Overnight Hero

Liam Kelly arrived down to Luxembourg with car full of lads sound asleep, oblivious to the fact they were in a soon to be legend’s company. By 17h that day, after he had punched his fists in the air after his final point of the tournament, his status was secured. When he finally opened the door of 1898 that night, the crowds thronged to him like hungry autograph hunters. Not bad for a man who at 37 probably thought he was in the twilight of his career.

The Clareman stands at six foot sixish and could easily be mistaken as a style icon with his white tennis socks and tight pink shorts. As tight as the shorts are on him though, Crusher correctly points out that they’d be pants on the rest of us! He paid his membership on Monday and pleaded with me to replace them with the standard kit. Normally I’m quite strict on having the right gear but in this case I don’t want to be responsible for watering down an icon’s status.

As often happens, Liam and Belgium G.A.A. merged their paths over a few pints. He overheard the Irish accents in the Hairy one night and wasn’t slow in trying to get in on the craic. He followed Crusher, Colin, Jane & Co over to The Fauberg (spelling?!) and the rest as they say, is history.

We had seen him in bursts in the last couple of months and were aware he could be a handful from his training cameos. He lined out with the C team in Leuven and threw his weight around to good effect. It was against Crokes two weeks ago that he showed his true worth though and it was a must to get him signed up for Luxembourg.

There was an amusing exchange (although it only became amusing later) between myself and Hudson early in the game against the B’s. Eoin had instructed Colin to lie deep for and sweep up ball before launching it down on top of the big man. That made Burkee the free man and I decided to employ him as a sweeper in front of Liam, thinking our forwards would cover enough ground to pressure Colin Byrne’s distribution. It was the only game in which Liam was kept scoreless.

Hudson was the man marking Liam and when I instructed Burkee to lie deep, Ciaran turned around and as only he can do, very matter of factly told me that he disagreed. It’s not worth roaring at him because it would barely ruffle a feather on him so I didn’t react. Later he quite honestly told me it was because he didn’t fancy trying to combat the awkward customer that Liam would prove later in the day.
When we all arrived back to Brussels on Saturday night we headed for Caragh’s 3oth.

All anyone seemed to want to know was if Liam was coming out. When the door’s swung open, fellas nudged and pointed as if they were about to be greeted by a superstar. He lapped up the attention for the night and reports suggest he was at the heart of the sing song long after the sun had come up outside.
A hero has been born.