Michael Moynihan: Predicting the five phases of sporting lockdown

Having been through the mill last year, we know what to expect this time around

ALL IN VAIN: In spite of his best efforts, Dan Cristian of the Sydney Sixers drops a catch during the Big Bash League match against the Brisbane Heat at Metricon Stadium yesterday. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

We are now coming up on the first anniversary of the lockdown, believe it or not. What we thought of as unprecedented and unbelievable about 12 months ago turns out to be pretty much precedented, if still not quite believable.

What’s different this time around? A sense of inevitability, maybe. Last springtime we were thinking, or hoping, to have meaningful sport back pretty quickly.

Having been through the mill last year, though, I think we know what to expect this time around, and as a result I think we can anticipate the sports phases of the lockdown.

The Online Drills And Skills Clips Posted By Coaches And Players Gain Immediate Traction phase: This was an early development last year and presumably it’ll be the same now.

One of my main takeaways from last year’s experience had little enough to do with the breathtaking skills and elaborate Gaelic games training drills put up on social media, though.

Middle-aged bore that I am, I couldn’t help notice that a lot of these clips featured back gardens that seemed bigger than the gallops in Ballydoyle. Long life to those living there, but I think I’ll pass on any of these easy-to-follow drills that require half an acre for maximum effect.

A couple that showed drills to suit people living in apartments or shared accommodation wouldn’t be any harm, says you. Otherwise I’m out.

The Making Excuses For Michael Jordan phase: Remember last year when everyone was drumming their fingers on the table until the arrival of The Last Dance, the Netflix documentary series on Michael Jordan, which went on for 10 episodes?

I don’t know if there’s a large-scale sports series about to land at some point soon, one that will tide people over until live action returns. Even if there is, it’ll hardly have the impact that Jordan’s series had. I use the term ‘Jordan’s’ because once the adulation died away there were some piercing questions about the extent to which that series was controlled by its subject. Who, by the way, came across as a ‘tough hang’, to use a term an American acquaintance is fond of deploying. In fairness, 10 episodes provided plenty of distraction.

The Hunt For Sporting Anniversaries phase: Mea culpa. Last year was the 30th anniversary of Cork winning the double in hurling and football and I shook that tree until the trunk started groaning.

Calling up the participants for a trip down memory lane was no hardship for me, particularly when I have a long-held belief that the immensity of the achievement was not given its due (please - ed.). But when a pal asked with a smirk if I had moved on to the man driving the team bus I realised we had reached saturation point. That said, expect plenty of revisiting Dublin-Meath 30 years ago in the coming months, a series of games which we are legally obliged to refer to as a ‘saga’.

The Light At The End Of The (Sports) Tunnel phase: This should come later on in the lockdown, when people are beginning to grasp at straws altogether and any possibility of sport is grabbed and held tight, but the vaccine complicates matters now.

Expect a flood of opinions and arguments about whether all sport should return with partial vaccinations or whether everything should wait until the entire population gets the jab. It’s a natural consequence of one of last year’s sub-phases, which was the No Plans Can Be Made Until We Have A Vaccine (And When Will That Be?) phase.

The Crackle Of Rumour And Innuendo About Teams Breaking The Lockdown Rules phase:

Too soon? Or already too late?

Future is staring at us in the face

When we get back to normal — stop laughing, please — things will be different.

Thanks, says you, for stating the obvious, but how many of the differences will be changes enforced by the pandemic/lockdown that will simply stay in force?

Contactless payments, move over, facial recognition technology, which has been used in a limited way to combat hooligans and other criminals, now appears to be the next frontier when it comes to contactless payments.

I stumbled across an interview recently with Christian Lau, of Los Angeles FC in Major League Soccer, who suggested his side’s fans could use the Clear app to download a selfie and link their Clear accounts to their Ticketmaster profiles.

Cameras at the stadium could measure the fan’s temperature, a second camera confirming that the person is wearing a facemask.

The fan then shows his or her face to the camera in order to verify their identity, the Ticketmaster account kicks in and confirms the ticket’s bought, and the fan goes in.

“Our plan is to move everything to face,” Lau told the New York Post.

This is the future, kids. It’s almost here.

I’m with the snooper squad

My favourite development over the weekend was the Premier League’s warning to its clubs.

Along with the usual insistence to those clubs that they comply with Covid rules, there was a reference to giving new powers to its “snooper squads”.

Let’s be honest, everything is cooler when a squad is involved. A group or task force or team of investigators don’t come near the awesome power we associate with a squad. Even the feel of the syllables in your mouth is energising: the squad. Squad!

Granted, the effect is somewhat undercut by the ‘snooper’ part, which gives a bit of a suburban tinge to the enterprise, as though it was a neighbourhood watch group trying to enforce rubbish-bin alignment among the houses in its area. You can imagine someone with a clipboard telling Mrs O’Brien it’s purple for waste this week, so there’s no need for the brown compost bin to be out.

But ‘squad’ rescues the day. The quiet of a training ground somewhere in England is suddenly being shattered when a van screeches to a halt and purposeful men and women jump out, clad in blue windcheaters: “We’re the snooper squad, folks . . . line up to get swabbed.”

Beginners’ look

An element of luck is vital to any enterprise, or maybe timing is more accurate. Hence my admiration for Tom Vanderbilt’s latest book.

Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning is an account of Vanderbilt’s attempts to learn surfing and swimming, singing, drawing, and juggling, and because he’s one of the best in the business it’s on a par with one of his previous efforts (Traffic, which is one of my favourite books of all time).

Incidentally, his house sounds like a place a lot of readers might recognise: his wife, Jancee Dunn, wrote a book a few years back, How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids.

That volume has not reached my shelves.

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