Shane Curran: Tea and a slice of cake

They say you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper, and Shane ‘Cake’ Curran is proof enough of that. Over the course of his career, with Roscommon and St Brigid’s, Curran has proved one of the most colourful characters in the GAA — and the organisation is so much better for it.

As much as the mention of Shane Curran invariably conjures up an image of him laughing, there’s hardly a minute when that beautiful mind of his isn’t ticking, calculating, formulating something.

Some of his ideas have been simply ingenious: coming up the field long before Stephen Cluxton ever did to take a last-minute free and indeed a penalty in the vital closing moments of a championship game; coming up with a goalkeeping tee with bristles to help minimise resistance and injuries; and then, at a time when he was almost broke, coming up with a flooding defence system that is now used around the world and has him on his way to making a very comfortable living.