Colin Sheridan: The (alternative) awards for a surreal sporting year

Who needs them? Well, everyone wants to be wanted. So, for the year that’s in it, behold the inaugural “Rona Awards for Sporting Relevance”. I’ll send out the Zoom link to all the winners later. Please be sure to mute your mics...

Cork’s Mark Keane’s last-second goal against Kerry had a butterfly effect that led to Tipperary winning their first Munster championship since the 1930s and ended with Mayo reaching an All-Ireland final. Keane’s goal also underlined the need for a review of the All-Ireland championship structure.

The Tyson Fury Award for Not Wanting to be Nominated for any Patronising Award

Winner: Mayo

Plus ça change for Mayo. 2020 started as a year of rebuild and transition. Twenty minutes from the end of it, they were all-square against Dublin in an All-Ireland final. Many will justifiably point to an unfair fight when it came to the depth of the respective supporting casts, but, there should be a lingering sense of regret among the Mayo team that this was an opportunity lost. While previous final defeats saw them leave with tanks emptied, this loss felt different in that there was no second-half gamble. No chaotic roll of the dice.

For all we know, James Horan had no cards left to play. They will return, no doubt, but however heavy the crown may sit on Dublin heads, it’s not half the weight of unwelcome history, and the well-meant if slightly condescending plaudits from commentators who were just happy Mayo made a game of it.

The lustre of fame garnered for gallant defeats has long worn off. Still, they won this award at least.

The Diarmuid Connolly Award for Anti Heroism

Winner: Mesut Özil

Mesut Özil: Maybe it’s time for the Arsenal playmaker’s exile to end.

In one of the year’s stand-out pieces, ‘The Erasure of Mesut Ozil’, the New York Times’ Rory Smith and Tariq Panja lay out the ever-evolving saga of the Arsenal man’s footballing isolation. One year ago, the German tweeted out his anger at China’s treatment of the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority in the region of Xinjiang, and the complicit silence of the international community. By August, he had been omitted from the Gunners’ Premier League and Champions League squads. His stance, and his employers’ reaction to it, lays bare the selective moralising of large corporations, in this case Arsenal Football Club, when it comes to matters of social justice. 

If supporting the Black Lives Matter movement had more of an impact on the financial bottom line — as the Chinese market does — it would be interesting to see just how club owners might suddenly react. 

Özil had made Arsenal’s job of alienating him a whole lot easier with a series of abysmal performances which could never justify his £350,000-a-week pay packet. Other than developing a cure for Covid-19 with all his free time, nothing could justify those wages, but Özil is more than entitled to earn what his super-rich employers are willing to pay. Few could ever deny Özil’s genius on the football field. 

As Mikel Arteta fights for his managerial life, maybe his saviour is tight in front of him. Maybe it’s time for Özil’s exile to end.

The Nicola Coughlan Award for Men Not Doing Podcasts in Lockdown

Winner: The World

On March 16, in one of the year’s most prophetic tweets, the Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan tweeted out: “I know this time of self isolation is hard and scary for people but however bad you are feeling — please, please don’t consider starting your own podcast.” She went on to caveat the plea, explicitly imploring men in particular to think twice before ordering a podcasting mic from Amazon, and downloading a ‘how to podcast” pdf. Understanding Coughlan’s tweet to be made in semi-jest, she still did the State some service.

In such perilous times, it was a genuine fear that podcasting would become the adventure racing of 2020. If her prophecy deterred some (Jamie Heaslip had the good sense to heed the results of his self-afflicted plebiscite), it undoubtedly forced those already committed to raise the bar. One gem to emerge was Italia 90 — One Day at a Time, which, in an age of limited attention spans, took its glorious time in looking back at Italia 90, its cultural significance in the face of a changing world, and the cult of the No10. The work of Rob Murphy and Ciaran O’Hara, the show became a sleeper hit, and, in light of the subsequent passing of two of the tournament’s leading men, Jack Charlton and Diego Maradona, is well worth a revisit.

For a tournament of forgettable football, there was still a bottomless well of nostalgia to be drunk from.

The Manic Street Preachers Award for Everything You Know is Wrong

Winners: Arsenal/Spurs/Kerry/Mickey Harte/Bryson DeChambeau/Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

It really is hard to keep up. Saturday lunchtime, Arsenal are getting relegated. Arteta is for the chop. His players are a cowardly rabble of pampered stars. By night’s end, having dispatched Chelsea, the Princely Spaniard is regal again. His players just love to play ball. So much so, they’d likely do it for free. Manchester United were a joke three weeks ago, now their mid-January clash with Liverpool has a title decider feel to it! Mourinho has been labelled washed-up at Spurs, an evil genius at Spurs, and washed-up at Spurs, all in a week. Kerry won the national league and, by October’s end, looked to be the only team who could dare topple Dublin. They went from contenders to punchline in one wet afternoon in the Park.

Watching golf was becoming pointless as Bryson DeChambeau was winning as much as he was eating. Augusta sorted that out. Mickey Harte stepped away from Tyrone, and all of us (myself among them) eulogised his reign and opined it was time for him to take a well earned rest. A week later he was the manager of Louth. Jack Grealish was supposed to be crap by now. He’s not. Yes folks, that’s 2020; the year everything you know is wrong.

The Gary McKay Award for Seismic Butterfly Effect

Winner: Mark Keane

When Scotland’s Gary McKay scored on his debut away to Bulgaria in November 1987, his goal had a butterfly effect that changed the course of Irish football. Had he not scored, the Republic of Ireland would never have qualified for Euro ’88. There would have been no Stuttgart, and likely no Italia ’90, either. 

When Cork’s Mark Keane broke Kerry hearts in the rain in this year’s Munster semi-final, he too set off a ripple of events which changed the course of this year’s championship, even if the destination remained the same. In one fell swoop, a world of possibilities opened up. It is very probable that Tipperary would not have won their first Munster Championship since 1935. The poignancy of their victory on the Bloody Sunday commemorative weekend was one of the memorable moments of the year, beyond sport. Keane’s goal, too, suddenly made the footballers of Mayo and Galway realise, with Kerry gone, one or the other of them would likely be in an All-Ireland final, even though they had yet to play their provincial decider.

It has also surely deeply wounded the Kingdom, who must have fancied their chances as the plucky David to Dublin’s Goliath. Keane’s goal, and the broader implications of it, reinforced the need for a review of the championship structures, which, with the introduction of the Super 8s, leaves no room for romance. And what good is sport without romance?

The Bobby Ewing Award for Whatever Happened to that Guy/I was right here the whole time

Winner: Matt Doherty

Tottenham’s Matt Doherty: Ireland’s great hope in the Premier League, he seems to have fallen down the dreaded Jose Mourinho pecking order, but may still re-establish himself.

It’s a perilous business playing for Jose Mourinho. Just ask Luke Shaw and Damian Duff. One slip and you’ll find yourself in sporting Alcatraz.

This past off-season saw Dubliner Matt Doherty join Jose at Spurs for £18m. In a year of bad news stories for Irish football, Doherty’s arrival at a ‘Top Four’ club was a sliver of light. Brought in as an automatic starter, he rather suddenly disappeared, Mourinho seemingly realising his style was not quite compatible. An unfortunate bout of Covid coupled with the re-emergence of Serge Aurier as Jose’s man, had us all worried the big move was not going to be all it was cracked up to be for Doherty. However, in keeping with the year of everything you know is wrong, Doherty looks set to re-establish himself, thanks to Aurier’s proclivity for fouling in the box.

The way things are going, the man from Swords will likely spend another spell or two on the bench before being made club captain and player of the season, further proving playing for the special one is as unpredictable as being married to Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Cian Lynch Award for Unheralded Consistent Excellence

Winner: Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire

Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow: Lessons in excellence, no matter who’s paying attention.

Watching Limerick play hurling, the philistines among us likely never notice Cian Lynch.

While those either side of him win the awards, he keeps the whole show moving, pulling strings, lining play, working tirelessly.

Just as we may under appreciate Lynch, the achievements of Galgorm Castle’s Stephanie Meadow and Slieve Russell’s Leona Maguire on this season’s LPGA tour are a lesson in excellence, regardless of who’s paying attention. Both qualified for the lucrative season-ending $3m CME Group Tour Championship in Florida, securing their tour cards for next season in the process.

The momentum of the 20x20 national movement to champion girls and women in Irish sport undoubtedly suffered due to Covid-19, but Maguire and Meadow are brilliant examples of Irish women performing in the most competitive of sporting environments, more often than not without the exposure they deserve.

That exposure would not only entice sponsors and opportunities, but more importantly young Irish girls who need role models in women’s sport.