Please excuse this excuse for a column
As the quick-witted among you might have deduced, this column was written before last night’s Ireland-Faroes game which is why I’ve broken new ground in journalism this morning by offering you a handy multiple-choice intro. Simply select the one which best suits the nation’s mood and dilute to taste.
That’s my excuse, at any rate, and at least I’m getting it in first — unlike all those football folk who are only ever wise after the event, the event in question usually being something deeply unpleasant from the whinger’s perspective, like an open goal missed, a hiding suffered or — an especial favourite — a refereeing decision which went the other shower’s way and totally changed the course of the match, Brian.
The undisputed master of the blame game was Alex Ferguson, whose litany of excuses when United failed to deliver ranged from grey shirts and bumpy pitches to refs lacking fitness, refs lacking experience, refs playing too long, refs playing too little and, of course, the manifest superiority of the opposition (spot the deliberate mistake there).
Once, when Ronaldo got his marching orders for handball, Fergie even essayed his own version of the multiple-choice excuse: “He tried to stop the ball from hitting his face… He thought he had heard a whistle… He got a little push… The crowd played a part and he got sent off.”
Oh, well, at least he didn’t claim not to have seen the incident (hello Arsene).
Other splendid football excuses include the explanation that Mario Balotelli was struggling because of “an allergy to grass”; goalkeeper David James attributing one of his calamitous clangers to lack of sleep because of an addiction to Playstation; Italian striker Francesco Totti blaming new boots that made him feel like he was “walking on boiling sand”; and Ukraine responding to a 4-0 walloping by Spain in 2004 by pointing the finger at frogs whose croaking had kept the players awake all night. No, really. Defender Vladislav Vashchuk protested: “Because of the frogs’ croaking we hardly got a wink of sleep. We all agreed that we would take some sticks and go and hunt them.”
Now why didn’t Trap think of that at the Euros?
What prompts this week’s (excuse for a) column, was an obituary for Cork footballer Johnny Vaughan who, sadly, passed away early last month. The tribute, published in the official FAI match programme for last weekend’s game against Georgia, noted that Vaughan — who played his early football for the same Western Rovers team as future Manchester United legend Frank O’Farrell — went on to become “an outstanding footballer with a very good Cork Athletic side in the 1950s”, helping them claim the double in 1951 and featuring in all of the club’s nine cup finals in four years (including five replays).
The passage which really caught my eye, however, carried details of the “bizarre episode” which, it was claimed, ended Cork’s chances of winning the FAI Cup for a second time in succession in 1952. The final having ended in a draw with underdogs Dundalk on a Sunday, a replay was fixed for the following Wednesday. But, before that, a Cork director, Jimmy Lynch, was up in court on a charge of attempted murder, and some club officials and players were called to give evidence.
The programme quoted Johnny Vaughan’s recollection of the sequence of events: “I was involved as a witness. I had been offered a job by Jimmy Lynch on the night of the incident. He had a few drinks with us at home and then went on to see his girlfriend. After a disagreement he apparently tried to strangle her and left her for dead. I was in court both days before the replay. The case was definitely a contributory factor in our defeat.”
Indeed.
A little more research revealed Vaughan’s quotes originally appeared in Sean Ryan’s excellent Official Book of the FAI Cup, as part of a longer piece about that 1952 final, which appears beneath the headline ‘Law — and Booze — Beat Cork’.
Yes, the gargle was in the mix too.
Sean writes that, even without the complication of the court case, Cork’s preparations for the replay – which they lost 3-0 — were chaotic. “The team stayed in Dublin overnight, returned home on Monday, ‘cured’ themselves on Tuesday and, according to Frank Johnstone in the Irish Times, ‘Cork, even in the pre-match kick-about, displayed none of Dundalk’s sprightliness’. In the words of Cork wing-half Johnny Moloney: ‘The replay was a farce — our fellows were still too drunk after Sunday’.”
And, as excuses go, that’s one that sounds like it has the considerable virtue of truth. Would that we could all learn from it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have to call a halt — the dog has just eaten my laptop.
