Larry Ryan's biggest winners and losers of 2020

Including save of the year, film of the year, worst special effects, and greatest national shame

SLIDING DOORS: Ireland’s Conor Hourihane reacts after his costly miss against Slovakia in the Euro 2020 qualifying play-off semi-final. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

GOAL OF THE YEAR

Richie Hogan: Traditionally, the garrison game and its exponents get short shrift during the big championship clashes, but Richie’s magic moment revealed nearly every Hurling Man’s latent appreciation of Dennis Bergkamp.

SAVE OF THE YEAR

Connell Waldron had his shot saved

Presumably, Paul Mescal will get some class of All-Star for services to selling togs. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that Lenny Abrahamson eventually had to persuade unheralded keeper Adam O’Connor to let in Mescal’s winner in the Sligo schools final after a couple of worldie saves in the Normal People rough cuts.

SLIDING DOORS MOMENT

That Conor Hourihane chance in Bratislava that might have headed off our great culture war about style before it ever got properly started.

RUNNER-UP

Lenny Abrahamson’s late decision to make Connell Waldron a gah player and deny domestic soccer its hour of glory before the eyes of the world.

BEST FILM

Thirty years after the Irish film censor finally lifted the ban on Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, along came another controversial movie everyone wants to see but can’t: Stephen Kenny’s mystery patriotic propaganda short.

WORST SPECIAL EFFECTS

Of all the annoyances subjected on us by fake crowds this year, was there really any need for RTÉ to inflict a rousing virtual chorus of ‘Send her victorious’ as England knocked it around when 3-0 up at Wembley?

GREATEST NATIONAL SHAME

Ryan Tubridy securing an audience with Arsene Wenger — and asking him about the Thierry Henry handball.

BEST CREATIVE WRITING

Our WhatsApp fakers have been the breakout stars of 2020 but special recognition must go to the twisted genius who created the character ‘Bossman Steo’ and convinced half the country that the FAI just forgot to write Aaron Connolly and Adam Idah on the Euro playoff teamsheet.

MOST PAINFUL DIVORCE

Many great romances dissolve into bitter acrimony — and so it is with Liverpool fans finally falling out of love with VAR.

BEST USE OF COVID STONES

In gaining 40 pounds during lockdown and powering to the US Open, Bryson DeChambeau gave new meaning to the Savage Hunger.

BIGGEST CYNIC

There’s no depths a wily seamer won’t sink to in search of extra swing. Sussex’s Aussie cricketer Mitch Claydon was first to be caught and banned for realising the obvious potential of hand sanitiser in the dark art of ball-tampering.

WORST GAFFE

BBC News showing footage of LeBron James during a report on the death of Kobe Bryant.

RUNNER-UP

The Michigan college football coach who said he’d like to have dinner with Hitler due to his “leadership skills”.

“I mishandled the answer, and fell way short of the mark,” said soon-to-be former defence coordinator Morris Berger.

IN BRONZE

South Korea’s FC Seoul who were fined for filling empty seats in the stands with “premium adult mannequins”, due to “a mix-up with the supplier”.

SERVICES TO PR

HOWZAT: Kevin O’Brien’s battered car window, broken by his own brilliant six.

Ireland hero Kevin O’Brien went over and above to secure extra column inches for cricket’s ‘InterProvincial Series’ by blasting a six out of Pembroke and through the back window of his own parked car.

BEST POET

Yung Shakur: ‘Should be in Croydon with the fam. But I loves me county like John Mullane.’

RUNNER-UP

These goys: ‘I wanna be a Bective Ranger. Living a life of sex and danger.’

BEST ADMINISTRATOR

The ‘Director of Football’ of the UK five-a-side team who published a 14-page ‘club handbook’ detailing a litany of rules, regulations, and punishments, including suspensions of up to 32 weeks for ‘failing to reply to a WhatsApp message on the day it is sent’. Zero tolerance is the only way forward in this arena.

BEST EXCUSE

“It weighed 40 pounds with the helmet and all the batteries.” Deontay Wilder experienced the reverse of the Bryson effect, blaming his ‘too heavy’ ring-walk costume for heavyweight defeat by Tyson Fury.

TMI AWARD

Why Michael Van Gerwen was an injury doubt for the Ally Pally: “I was with my missus in the shower — because we always shower together. I was sitting in the shower. I started having a cough and pulled my back. That’s how it happened.’’

POSTER BOY FOR NEW NORMALS

We are a resilient, adaptable people and Scotland’s Euro playoff hero David Marshall has given us hope for some kind of life after VAR and spontaneity upon saving that penalty against Serbia — somehow bottle your glee, check with the officials and their machinery, and then unleash your delirious celebration.

BEST WORST SPORT

The remarkable deciding frame in the Crucible semi-final when Kyren Wilson and Anthony McGill completely forgot everything they knew about snooker.

BEST ENTREPRENEUR

The Dean Rock Freetaking Project. You can never knock a man ready to put a price on his craft.

CRINGIEST MOMENT

That early scene in Amazon’s All or Nothing, Tottenham Hotspur. where Jose generously vows to use his “international dimension” to make Harry Kane “one of the movie stars of the game”.

WORST RULE

The forward mark. Sanctioned flow interruption.

BIGGEST PRIZE

Other minor awards may have gone to their close rivals, but Manchester United managing director Richard Arnold claimed the big one at a quarterly investors call, noting Odion Ighalo was the top worldwide trend on deadline day, holding off ‘Brexit’ and ‘impeachment’.

HARSHEST SACKING

At least Joe Brolly had Clare councillor Gerry Flynn going to bat for him, demanding the Communications Minister reinstate Joe at RTÉ. Where were Gerry’s Westminster counterparts when Tiss, Thommo, and Charlie got the axe, critically destabilising Soccer Saturday?

BEST SIGN OF THE TIMES

Gary Anderson had Wifi problems

“Gary Anderson has withdrawn from the PDC Home Tour because his wifi connection is not strong enough.”

BEST CROSSOVER STAR

Cáit Devane — making a case for a potential compromise rules series featuring camogie and circus juggling.

BEST INTERNATIONAL LEADER

There was a month or so where the world lunged and bunny-hopped in front of YouTube, and global PE supervision was outsourced to Joe Wicks.

WORST BANTZ

“Your father works for my father.” There were reports of a back-to-basics approach to abuse chanting at Leinster Senior Cup schools matches, as denounced by former IRFU referee Owen Doyle.

SWEETEST TEARS

It was the year Tipp people got in touch with their emotions, the dam burst by sobbing Sam Bennett after his first Tour de France stage win. Nicky English wrapped things up after the footballers’ triumph on Bloody Sunday: “The first time I’ve cried after a match.”

BEST MISSION STATEMENT

The romance of big-time football was perfectly captured in one scene in the magnificent HBO series Succession, where a meeting with an Azerbaijani moneyman convinces media mogul Roman Roy to buy Hearts: “Buy the club. Agent in Spain loans us nine shit-hot players. Climb the ladder. Take the second Champions League space. Wait for the European Super League. Flip it. Walk away.”

BIGGEST VOID

Can rugby survive the retirement of its biggest name, Nigel Owens?

BIGGEST TULIP

When ‘Djoko’ wasn’t smacking the ball at linespeople, he was anti-vaxxing or causing Covid clusters.

GREATEST BETRAYAL

Jonathan Sexton rocked rugby values to their very core by shaking his head when substituted.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Marcus Rashford: Spearheading an unlikely title challenge while battling to harness the compassion of his people in the face of a government unmoved by child hunger.

STAYER OF THE YEAR

Former Limerick hero Donie Ryan, still trucking for Garryspillane at 44, and via his brother TJ on Dalo’s podcast, provider of the line of the year after a recent free-scoring display brought vindication from local critics: “Donie Ryan… too auld, too shlow, 2-4.”