Breaking bread with the devil
For there at one of the tables was a Kilkenny player who’d done his duty at the county’s All-Ireland final media evening sitting down and eating with the journos afterwards. He didn’t appear to be complaining about his human rights being breached either.
And lo, the sky did not darken and thunder did not resound and the veil of
heaven was not rent in twain (granted, there were loud noises to be heard from the next room, but that was probably just Brian Cody telling Richie Hogan that if he didn’t have three goals scored from midfield by half-time in the All-Ireland final instead of just the one like against Limerick, he’d never wear the stripes again).
So keep an eye out for how Richie Power, the man who dared sup with the devil and used a knife and fork rather than a long spoon, fares on September 7. And if he fares badly, be sure that it wasn’t because of his choice of dining companions.
It’s not that appearing in the papers before a big game fireproofs a player against a poor performance, obviously. It’s more that there’s absolutely no correlation between the two. This has been said so often by now that it really shouldn’t bear repeating. But here’s Exhibit A.
Four years ago Lar Corbett talked to the Sunday papers for 45 minutes at Tipperary’s All-Ireland media event. After half an hour a minder from the county board popped his head in, intending to blow the full-time whistle, but on seeing that we were getting on like several houses on fire withdrew it and didn’t return for another 15 minutes.
What became of Lar after giving himself so generously? Correct: what always happens to players who speak to the media before big matches. He had the proverbial ’mare and was taken off five minutes into the second half...
Oh, hang on a minute. That’s not quite accurate. No, what actually transpired was that Lar merely scored three goals, was named man of the match and ended up Hurler of the Year. A fine and fitting punishment for the foolish Thurles youth for consorting so freely with the forces of darkness, eh?
Students of history know that one of the overriding lessons of Vietnam was the importance of controlling the image, a lesson the US learned rather too well. Hence the euphemisms ‘peripheral casualties’, ‘collateral damage’ and the embedded reporters of subsequent wars.
Ditto for county boards ahead of big matches. The beast needs feeding? Then feed it. Control the access, control the quotes, control the narrative. Wheel out the manager and a few players and let them talk. No manager or player at one of these press conferences has ever been stitched up or misquoted. No ban has ever ensued. And guess what? The players who are wheeled out at media gigs seem to enjoy it.
Fair enough, we media folk can also get a bit too precious sometimes. We shouldn’t. A county imposes a media ban? Fine. Let them at it. There are other ways of filling the space. Such bans say more about the people imposing them than the people they’re imposed on, and Armagh’s decision to close the shutters received far more publicity in some quarters than it merited.
Why local papers, who give acres of free publicity to the GAA 52 weeks of the year, should have to put up with the whims of a manager determined to play silly buggers is another matter entirely. And here’s a development Croke Park might ponder.
In the past couple of years the existence of their respective papers’ online platforms has allowed many British sports editors, much to their delight, to drop racecards from their daily pages. Unhelpful managers are not likely to persuade Irish sports editors of the near future to give Gaelic games any more space than they have to.
Anyway, the media bandwagon rolls into the Anner Hotel tomorrow evening for “tea, coffee, sandwiches and hot snack food” — and quotes. Adults being treated like adults all round. The way it should be.
PS for any reader likely to be in Langton’s in the near future, the ice cream gateau with butterscotch sauce cannot be too strongly recommended.
So farewell, then, James Alexander Gordon. Another voice that stilled our childish play silenced forever.
It was apt that the splendid James Alexander shuffled off this mortal coil in the same week a chap called Matthew Norman lamented in the Daily Telegraph that while Match of the Day remains obligatory viewing after 50 years, it lacks one of the things that made it famous: a memorable voice.
“Can you tell your Guy Mowbray from your Simon Brotherton, or your Steve Wilson from your Jon Champion?” Norman mourned. “Can you quote a single thing ever to emit from any of their mouths?”
Quite. Where once the programme was graced by the astringent insights of Barry Davies, a recognisable grown-up who understood that other grown-ups didn’t need to be told what they were seeing, now it labours under the burden that is the awful Jonathan Pearce, the shrieking laureate of the bleedin’ obvious.
During Italia 90 Davies greeted a shot of the West German manager standing by his dugout with the frankly left-field observation, “Beckenbauer. Obviously a man with a profound knowledge of Milton.”
It took me about three days to get the reference, and this was having done the sonnet On His Blindness for my Leaving. Imagine any of today’s lot wearing their learning as lightly, never mind possessing such learning in the first place.
All is not yet lost, happily. As Australia smashed the older horses on the Knavesmire on Wednesday, Simon Holt on Channel 4 found le mot juste. “A good horse becomes a great horse at York!” Result, subtext, implications and encomium supplied in nine words and 10 syllables. Perfect.
Barry Davies, back on Match of the Day for tonight, doubtless to wipe the floor with the other commentators, would have been proud.
So would James Alexander Gordon.
Waterford lad on loan from Spurs who bagged the opener in Peterborough’s 3-2 win over MK Dons last weekend. May never become the king of White Hart Lane but he’ll always have London Road.
Congrats to the new Rose of Tralee, but this column was — naturally — on Cork camogie princess, the lustrous Anna Geary, at 5/1. About time the bookies started betting three places on this 32-runner field. I’d surely have got my money back.
Retiring at the age of 34 to work for the Qatari petro-dollar. We’ll never know how many Derby winners he might have ridden. Pity.
The return of the prodigal. There will be fireworks.
