The uplifting power of sport
At maybe 11.15pm, word had arrived that Lennon to Everton was done. CTRL-V. CTRL-V. Pasted into the list of Tottenham ‘Outs’. Became the list of Everton ‘Ins’.
But now the second edition is about to print and Darren Fletcher to West Brom is not done.
Sky Sports News HQ might understand that it is done but you can’t be taking chances with matters of great importance like this.
So you wait.
And eventually it is too late and on Tuesday morning Darren Fletcher doesn’t feature in your list of WBA ins. Or perhaps more critically, if you’re playing the numbers game of interested parties, your list of Man Utd outs.
Maybe that is why LVG forgot, this week, that Fletcher had gone at all.
Ordinarily, as a man hovered over CTRL-V, the lapping wave of cynicism and contrariness that carries you through Deadline Day might have swelled into a tidal bore.
From the moment Jim White told us Carlton Cole was the one to watch tonight, a man might have marvelled again at how so much is made out of so little and wondered about the vast expanse of human resources devoted to tracking the movements of middling footballers.
But I didn’t do that on Monday night, for some reason.
Maybe I’d just swallowed an antidote.
Vincent O’Donovan isn’t allowed antidotes or potions. Something in his demeanour tells you he wouldn’t take them anyway. He’s from Cork. He’s a world champion and a world record holder.
But you mightn’t know that. Why would you, when nobody told you? Vincent’s story was interesting because it touched on many hot topics of the day and the full interview will appear in this paper soon.
We talked about the size of rugby players and the work players put into building extensions onto themselves.
We reflected on the lack of rewards for amateur sports people putting their lives on hold in search of excellence.
And we touched on the quasi tolerance of medical assistance in many sports.
On these matters, Vincent spoke with quiet authority, since he is a former schools rugby player who enjoyed his time in the gym that much more than his time on the pitch that he became a competitive powerlifter.
You listen to him talk about drugs in sport because he competes in the World Drug Free Powerlifting Federation, which operates a ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy with dopers. Instant life bans.
And he is entitled to a say in the raging debate about GAA players being driven into semi-professional regimes at the expense of their careers, because he drives himself into four gruelling three-hour training sessions every week, yet just qualified as a radiographer.
Vincent is calm and realistic on all these matters.
He just worries about young rugby players. Hopes they are lifting right. Are being trained right as they chase physiques. He wears the WDFPF badge proudly. “At least you know when you achieve the records, people know you’re clean.”
And he makes the common sense observation that doping cultures in other sports couldn’t survive the same denial of second and third chances. “It stops you even considering it. Because professionals won’t take a risk with their careers.”
When you compare him to GAA players and note that his efforts aren’t rewarded even with profile and hero status, he is philosophical about powerlifting’s grip on the public imagination.
Like most GAA players, he does it because he loves it.
And there it was. The antidote. Not Vincent’s reaction to other people’s stories. Not his take on hot topics.
His own story.
He recalls drifting along as a squad player in schools cup rugby but never missing a 7.30am gym session.
“I was very easygoing then. I’m very competitive now. I wouldn’t settle for being on the bench. I’d want the jersey. I wasn’t really driven then.”
He hadn’t found his passion. Or at least they hadn’t been properly introduced.
Last November, in Moldova, he gritted his teeth, adjusted his technique and lifted a world best with a disc bulging in his back. Driven.
Vincent lost his dad a few years ago. A tough time for the family. When we chat, his mother is there. Pride in her son’s achievements is obvious. He has lifted more than a bar.
There was no startling revelation in Vincent’s story, just a timely reminder that every story is a personal one.
A reminder, when you’re tempted to be cynical at 11.20pm, that you’re waiting on a footballer who has fought a long battle with his intestines for a second and third chance at the sport that’s in his gut.
A reminder there is something oddly beautiful too in the idea of WBA fans waiting into the night to see if they’ve signed a fading champion.
Sport’s ability to deliver a sense of purpose, in whatever form.
Maybe all this is leaking from a cloud of Difene.
As is the fashion of the moment, I’ve broken an arm. Six-a-side.
So I prod this out on a phone and hope the sub-editors make sense of it.
The gaffer has already pointed out that the day for greater sense may have arrived. The missus made the same point in stronger terms.
Yet all that’s running through my mind is a tidy half-volley that crept in off a post minutes before the smash.
Sport always delivers something to keep you going.
Stairway to Heaven
Charlie Sifford: “We give thanks to the trailblazers who built the arc of freedom towards justice,” said Barack Obama when presenting Sifford with the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year.
Last Tuesday, the trailblazer, the first black PGA golfer, died, with a few roadblocks still standing on golf’s arc of freedom.
You hope he wasn’t too disappointed at how few have been able to follow his track.
Hell in a Handcart
Lance Armstrong: Last week Lance told us he’d probably dope again if he was back there in 1995. Nobody needed much convincing. This week, he is reportedly “prepared to admit driving the car and accept responsibility” for a fender bender for which his girlfriend initially took the rap. We may be dealing with one of the all-time greats at accepting responsibility after he has been caught.
Anderson Silva: UFC’s answer to Armstrong reminded us that when a sport talks incessantly about dietary regimes and nutrition and serves as a billboard for all manner of supplements, it is healthy to remain sceptical.
