Jennifer Horgan: I may as well be an alien when it comes to sport, but the emotions fascinate me
Cork hurling fan Michael John Murphy, who got the words 'Cork All Ireland Senior Hurling Champions 2025' on his arm ahead of the game against Tipperary on Sunday, said he would be keeping the tattoo. Picture: Larry Cummins
There are sport enthusiasts, millions of them, and then there’s me — the oddball, the outsider, the weirdo scanning a crowd of fans like a scientist peering onto a petri dish.
Sit me down in front of anything, from a showstopping Wimbledon final to a nail-biting Olympic sprint, and I will feel nothing. Come any kind of match day, I’m an intergalactic traveller.
Among you, with the general look of you, but from another planet entirely; for the hour or two that’s in it, I don’t even share your language.
I wish I were different, but it’s not all bad — sports fans make for a fascinating study.
Last Sunday was a perfect example. The joy-infused fog descended early. Here in Cork, the rebel colours were blaring days before. Some had taken annual leave on the Monday in the hope of celebration. Others were travelling straight from a foreign holiday to get to the grounds for throw-in. (I originally typed ‘kick-off’ here but got a little help from a friend.)
Plucky youths were heading up to Dublin just to feel the thrill of the pack, cradling the hope a ticket might float up into the air on an exhaust fume. The whole county was catapulted back to the dizzy heights of childhood. Useless the lot of us, either drunk on booze or on pure unadulterated delirium.
One Cork fella even got a tattoo celebrating Cork’s All-Ireland win days ahead of the game. I’ll come back to him.
Then minutes into the second half, everything went quiet — the pubs and houses, the car horns, the radios out the windows. The dewy morning, spent singing over packed sandwiches and flasks of tea, turned soggy.
When the crushing defeat fully landed, the camaraderie stopped. Cork fans diverged inside a metaphorical wood. Their team’s devastating collapse creating an explosion of different responses — and there I was, watching it all from my perch of cool indifference.
The feelings were intense. Science helps explain it to the likes of me. If fans are truly invested, a win floods their brains with dopamine. Sporting losses, particularly to superfans, can be devastating. It feels like a personal knock, a genuine loss, and can result in days, even weeks and months, of low mood and dissatisfaction.
It seems the higher your motivation and expectation, the higher your levels of disappointment. It makes sense, right? If you feel certain your team will win, as many Cork fans did last weekend, your disappointment is more severe.
Elsewhere there was only ‘Pure Cork’ disappointment.
The fella with the tattoo stayed in the stadium until after the whistle blew — he would never desert the players he said, adding he would also be keeping his tattoo.
He said: “These are amateur lads — they have to go back to work tomorrow, back to facing the public,” before showing he’s no fair-weather fan: “I hope they know the genuine supporters will still be behind them."
But for others the rage quickly turned to blame — and it was severe.
“They are a disgrace,” one friend reported hearing on the way out from the game. “They’ve brought shame on the county,” the man continued, hurrying off to make the train home before the whistle.
Knives were drawn against players for not responding appropriately to Tipperary’s change of play in the second half. Fingers were pointed at them for their poor decision-making, their inaction, their inability to get the job done — as if they just didn’t try hard enough.
Blame in this context tells a whole other story about a particular branch of us sport-loving earthlings.
Far more wisdom seemed to reside in the man we all viewed as bonkers for carving 'Cork All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champions 2025' into his forearm. Even in deep disappointment, the Mayfield man supported his beleaguered team, understanding the vagaries of sport. He felt the same intense feelings no doubt — but he didn’t let them curdle into something nasty.
He seemed to remember, even in despair, that the players are paid nothing for their Herculean efforts and couldn’t feel apathy for the game or their supporters — EVER.
He’s right — even I can see that. Why on earth, or on Planet Sport, would young men leave the warmth of their homes and the comfort of their families day-in day-out, only to orchestrate their own failure?
And yet the blame levelled at them from some Cork fans online was at full tilt. Days later, in some quarters, it’s still not abating.
Anger is a feeling — a very natural and normal feeling — as is disappointment. Cork fans have been waiting for 20 years to hold the MacCarthy Cup (Google-checked) again, so it is natural to feel these things intensely.
We’re like England waiting for the World Cup to come home. Nobody would dare deny the team failed to perform in the second half. The reasons why, we will never know. It’s for the players and management to consider.
Sustaining a feeling of blame, however, is something we need to work against. It speaks to a deeper kind of social discontent and a faulty kind of wiring. Namely — if something goes wrong in sport, or in life — somebody must be blamed.
Not so — sometimes things just happen. Sometimes, the chaos doesn’t bend our way.
The heat of the moment explains a lot and I get that. Sport is deeply personal to a lot of people. But we should still strive for healthy responses to sport — at every level.
We should also commend the supporters who did not descend into blame. The man with the tattoo in particular — his ability to sustain such blind faith and devotion before and after the match.
Earlier this week the decision was made that there would be no homecoming for the team either. Some fans felt disappointed, saying they would have turned up no matter what. Others felt the decision set a bad example to children who need to understand that sport is about losing too. Some used it as fuel to add to the fire.
Online, players were described as “Gutless” and as, “Cowards”, One supporter posting on Facebook said: “Cork ye lost suck it up and move on. Ye are disappointing a lot of little kiddies all because yer sulking over losing.”
The best of us is most of us. Plenty of people are countering the nastiness of some online and offline. Plenty have shared concern for the players and a continued faith in Cork hurling.
The blame culture is there, however, despite hurling being an amateur sport powered by good will, resilience, pride and tradition.
I’ll give the last word on the topic to my father this week, a man with 70 years of sporting losses and triumphs behind him, who picked up his love of hurling from his grandfather in Bantry in the 1950s.
I explained to him that fans online and in the media had taken to blaming the team.
He fixed his eye on me to say one thing:
“Well clearly they know nothing about the ups and downs of hurling.”
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