Enda McEvoy: A collection of lines that never grow old
Should someone from Reeling in the Years be reading, they might slip in the Loughnane bit before the next repeat of the 1995 episode. Just for our columnist
A collection of lines that never grow old RTÉ’s umpteenth screening recently of the 1995 episode of Reeling in the Years, a programme that never grows old, prompted the usual tut in our house.
Clare’s MacCarthy Cup triumph was duly covered but the exchange that occurred just before the start of the second half between their manager and RTÉ’s man on the sideline still — naturally — didn’t make the cut. You’ll probably remember the one.
“Are you going to win?”
“WE’RE GOING TO WIN.”
Spoken in 72-point capitals, bold, italics, the works.
Memorable sporting lines from the TV? Most of them will, understandably, be clips from commentaries.
What follows here are patently the choices of a viewer of uncertain age.
Younger readers will have their own favourites — or they may not, a topic we’ll get back to later. Anyway.
“The man they call the Monster!” Jimmy Magee on Horst Hrubesch as he scored the decisive penalty for West Germany against France in the 1982 World Cup semi-final shootout in Seville. Witty, alliterative and demonstrative of someone who’d done his research. As Jimmy invariably had.
“Different class… DIFFERENT CLASS!” Magee again, describing Maradona’s second goal against England in 1986. Note the brevity and restraint. Magee knows that we saw what he saw. He knows that what we saw and he saw was bewitching. He knows that we don’t need to be told this. When deployed by the best commentators, sometimes less can be far more effective than more.
“This is the best we’ve seen for a long time.” Peter O’Sullevan as Arkle runs away from Mill House in the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup. A lapidary line that continues to resound down the decades.
“And the mare’s beginning to get up!” O'Sullivan on Dawn Run’s Gold Cup. Similarly evocative.
“Jimmy Barry-Murphy the scorer of the goal that can win an All-Ireland!” The softest and simultaneously the most important goal JBM ever authored. Such was the man’s genius, even his scuttery efforts came covered in gold leaf. And Michael O’Hehir was correct: The goal won the 1978 All-Ireland and sealed Cork’s three in a row.
“Oh, a goal in the greatest freak of all time!” Same venue, same year, same month, same commentator. Mikey Sheehy has just made poor Paddy Cullen look particularly foolish.
“A goal! A goal! A goal for Offaly! There was a goal in it!” O’Hehir on Seamus Darby’s big moment.
“There’s a right pile-up!” O’Hehir on Foinavon’s Grand National and the carnage that transpired at the fence after Bechers. The great man witnessed many a schemozzle in many a square on the playing fields of Ireland. This was the first and only time he witnessed a schemozzle on a racecourse.
“It’s up for grabs now!” Brian Moore as Michael Thomas strides through the Liverpool defence to clinch the 1989 First Division title in the most dramatic way imaginable.
“Lee… Interesting. Very interesting. Oh! Look at his face! Just look at his face!” Barry Davies, who incidentally does almost as fine a job as Magee on Maradona versus England (“you have to say that’s magnificent”), this time on Francis Lee.
The bottom line from all of the above, inasmuch as one can be extrapolated?
Something to the effect that the most memorable lines are generated by commentators who are understated, succinct, even slightly tangential.
They know it’s not about them and they don’t insult us by telling us what we’re seeing, still less try to beat us over the head with their pointless interpretation of the bleedin’ obvious.
You’ll have noted that none of the lines that still vibrate in your correspondent’s ear date from this century. “Agueeeeeerrrrrooooooo!!!” doesn’t really cut it, not to one brought up on a diet of O’Hehir and O’Sullevan and Motty and the mellowest Scotch of Bill McLaren.
Do younger readers have their own favourites or are they all that bothered about televised sport?
Is it that the older commentators were simply better or am I guilty of fetishising them? You decide. I can’t.
In any case, should someone from Reeling in the Years be reading, they might slip in the Loughnane bit before the next repeat of the 1995 episode. Just for me. Grand. Thanks.
In these strange and disturbing times, the Condolences section of RIP.ie makes for poignant reading.
A sawn-off shotgun of a full-forward who won All Irelands with Kilkenny in 1957 and ’63, Billy Dwyer passed to his eternal reward last week. Due tributes were paid on RIP.ie.
One of them arrived straight out of left field.
“Growing up as a young chap in Sligo, I loved Kilkenny in the late fifties and sixties, where Billy stood out for me as a great forward. I still think of him as if it was only yesterday. May he rest in peace. Henry Wymbs, Oxford and the BBC.”
Obviously this warranted investigation. Wikipedia reveals that Henry grew up on a farm in Sligo, moved to England in the late 1960s, worked for the Thames Valley Police and since retiring “has been championing Irish music in the UK, first appearing on BBC Radio Oxford in 1996”.
Better still, Henry has also “published a book on hurling”.
More news as we get it.
For human beings it’s straightforward. In case of emergency, break glass.
For sports editors and sportwriters it’s equally uncomplicated. In case of space to fill, concoct a list.
People love lists. They fulfil the human need to quantify and classify and clarify. They constitute harmless fun designed with only one objective in mind. Well, two objectives. Filling space and starting rows.
The Athletic came up with one such corker the other day. What is the biggest club in English football?
To help answer their own question they devised a complicated formula that included categories such as Crowds, Global Fanbase, Major Trophies, Trophies Won in Last 20 Years, Commercial Revenues and so on. It’s the kind of thing you’d have dreamed up yourself. When you were about nine.
There were no surprises about the clubs in first and second.
Manchester United and Liverpool. Couldn’t have been anyone else.
After that it got trickier. Chelsea in third, one place above Arsenal? Really? Marble halls and a century of stateliness undone by 15 years of pump-priming by some Russian?
Manchester City in fifth, one place above Spurs? Granted, I may be ever so slightly compromised on this one but a decade of oil-sponsored success does not equate to Himalayan achievement.
Newcastle in seventh, above Everton? Surely not.
Leicester City eleventh, above Leeds United, Sunderland and West Ham, in part because they apparently possess a bigger global fanbase? Ah here.
Here’s one category The Athletic missed out on. It may sound nebulous but it’s very real. Aura.
Aura. Some clubs have it, other don’t and shouldn’t be expected to. For a slew of obvious reasons Leeds have it.
For a slew of similarly obvious reasons Leicester don’t.
Compliments to the guys at The Athletic nonetheless. They got me arguing. Job done.
Move over, Manuela Spinelli. Ireland has a new favourite Italian in Filippo Giovagnoli, a wet week in Dundalk and now a hero.
Is he good? Is he lucky? If the latter, how long will the luck last? Is making heavy weather of beating a team from the Faroe Islands all that much of an achievement?
Valid questions, all of them, but not to be agonised over for a while more.
