Finally, I think I’m starting to get over my Thurles phobia

My first visit to Semple Stadium was a depressing one that has probably shaped me into the cynic that I am.

The drawn Munster hurling final in 1987 was an eye-opener. I couldn’t believe a seven-year-old would be allowed past those turnstiles into those dark, crowded passageways.

I couldn’t fathom how Cork could do anything but win, having developed some appreciation of the greatness of Cork during the previous successful campaign in 1986, the year that brought the new 20p coin and Jim Cashman out into the national spotlight.

And most of all, I was ill-prepared for a kicked sliotar finding the back of the net. My memory of that infamous moment is quite vivid and I must have been a picture of stunned incredulity when Nicky English, my mother’s hero from near her Lattin home, slotted the decisive goal around the diving Ger Cunningham.

Everything about it was too much to take for my innocent mind. I took English’s celebration personally and the double whammy of Richard Browne and Cunningham flailing was possibly the first tragicomic incident of my short, sheltered life. Football filled the red void left by the hurlers from the lost replay onwards and it was a while before I could return to Semple. It’s probably the reason why I have always greeted with renewed surprise the well-worn “Cork love going to Thurles” line.

I’ve retained a deep-seated suspicion of the place, focusing on all the wrong things, like the big green expanses doubling up as car parks and the conmen with their three-card tricks who hustled for money as we hurried towards the Old Stand.

Even that epic three-game national hurling league final victory over Wexford in the early 1990s was wholly unsatisfying. The corner was turned in 1997 when the future heroes beat Galway in the U21 All-Ireland hurling final and finally there was hope.

But I still struggle with any assertion that Semple Stadium is the favoured home away from home of the Rebels. Especially when uttered by anyone from Tipp. Liam Sheedy trotted it out on Sunday when Michael Lyster turned to him for the neutral view before the Munster semi-final.

I had just taken the plunge on GAA GO — the need was at its greatest, to paraphrase that other loveable GAA cliche. Hearing Sheedy tell us Cork love Thurles almost had me demanding my money back, the old pains bubbling to the surface, the old jibes from the Tipp half of my family.

But that’s neither here nor there because I’ve been forced to accept there’s a whole world outside of Cork. The Irish expat community in New York levels out the importance of each nook and cranny of the championship and into that more rounded outlook falls neatly the innovation of GAA GO.

My sister was over visiting and there was an 11am throw-in for the hurling. I wanted to see the Monaghan-Tyrone game too, so I went all in and bought up a summer’s worth of viewing.

I paid for it out of my own money and although I’m volunteering for the GAA in New York, I’m writing here as a consumer who had been hoping for some time that Croke Park would step up its overseas policy.

I don’t really believe that GAA fans overseas have any strong moral right to expect that the games are beamed into our living rooms for free.

Obviously, in an ideal world, the association would have access to the sort of bottomless reserves which an unbearably smug Sepp Blatter referred to recently in defence of FIFA’s World Cup policies.

But there is no such pool of cash and there can be no claim by the international branch of the GAA when it is the home-based teams which generate all the revenue.

It’s a straightforward choice between paying for a superior service which is as self-sustaining as possible against being subjected to a half-arsed product.

The inaugural GAA GO experience was as smooth as you’d hope. Any glitches were more likely down to the poor quality of the wifi foisted upon us in Brooklyn.

A HDMI cable sent a relatively blurry feed (again not GAA GO’s fault) to my television and we were good to go.

We weren’t far behind the real time action at all, judging by the one time I snuck a look at Twitter after Patrick Horgan lasered home that 20-metre free.

I might not be able to switch on the live GAA action every Sunday morning these next couple of months but it will still be worth every penny.

Hopefully this will feed into a GAA channel someday and it will be all the more accessible.

And maybe then, at this safe distance from Semple traumas, I’ll develop faith in the old truism: Cork hurlers love Thurles.

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