Dreams shouldn’t be make believe

After most big occasions now, we hear, from somebody, about boyhood dreams.

Nowadays we really only hear it as one of those things they are obliged to say, juggling for position with the ‘unbelievable belief’ and the ‘110 percent’ and the ‘luckily, it went in’.

Young Joe Gomez, for instance, on his arrival at Liverpool from Charlton last week, was keen to assure us this venture was indeed ‘a dream come true’, though young Joe was unable to supply us with any further context as to why a London lad, who wasn’t born last time Liverpool won the title, might have spent his childhood fantasising about signing on the dotted line at Anfield.

Maybe Joe meant that other popular one: it’s a dream come true to play in the Premier League.

This increased vagueness of young dreams seems to traverse international borders and cultures and break language barriers. Also last week, Monaco’s young Frenchman Geoffrey Kondogbia told us it was a dream come true to join Inter Milan. Having a couple more years’ experience in the PR game than young Joe, Geoffrey had come prepared with a poignant backstory.

“As a kid, I used to watch Inter play on TV.” And yet, some of the romantics among us may have felt strangely unmoved by this heartwarming tale of wish fulfilment.

Maybe we’re looking for something a bit more personal. Something more along the lines of the story Jimmy Doyle often told.

The story has been around, grew legs, warmed up and run laps. I don’t know when I heard it first. In the Irish Times, 10 years ago, Keith Duggan mentioned it in a lovely interview with Jimmy Doyle.

I still think the line, as he lets Jimmy tell it, is one of the most beautiful of them all.

“Then I would go back down to the Glenmorgan and watch him eat dinner. He used to mash everything up and then spoon the food into him, and so that was how I had to eat my dinner.”

Jimmy was remembering the times, when he could have been no more than eight, that he would watch Christy Ring get off the bus in Thurles, then sneak into the Sportsfield and admire Ring play for Cork, then follow the Cork team back to their guesthouse and feast on more admiration of his matinee idol. And then go off and live his life as Christy Ring.

Has a picture of childhood hero-worship ever been painted as vividly? The boy who spoon-fed himself on greatness and, close as makes no difference, grew up to emulate it.

Jimmy Doyle and Christy Ring and people like them have given us much besides entertainment and joy and pride and standards. Even those of us who never saw them in action.

When fathers and sons mightn’t have a lot else to talk about, they have offered the easy connection. “He’s good, son, but he’s not as good as Jimmy Doyle.” When sons and fathers were a bit older and still stuck for words, they were there again. “What do you think, Da, is he as good as Jimmy Doyle?” And they allowed people dream.

In Tipp this week, I heard Jimmy Doyle described as “just an ordinary man”, which in some parts is about as high a compliment as you can pay somebody who was extraordinary.

If it was his extraordinariness that allowed him devote so much of himself to fulfilling his dreams, maybe it was the ordinariness and humility that allowed us share his dreams so vividly.

In that he gave us all another gift. Dropped us back in time to the first hero whose haircut we copied, the first footballer that made us pull long sleeves down over our hands. The first resilient veteran to make us fashion an extravagant bandage for the scratch on the knee. The first Aga Khan Trophy winner that had us smack our arse clearing deckchairs in the front yard. The first Wimbledon champ to compel us to thump our racket off the sole of our foot before every serve, for reasons unclear.

Yes, some of us had a lot of dreams. Not everyone can be as focussed as Jimmy Doyle.

As Pete Sampras puts it, at the start of his book A Champion’s Mind: “I knew almost from day one, that I was born to play tennis. It may not be mandatory, but knowing who you are and what you want - whether it’s to play violin in a concert hall or build great big skyscrapers - gives you a great head start in reaching your goals.”

While we’re back in that happy place, maybe we can cut young Joe and Geoffrey a little slack too. And perhaps accept it might be our own cynicism finding fault with their dreams.

In another interview, done a while back on England underage duty, Joe Gomez told us his idol was Rio Ferdinand.

He knows enough about the PR game not to make too much of that this week, but one day, maybe when he’s leading out England, Joe might share with us the time he watched Rio scoff a Nandos.

Or at least how he lived Rio’s life for a while.

Golfers escape the darkest Chambers

The things we saw. The unspeakable things. In the end, it was blessed relief to reacquaint with the gentle, health and safety approved pleasures of the Gaelic Grounds and Nowlan Park.

A leisurely antidote to the horrors of Chambers Bay.

We had confirmation this week, via the book of ex-BBC man Roger Mosey, that the R&A don’t like the idea of Gary Lineker, an ex-footballer and consequently not a gentleman of sufficient refinement, presenting coverage of The British Open (which we might always call the British Open because these lads don’t like that either).

From that, we can probably see why Sky, as they worked on securing rights to the British Open from BBC, haven’t yet assigned Paul Merson to their golf coverage.

Which is a pity, because we needed the Merse last week to assure us, as only he can, that they were having an absolute torrid time at Chambers Bay.

We heard of incredible hardship involving the climbing of slopes. We heard of dry grass, of shiny grass, of long grass and every variety of grass that claims victims.

We heard about players who missed the green by a yard, and ended up 50 yards down a valley. And there was no use advising them not to miss the green by a yard.“It’s tough walking,” one frustrated pro told us, the old good walk spoiled adage no longer standing either. There were players collapsing and caddies retiring and fellas questioning the choices they had made in life.

It was exhausting looking at and listening to them. At least back at the hurling, there was the only odd set of front teeth cracked. Nobody’s spirit was broken.

Heroes & villains

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Conor McDonald: Produced the flick for the Wexford U21s, that will have had a few young lads dreaming this week.

Sepp Blatter: Course you haven’t resigned, big man. Not til they’ve made United Passions 2.

HELL IN A HANDCART

Gonzalo Jara: Really needs to pull the finger out.

Nigel Pearson: A six-foot, aggressive, runaway ostrich was on the loose across the English midlands, yet Nige, for all his talk, was nowhere to be seen.