to get back but from a football side it's nearly too early. The year here is long and maintaining interest is an issue. For the first five weeks we'll just run and motivation will have to come from within. There will be no badgering by text or email. Fellas are free to come and go for those weeks before we get down to the official start at the end of February.

Its Year 3 of our little project and we'll be looking at ways to freshen things up. Fellas will naturally look for a new voice and it would be good if we could get a non-player on board so I'll look into that. One old face that we will welcome back is Crusher. He has his last physio session this week and then he works away on his own. He is back training but there will be no pressure on a quick return.

I've plenty of ideas having been home at Christmas and seeing Condon at work in his role as Chairman of the club. Conan did similiar research over the break and has been flinging all sorts of things at us via email so it should be a lively meeting when we sit down with Colin next week.

2010

I started on the resolutions early this year. The icy roads made getting home from a night out tricky so I took it easy on the boozy nights out. Instead, I became a regular visitor to the gym and fitted in a bit of hockey and one Gaelic Football session. As a result, I’m feeling fairly lively starting the year. No pains aches or otherwise. Long may it continue.

Just as well considering the lecture James Murph gave us on cholesterol just before Christmas. Pizza, Coke and sweets will be the big losers in the diet stakes as they are substituted for a bit more fruit, veg and the like.

On the football front, Colin, Conan and myself will sit down in the next two weeks to start plotting the year. Training, challenge games and how to deal with all the logistic stuff will be the topics of the day. The revolving door is still spinning as fellas come and go. Marty will be scheming about all things hurling and we’ll be back in action before we know it. I think everyone is eager to get back doing stuff so hopefully the year will get off to a good start.

I contemplated putting the blog to bed for good but decided to keep it going. This year though, I’ll open it up a bit to give a bit more insight into living in foreign lands; the joys of driving in Brussels, dealing with the commune, not being able to speak a word of the local lingo, the social side, the working way and all that kind of stuff. The entries will be shorter and more concise after a number of complaints about the long winded rants of 2009!

For now, I leave you with a thought for 2010, courtesy of a famous Offaly man;

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

Barack Obama