The Importance of Sport
For me sport is one of the most important things in life. I used to apologise to certain people for that, but not anymore. When I was knee high to a grasshopper I chose Arsenal as my team. Bohemians and Dublin came a little later. It helped that sport was embedded in family life. My brother was already an Arsenal fan before me, my other brother Stephen leaned towards Manchester United, Dad was Aston Villa and Kerry and mum loved rugby. Sporting events were enjoyed in front of the TV together. It wasn’t like today with every one scattered to the four corners of the house. My earliest memories include the Dublin versus Galway 1974 All- Ireland Final when Kevin Heffernan and his army on Hill 16 came from nowhere to win Sam. I also recall Willie John McBride crashing over the French line late in the day at Lansdowne Road to guarantee an Irish victory over France. Another special day in 1974 was when the Republic of Ireland beat the USSR 3-0 thanks to a Don Givens hat-trick in a European Championship qualifier at Dalymount Park.
My first FA Cup Final was Sunderland 1 Leeds 0. I didn’t actually see the 1973 final, but remember my grandad’s excitement as he described Jim Montgomery’s save to my father and I when we arrived at his house in Ringsend. Next year I wasn’t going to miss it. Liverpool 3 Newcastle 0. The commentator David Coleman’s words “goals pay the rent, and Keegan does his share” inscribed across my mind forever. West Ham best Fulham in 1975, followed in 1976 by a late Bobby Stokes goal for Southampton to slay a vibrant young Manchester United side reborn under Tommy Doherty.
My love affair with Arsenal began in 1974, apparently the year of my sporting awakening judging by all the references to it already. It helped that my brother John pointed me in the right direction, so when I went into Dublin to get my first kit it was the famous red and white of Arsenal I chose. The club was struggling at the time and I remember listening to a crucial relegation battle against Sheffield United at Highbury on BBC Radio 2 which Arsenal won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Liam Brady. Brady was one of three Dubliners finding their way in a young Arsenal team, along with Frank Stapleton and David O’Leary. I was awe struck when I went to see them in Arnotts Department Store in Dublin when they did a meet and greet. My dream was to see Arsenal getting to Wembley and playing in Europe. But a degree of patience was required. Successive FA Cup hammerings by Wolves and Middlesborough didn’t bode well. Arsenal had fallen into decline after winning the Double in 1971 and almost repeating the feat in 1972 were tentatively finding their way again under new manager Terry Neill and legendary coach Don Howe, following the departure of double winning boss Bertie Mee.
Even back then I knew what sport was teaching me. Most important, it made me realise I wasn’t stupid. Whereas the academic side of school life baffled me, I could remember the football results after hearing them once on a Saturday evening. I didn’t have to spend hours learning them off by heart. I could even remember the scorers. I also learned the geography of England and Europe via football. Sport also taught me about emotions. It’s power to either make me ecstatically happy was immediate, but its ability to bring me to the depths of despair was equally potent. This could all happen in a matter of minutes, proved by a classic ending to the 1979 FA Cup Final. Football taught me how to grieve. I cried my eyes out when Arsenal lost to Ipswich in the 1978 FA Cup Final, my first Arsenal appearance at Wembley (in front of the TV of course). David Coleman’s classic trademark “One-nil!” like a knife through my heart when Ipswich finally scored the late goal they deserved. My world was shattered and when my brother tried to cheer me up by saying we’d win it next year, I was beyond dreaming.
I remember my father peeping his head around my bedroom door late at the night to see if I was awake, and if I was he’d deliver a nugget of news. Elvis is dead. Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier. There was something magical about moments in time back then. It allowed us to build a bond that wouldn’t have been there without sport’s soft caress. News moved at a slow pace back then. I also recall having to wait to find out an Arsenal score until we bought the newspaper the following day. A 3-1 defeat away at Norwich in an evening kick-off. Unthinkable now. Perhaps the worst night was the one when I waited for the end of the BBC 9 O’clock News to find out if Arsenal had won at Middlesborough to qualify for Europe after the disappointment of losing two cup finals earlier in the week in 1980. When the news reader finally read out the score, “Middlesborough 5 Arsenal 0” it was like an shockwave going off in my heart. The final culminating indignity of a terrible week.
Sport is really important in working class areas and disadvantages areas. Sports offers a way out for those good enough to make a living playing it, but for others it is a mental break from the monotony of daily struggle. Sport brings with it hope. It gives men in particular something ot talk about, to bond over. It allows them to express their feelings in a different way. It allows for expression. I know the feeling of being shut down by others, who choose to see sport as an inconvenient avoidance of more important matters. For me, sport had allowed me to step back from the murder and mayhem happening a few miles up the road in the North and to see beyond. Sport allowed some light in a time of terrible darkness.
We had heroes in our house. Men and women who were taller than giants. Lots of them. Georgie Best. Alex Higgins. Pele. Muhammad Ali. Bjorn Borg. Olga Korbut. Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Eamonn Coghlan and Chris Evert. The writer Con Houlihan who could tell a whole story in a simple sentence. His description of Mikey Sheehy’s chipped free floating over a frantically retreating Paddy Cullen in the 1978 All-Ireland Final was just one of many fine moments he committed to print. He compared Paddy to a woman talking to a neighbour at the front gate, only to sprint back into the house when she realised the bread in the oven was burning. Like Paddy she was too late. Paddy was a local hero who lived up the road from where I went to school. Another one was Jackie Jameson, a gifted Bohemian. I’d make the trip across the capital to Dalymount Park in Phibsborough on a cold winter’s Sunday afternoon just to see him play. He really was worth the entry fee alone.
As well as heroes, we had lots of great memories too. Gerry Daly’s penalty against England to claim a 1-1 draw in a friendly at Wembley that was our World Cup Final at the time. Watching Panenka’s penalty to defeat West Germany in the 1976 European Championship Final on my Uncle Bob’s house beside Lansdowne. Johann Cryuff’s turn against Brazil. The Rumble in the Jungle. The 1982 Brazil team. The Borg McEnroe tie-breaker. Dublin versus Kerry in ‘77. The cardboard hats covered in crepe paper with ‘Up the Dubs’ stamped on them, the dye running down the supporters faces whenever it rained. Liam Brady dancing through the French defence to score an early winner at Lansdowne. Barry McGuigan climbing up onto the top of the world at Loftus Road. Sporting heaven. Moments captured, when time stood still. That was Con’s job.
I enjoyed the post mortems almost as much as the event itself. The empty arenas ghostly and quiet after great deeds had been done. Bill, Johnny, Eamonn, and Liam doing their thing. Hook and Pope stirring it, and each other, up. Sports Stadium overloading on Mondello. Match of the Day. The Big Match. Jim Carney. Mick Dunne. Brendan O’Reilly. Jimmy McGee. Philip Greene, Jimmy Hill, Brian Moore, Frank Bough, Des Lynam, Peter Jones, and Fred Cogley. Great sports presenters who set the scene and guided us gently through the good times and the bad. Italia ‘90 when Ireland went bat crazy and Saipan when we divided as a nation once again along Civil War lines.
For those who love sport it is our oxygen, our way of making sense of this crazy world. It’s an escape from all the other shit. Not that we will forget, but for a little while we actually do. Precious time that allows us to build the energy to go back to the everyday with a spring in our step, or dragging our heals depending on the outcome. It allows us to be happy or sad about something else. That in itself is the attraction. Sport is very much a reflection of ourselves, as an individual and a collective. Sport is real. The results speak for themselves. Unlike politics there is no hiding place. Unlike politics people have to step up and ship out if they get it wrong. Good people usually do well. Good and great teams are led by great people. People like Jim Gavin. Arsene Wenger. Jack Charlton. George Graham. Kevin Heffernan, Mikel Arteta, and Andy Farrell, come to mind.
Sport is also about contrast. Dublin versus Kerry. Wenger against Ferguson. Celtic Rangers. Alex Higgins Steve Davis. Arsenal Spurs. Duran and Sugar Ray. Sport is also about redemption. Another favourite memory is sitting up with my mother during 1982 watching Alex Higgins’s march to the World Snooker Championship. It didn’t matter to us that he pissed in flower pots. We loved him for his brilliance, his vulnerability, his elegance, and most of all his edginess. A brilliant light that was filled with dark. Soon after he came back from 7-0 down to beat Davis in the UK Final. Davis was school. Higgins was the wild side. He opened us to possibility, to fucking up, and a sense of freedom that he never really had in his not so private life. But for all his demons the table was were he flowed. Sport allowed him a sense of peace he would never have found otherwise.
Some people will say sport doesn’t matter, but it does. It might not matter to them, and that’s okay, but for many of us it matters lots. Sport allows us to hope. There’s always another match, another day, no matter how bad things get. Sport allows us to keep believing. To me it will always matter more than the people who fill the world with fear and hate because sport is essentially about love.
And we all know that love is bigger than anything in its way when and if it’s given a chance.
