Fame – without the fortune
While we share the sports pages with Premier League and Heineken Cup stars, GAA players exist in a starkly contrasting reality. Glamour and the GAA are not comfortable bed-fellows, so when we find ourselves spoken about in celebrity terms, it can be a bit, well, cringeworthy.
George Clooney is a ‘celebrity’; we aren’t. Finance is the obvious partition. GAA players are more hatchback than coupe, more Next than Armani, more Casio than Tag Heuer. But that said, thanks to ever increasing media exposure and the social media revolution, inter-county stars are finding themselves in the spotlight more than ever. So that got me thinking… Are we maybe a tad naive in thinking that we don’t tick a few of the celebrity checklist boxes?
GAA stardom has a humble beginning — being the top player in your own parish. Headlines in the local broadsheet, alongside endorsement from the alumni, and egos quickly begin to inflate. But a nod for the county minor panel sends you into overdrive. Now, you get to strut around town in county gear, with the only care in the world being what coloured boots to buy and whether to go for a mohawk or a mullet (one decision I unfortunately never had to wrestle with). Things progress to college life and social offerings on an unprecedented level. You now find yourself alternating between county and college regalia. Campuses are awash with burgeoning young talent, basking in their celebrity infancy. With new found attention from GAA ‘jersey girls’, life couldn’t get any better for the young GAA star. But be warned, this is also the graveyard for many up-and-comers.
One embarrassing moment that every young starlet has to endure, is when he is taken back down to earth by the most unlikely of suspects. Open training sessions, where kids can come to meet their heroes are great — but wildly unpredictable. Unless you have made your mark on a big day, it’s unlikely that you feature yet on the radar of these most honest of critics. Every young player has to endure that crippling moment when a youngster rolls up asking who you are, before reluctantly allowing you to add your autograph to their shirt.
However, without doubt, the greatest moment in any footballer’s career, is not when he makes his inter-county debut, or the medals and accolades that may follow. No, it’s that night when you finally reach the pinnacle of GAA notoriety. After years of wallowing in GAA celebrity obscurity, you finally get the nod from the Coppers’ bouncers to skip the queue and head in through the upstairs entrance. For that moment, for those few seconds, you are as close to red carpet royalty as a GAA player can get. P Diddy wouldn’t have a look in.
A (sometimes valid) charge held against inter-county players, is that they take themselves a bit too seriously — carrying an ego above their amateur station. But playing in front of Premier League crowds at the weekend, and reading about it on Monday on your tea break, is, in fairness, a strange double life to manage. By their nature, inter-county teams are made up of big fish from small ponds. Attaining national prominence presents a whole new level of fame, and this quasi-celebrity existence can be a strange, and at times humorous, one to witness.
