Ireland must avoid elitism urge
A double Olympic medallist and a European champion, Barnes has remained totally unaffected by his success.
For the last two years, he has taken part in a charity football match at the Sarsfield’s GAA club in Belfast. The match promotes the charity, Suicide Awareness.
Paddy never played Gaelic football. He can’t solo, run or fist pass. But then, Paddy doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is just as well.
At the last game, we were getting changed in an upstairs room and Joe Brolly was ribbing Paddy about the tactics he had employed at the European Championships.
Paddy had boxed very defensively. For the bulk of each fight, he remained tucked behind his gloves. As his opponents struggled or failed to score, Paddy would secure victories by unleashing a quick salvo of accurate punches. Joe was bouncing about the middle of the changing room lampooning Paddy. As he paced around an imaginary ring, crouched behind his elbows and fists, Joe declared that Paddy Barnes was the “Arsenal of boxing”.
While Joe danced, the rest of us looked at the Olympian and wondered how he would react.
I suspect a few ex-players like Ross Carr and Noel McGinn were hoping that the 25-year-old would show Joe that he was more than capable of scoring heavily.
But, as is the way with so many boxers, Paddy Barnes, a tiger inside the ring, is a kitten outside it.
He had met Joe on a few occasions, so he knew the form. Raising his eyes to the rafters, Paddy just smiled. “Thon’s a wile man,” he said.
A few minutes later, Joe and Paddy were in conversation. Having studied the physique of his team-mates, who were mostly former county players, Paddy had drawn a few conclusions.
“I would never have made it at the Gaelic,” he informed Joe.
“I don’t know about that,” said Joe.
“Nah, too small. I’m too small,” said Paddy.
“Och, I don’t know,” said Joe, “Sure look at Peter Canavan.”
At this remark, Paddy’s baby blue eyes expanded to the size of his Olympic medals.
“Peter Canavan?” he exclaimed. “Joe, I’ve met Peter Canavan. He’s f****** massive.”
Cue uproar. But like much of what Paddy Barnes says, his observations are steeped in unadorned honesty. When compared to Paddy Barnes, Canavan is a mountain.
Standing 5ft 4ins, Patrick Barnes of the Holy Family Boxing Club competes at light flyweight, a division for fighters who weigh no more than 7st 10lbs. For some context, the jockey Frankie Dettori is also 5ft 4ins. At his absolute lightest, Dettori tips the scales at 8st 6lbs.
Small in stature he might be, but Paddy Barnes overshadows most of us when it comes to qualities like ambition, commitment and discipline. Most importantly of all, he embodies the virtues of perseverance and hope.
It’s said that he lost his first 14 amateur fights. When he improved and started to win, he was beaten in three successive Ulster finals. Today, he is the only Irish boxer to have won medals at successive Olympic Games.
At that charity match in Sarsfield’s, Paddy was accompanied by his friend and fellow Olympic medallist, Michael Conlan. Quieter than Paddy, young Conlan ensured that no harm would come to his hands by keeping them buried in the pockets of his knee-length shorts.
Paddy Barnes is from north Belfast and Michael Conlan is from west Belfast. It was probably no coincidence that they agreed to give up their time for that particular match. Suicide has ravaged their respective communities. Their city has one of the highest suicide rates in western Europe. By bringing home medals from London, Barnes and Conlan can act as pillars of hope and beacons of inspiration.
Hopefully, their success will encourage young boys in places like the New Lodge and Twinbrook to visit their local boxing clubs.
Fortunately, Belfast is well equipped to cope with any flood of newcomers. Before settling in Holy Family, Barnes went to the Kronk club. Conlan is a graduate of St John Bosco, where he was coached by Sean McCafferty, who represented Ireland at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Throw a stone in West Belfast and it will probably hit a boxing club. At last count, there were 14.
It is important that we applaud the success of our boxers, because it is a true community sport. With 339 clubs in Ireland, it is open to everyone.
In this respect, boxing differs from many of the sports in which Team GB was able to celebrate and trumpet success.
While GB won 29 gold medals, only seven of those came in what could be classified as true global sports.
British boxers took three golds, track and field athletes won the other four.
By and large, Team GB succeeded in sports that require significant sums of cash and which exclude nearly the entire continent of Africa. Track cycling (seven), rowing (four) and one each for triathlon, show jumping, tennis, sailing, canoeing, dressage and shooting accounted for 18 gold medals (62 per cent).
Clearly, Britain’s class system is alive and thriving. Fifty per cent of Team GB’s gold medallists at the Beijing games went to private schools. This means that half the gold medals came from seven per cent of the population.
Sir Chris Hoy attended the private George Watson’s College in Edinburgh. Ben Ainslee was a pupil at the private Truro school in Cornwall. The entire equestrian team at the Beijing Olympics was privately educated.
Those old established schools have the best facilities and the best coaches. For evidence, look no further than Eton Dorney lake. The venue for the rowing events is owned by Eton College, the alma mater of Sir Matthew Pinsent and 19 British prime ministers.
Moreover, the criteria which UK Sport employs when determining funding means that these elitist sports will continue to receive massive grants.
Basically, the sports which win the most medals receive the most cash. That’s great news for those Britons who can afford to buy horses and yachts, or live near a rowing club or a velodrome.
But what’s the point of living in inner city Birmingham and dreaming about being the next Ben Ainslee? Will a girl from Kilburn really be able to emulate Zara Phillips, the granddaughter of the queen?
The theme for London 2012 was ‘Inspire a Generation’. As things stand, Team GB’s success will only inspire about seven per cent of their population.
In Ireland, we can’t afford to make that mistake. The High Performance programme which produced Katie Taylor, Paddy Barnes, Michael Conlan and John Joe Nevin succeeds because it can pluck superbly-coached boxers from a country bursting with clubs.
State funding allowed those boxers to train full-time. But it’s important that the local councils and governments also fund the clubs which produced the boxers for Billy Walsh.
When Irish News photographer and Olympic bronze medallist, Hugh Russell went to take a picture at the St John Bosco club last week, he noticed a plank in the corner of the gym.
A note was attached to the vertical beam. It read: ‘Do not touch this plank. It is holding up the ceiling.’
If Ireland is going to keep producing champion boxers, and champions of the human spirit, we should at least put a roof over their heads.
