Kieran Shannon: Get in there - The joys of getting back to normality

Yesterday was a landmark in Irish sport. Indoor sport could finally return indoors.

Tue, 21 Sep, 2021 - 07:00

It didn’t trigger any mass national celebration. It didn’t lead any sports bulletins or even feature in most of them. Chances are a fair chunk of the Irish public might were oblivious to it. But that doesn’t change a simple fact. Yesterday was a landmark in Irish sport.

Indoor sport could finally return indoors.

So that faint sound you heard in the distance last night was possibly the squeal and squeak of running shoes back on a court, audible with the gym doors open to provide adequate ventilation. Or maybe it was the rubber thump and rhythmic patter of a basketball, the wind of a shuttlecock being sliced, the ‘One-two-three-We’re back!’ chant and giggle from a netball or volleyball team emerging from a huddle.

Because back they all are, finally.

Bar a few weeks in September 2020, kids and kids at heart have been essentially banished to the winds and the rains for the past 18 months; only the lucky one percent that were granted elite sportsperson status have had a roof over the head for their sport, and even they only had such privileges for a limited time under stifling constraints. For the longest time boxers couldn’t spar. Basketballers couldn’t even rebound or pass to someone outside their own household. It was literally shadow boxing.

It wasn’t just cruel and harsh; a lot of the time it seemed unfair, nonsensical.

Most other European countries, who you’d think with their milder climate would need indoor sport a lot less than us but champion and appreciate it much more than us, kept their doors open throughout most of their lockdowns. Here in Ireland it was as if the thinking was Big Three sports good, all other sports bad.

When a sport like basketball was allowed to have participants indoors at various times since March 2020, there wasn’t a single case of Covid that could be traced back to the playing of the sport, underlining it’s virtually impossible to get Covid from playing sport itself. Even as recently as last month when the senior men’s national basketball team were allowed to participate in and host a European tournament in the National Basketball Arena, no spectators could attend at a time when bars and restaurants were allowed punters back inside.

Sports still found a way to survive though, and not just because the government gave them some aid through a scheme that was aptly titled a resilience fund. They improvised, adapted, taking to the outdoors, dribbling between the puddles and showers of rain and clearing snow off their courts. Though some kids have been lost to other sports, having had no programme of games while the GAA has been able to provide two meaningful summers, other clubs have blossomed and thrived, realising just how much fun you can still have braving the cold and playing an indoor sport outside.

They couldn’t stay outside forever though. Indoor sport needed to get back into its usual rhythm of resuming once the schools started back.

Thankfully, after the longest winter, autumn is here.

Not every sports hall has reopened. A considerable number of school gyms remain closed, at least to the wider community, as schools prioritise getting their own PE classes and sports and teams up and running first.

But at least those PE classes and school sports are resuming, indoors and beyond. While Covid wasn’t quite as harsh to the big three sports than it was to indoor sport, they still had their enormous challenges and their innocent casualties. There was no Munster or Leinster Senior Cup the past 18 months. No Harty Cup or Corn Uí Mhuirí. Kids were deprived of the experiences and memories of a lifetime. But this autumn and winter there will be a Harty Cup and a Connacht C championship and a Leinster Senior Cup and an All Ireland schools C basketball cup. Sport for all is back.

And so after seeing Nhat Nguyen at the Olympics, there’ll be kids this week picking up a badminton racket for the first time. There’ll be 60-year-olds picking up a badminton racket for the first time in the longest time.

There’ll be young girls, young boys, wanting to be like Kellie, tentatively yet excitedly stepping into a boxing club for the first time.

Last night there were kids bouncing a ball on the hardwood for the first time. Any other year that might not always have been the prettiest sight but after the longest year there are few now more beautiful.

It’ll be another month before the crowds can come back in and the matches and competitions can commence. But after the longest wait all that can wait all right for another little while.

What counts is they have their sport back in its natural home.

Normality has rarely felt so special.