Michael Moynihan: Retirements everywhere you look
Mayo's Chris Barrett is one of five players from the county to retire in the last few weeks. But the green and red aren't the only team hit by players opting out of the 2021 season. Picture: INPHO/Tommy Dickson
It seems you canât go out for milk these days without being waylaid by retirement. Everywhere you turn. Everywhere you look. Mayo players. Dublin players. Wayne Rooney. Cork players. Journeys and commitment, honours and privileges.
Last week we even had a retired playerâs number retired in professional ice hockey - Willie OâRee of the Boston Bruins - while Alex Ferguson, long retired as Manchester United manager, said he was glad heâd retired because Liverpool were so good: not just retired, then, but happy to outline just how happy he was to be retired.
Retirement. Now having a moment, if it werenât for the fact that retirement itself is a term due for retirement. Most player organisations prefer to dwell on the transitional angle, and with good reason. There can be a negativity associated with even the terminology used about retirement: ending, over, finished, stopped, halted. For players whose identities are bound up with their particular sport, the abrupt conclusion signalled by those terms can be unhelpful at the very least.
A whole other shadow economy has sprung up alongside the sports-retirement-industrial complex as well, however.
Take the retirement statement, a literary form deserving several columns unto itself, but which seems to be a triggering issue for some.
I referred above to Mayo players, several of whom retired in the last week or two. By doing so they seem to have annoyed a few people for . . . what? Iâm not sure.
Men who wore the green above the red are surely entitled to inform the people who followed them around the country, in particular, of their plans. Why they should be targeted for particular venom from one or two quarters is a question, alas, we may never be able to answer.
A pal of mine raised a pertinent question about the spate of recent GAA retirements: how many are fuelled by uncertainty about the shape of the 2021 GAA season?
(Before proceeding any further with this train of thought I acknowledge of course that there are far more pressing consequences of the pandemic, just in case the - even more - easily triggered take umbrage.)
This pal wondered if players coming towards the end of their time at inter-county level would be looking to taper their physical preparation for the season coming, but if they donât know if that season is coming in the first half or the second half of the year, it becomes all the more difficult: hence, he said, the retirements. Plausible enough.
Either way, the GAA retirement statements keep coming - Ger Aylward of Kilkenny called it a day almost as I wrote these words - but there is another way.
For instance, a couple of commentators have pointed out that Wayne Rooneyâs decision to step back from his playing career wasnât even the top news in a Derby County press statement about him becoming the clubâs manager.
This seems oddly low-key if you remember Rooneyâs early-career publishing deal for no fewer than five autobiographies. On that score alone the restraint of the Derby statement is to be applauded.
Space doesnât allow me to dwell on the other great ceremonial procedure of the sports retirement, the official departure from the team WhatsApp group, but I can share some good news that didnât make the cut for a lengthy Michael Darragh MacAuley in these pages last Saturday.
Asked about the prospect of leaving the Dublin teamâs WhatsApp group when he retires, MacAuley responded breezily: heâd simply move over to the ârejectsâ WhatsApp group set up by the other retired players.
See? The experts are right. Retirement isnât an end, itâs just a transition.
My interactions with Ăamonn Ryan, who passed away last Thursday, were pretty limited.
When he was a Cork senior football selector a couple of years back - almost four decades after first managing the Cork footballers - I called him one afternoon for a quick preview of an upcoming league game.
âNo problem,â he said. âI better check in with the lads to make sure Iâm not breaking ranks, just in case.â He did and duly got back to me. It was a telling intersection of personal modesty with his willingness to help someone out: many managers with one-quarter of the achievements on his CV would have been quick to put themselves front and centre in any narrative. Not Ăamonn Ryan.
Condolences to Pat, Jim, Deirdre, Michelle, Don, Des and Jackie.
The same day last week Jack Walsh of Carrigtwohill GAA passed away. In his time he did a lot of the unglamorous work thatâs necessary for any club to flourish, including co-ordinating Carrigâs participation in the Cork clubs draw.
We had a lengthy chat about Cork County Board issues at the launch of Donncha OâCallaghanâs autobiography - a venue that only seems unlikely until you learn that Jackâs son Denis, of the Sunday Times, authored the book.
Condolences to Breda, Denis, Niall and Liz on their loss.
The orange years seem to be at an end in the States, with a new occupant about to move into the White House this week.
Joe Bidenâs possession of a functioning brain puts him some distance ahead of his predecessor already, but I raise questions about his fitness for office based on his weaponising the Galway-Mayo rivalry recently. I understand âtensions are highâ in the area.
As usual.
News of Biden reminds me of the sports opportunities open to the President of the US. You may be aware that heâll have a billiard room and a private bowling alley at his disposal, but Iâd forgotten that heâll also be able to use the full-size basketball court that one of his predecessors had built - Barack Obama.
There was a jogging track that Bill Clinton installed, and which George W. Bush also used, but that seems to have been removed. Same for the swimming pool which was originally built within the White House for the use of Franklin Roosevelt when he was President: it was subsequently covered over and the roomâs now used for press briefings.
However, the putting green has survived. Eisenhower, who was synonymous with the game, had a putting green built on the White House lawn, though he was tormented by squirrels burying nuts there.
It probably tells you everything about Bidenâs predecessor in the office that he had a room-sized golf simulator installed in the White House. You couldnât make it up.
I was chatting to someone recently about biographies - not just sports biographies, but biographies of all stripes.
(Robert Caro still towers over all and sundry, by the way. See a recent piece about his archive by the great Dan Barry of the New York Times.) For a literary biography I still hold up DJ Taylorâs Orwell as a gripping, imaginative read - his Orwell: The Life will be followed up by a new biography of the Animal Farm author in 2023.
However, for sheer . . . punch it might be necessary to try Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith by Richard Bradford. Highsmith wrote Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, but going by the reviews of Bradfordâs book she appears to have been an, ah, challenging character.
