Did Coronation Street pave way for Andy Farrell and Mick McCarthy?

Welcome Mick McCarthy (again). And welcome Andy Farrell (soon), writes Michael Moynihan.

The men who head, or will soon head, the national sides in football, soccer and rugger versions respectively, are both alike and not alike. They’re rugged individuals with considerable reputations in two tough businesses, but one is 43 and the other is 59. One is rugby, one soccer, etc.

One thing they have in common is the voice. That north-of-England tone, take-things-as-I-see-them air, where-there’s-muck-there’s-brass inflection, the glottal asperity.

Mick McCarthy

I know the two men aren’t neighbours. McCarthy is a native of Barnsley, and Farrell is a Wigan man: a mere 72 miles separate the two cities, but even I, a Coronation Street agnostic, know there’s a world of difference between those two localities. You might as well say someone from Cork and someone from Waterford both speak the same way.

The presence of Stephen Kenny in McCarthy’s background, a kind of Hamlet figure but in a much greater rush — doesn’t invalidate this thesis either. In a way he underlines its strength, I’ll come back to that.

There’s a reason I mentioned Coronation Street above. It’s my belief that years of indoctrination at the hands of the Granada TV soap have normalised the accent of north-western Britain, and inculcated a culture of acceding to its commands.

The late Tom Wolfe was wise to us, years ago, in The Bonfire of the Vanities:

“Now this is a subtle thing. Bernie’s Irish, just like Tommy’s Irish, and the Irish have a certain amount of what the British call deference built into them.” (Tom was talking about WASPs and lawyers, but I feel the lesson stands).

Because of the primacy of the Street and the strong hold it exerted over the reptilian centres of our brains, we were ripe for direction when another north of England icon arrived on our shores in the 80s. Jack Charlton’s appointment as Ireland manager in 1986 copperfastened his vowel-torturing Northumberland bray as the only valid vehicle for tactical instruction. Because of his success, the associations were powerful: the northern bark meant competence, victory, and all associated sounds carried those same associations.

(Don’t rush to point out that Charlton’s origins are on the other side of the country to McCarthy and Farrell, by the way: it’s all north).

Andy Farrell

This is where it deepens. I take Wolfe’s point about deference, but what he missed was the oedipal element: the trust in the father-figure which the tribe incorporates when it finds someone to replace that father-figure.A son-figure.

Laugh if you will, but consider McCarthy’s role as Charlton’s lieutenant, his representative on the field — the captain, trusted with carrying out the manager’s orders, putting the strategy into effect, the marshal loyal to the king on this throne. In time the king must give way, and who better to take over than his most trusted lieutenant?

You may argue the theory happens to suit just because McCarthy took over from Charlton in 1996, but that misses Kenny lurking in the background of Abbottstown/Elsinore, on hand to fulfil the next stage of the process. In two years’ time, apparently.

Ah, you say, but what about Farrell, who could not be said to have the same relationship with Joe Schmidt? That’s because Farrell’s elevation erases memories of an earlier figure — Ireland’s 90s rugby coach Brian Ashton, another larynx from the north of England (Farrell and Ashton’s home towns are less than eight miles apart.) Though the contexts are different, Farrell and McCarthy have a similar mission — to eradicate old associations and create new. Why? Because, as Harold Bloom told us years ago, “later visions cleanse themselves at the expense of earlier ones.”

Reader: where does Owen Farrell fit into all this?

Me: Helpful, aren’t you?

Begrudging Unesco protection

The recognition of hurling by Unesco during the week was welcomed, though it also attracted the usual fusillade about the game not being played in various parts of the country.

Thanks for the newsflash because it was a comfort to all of us concerned that there might be a secret hurling championship we were unaware of. Good to see begrudgery as a commitment to the truth is alive and well, though.

🔴 BREAKING

Hurling has just been inscribed on the #IntangibleHeritage List.
Congratulations #Ireland🇮🇪! 👏 

ℹ️ https://t.co/smG3gOIz5v #LivingHeritage pic.twitter.com/Mdgh8ucFvP

— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) November 29, 2018

I was struck by the message of congratulations from President Michael D Higgins when he described hurling as “unique”, which it is, not “universal”, which we all know it is not. It’s a pity that our own head of state issued those comments rather than a Unesco mandarin, because in my mind’s eye I envisaged a different scenario.

I imagined some smooth Unesco functionary, perhaps a well-groomed Italian gent, covering the phone receiver in his lavishly appointed office, and shouting to his assistant: “I have someone on the phone roaring at me and asking if I know only 10 counties compete for the Liam MacCarthy Cup and what am I going to do about it?”

Another step for women in sport

Eoin O’Callaghan pops up regularly in these pages, and one of his recent pieces for the Guardian caught my eye.

It featured Chantal Vallée, who is head coach and general manager of the Hamilton Honey Badgers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League, and her comments on being the first woman to occupy those posts for a men’s professional team are worth considering: “I am a woman. But in my profession I am a basketball coach. It’s my expertise. It’s what I’ve been hired to do. It’s my work but it’s not who I am.

“I understand the conversation. It’s important for our society and for both genders. I think it’s important that men and women can see that a coach is a coach, just like in the business world now where a president can be male or female.”

Another step, then. And the day a female head coach/manager is appointed in men’s sport here comes a little closer.

Bucking book trends

This is the time of year people start making their best books of the year lists, and a point often made by Paul Howard, creator of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, always comes to mind when I see those lists.

Where are the books that people buy and enjoy? The thrillers and horror stories, the volumes dismissed as ‘chick lit’ and ‘fantasy’? The great thriller writer Ian Rankin remains a hero in our house because in one of those annual round-ups one year in an English broadsheet, he bucked the trend.

Instead of plumping for a sensitive, ‘transgressive’, slender account of a priest’s love for a mute Friesian (in translation), Rankin picked out Jilly Cooper’s latest as his book of the year.

Not the choice of the aesthetes. But given it was popular and entertaining, that was hardly a surprise to anyone.