Colin Sheridan: In our grievances with the GAA, we sometimes forget why we love it: The club

Brothers in arms: John and Noel McGrath of Loughmore-Castleiney celebrate reaching both hurling and football senior finals for the second year in a row. This is the fourth time the club have achieved this feat in the past nine seasons winning both in 2013. Picture: Marty Ryan

As the days suddenly shorten and the hustle of Halloween gives way to talk of Christmas, that happy accident of the GAA calendar — the club championship — once again assumes it’s place at the forefront of our sporting psyches.

There’s a sort of poetry to sitting on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and going from West Ham versus Liverpool to, Slaughtneil v Glen before heading to Tampa Bay to watch Tom Brady throw tight spirals. More often than not, the purest theatre comes from the decrepit GAA grounds, the ones with no dressing rooms (currently) and no hot water.

Some Sundays, you can find yourself completely engrossed in a game and not know what county championship you’re even watching, let alone what the commentators are saying (depending on how much attention you paid to your aimsir laithreach). Turns out you don’t need packed stadiums and global superstars to entertain the people, a little soul goes a long way.

I made the Iliad from such a local row, so whispered Homer in Kavanagh’s poem Epic, the Monoghan bard, no stranger to the club championship himself. I’m not sure how committed he would’ve been to the strength and conditioning programmes and Whatsapp groups, preferring to pick rocks from the stony grey soil to get in shape.

What he would have made of the exploits of Loughmore Castleiney would surely be worthy of an anthology all on its own. Two national schools. Two churches. Two pubs. One GAA pitch. No floodlights. Spartan-like facilities for, dare I say it, Spartan warriors. This weekend, the south Tipperary club qualified for the county football final, a week after reaching the county hurling final, using largely the same group of players. All of this, for the second year running. Last year, they lost both finals.

This year, surely the Gods wouldn’t dare be so cruel?

Club championships taught me geography. Not just of my county but of the country, and cities like London and New York as well. Bellaghy. Éire Óg. Baltinglass. Fulham Irish. Manhattan Gaels. These clubs and the people in them put faces on places that may have otherwise lay undiscovered to me and many others like me.

We spend so much time looking for the perfect solution to our problems in the GAA, we sometimes forget that we love the sport in the first place. The club.

Those of us born into the game love a good course of self-congratulation, and these Sundays in particular, it’s hard not to engage in the practice. It’s an amateur sport. The bricklayer togs out beside the barrister, and between the four walls of the dressing room and the four corners of the field, these men and women are equal, the curse of the sporting Gods indiscriminate to the number of points you got in the Leaving Cert or the bravado of your Linkedin profile. Nobody cares or can barely remember who won last season’s All-Ireland. Talk of the county is next-to-non existent.

Genius hurlers and footballers, who for the summer months are taught to treat the media as the third rail of Irish society by their managers and handlers, suddenly stand beaming pitchside, surrounded by kids trying to get their mugs on tv, as their idols discuss how it feels to be winning matches with their neighbours and childhood friends.

On days like these, the only thing that matters is the parish and more Iliads being made from local rows, the pitchforks being put aside in lieu of hurleys and footballs. When it comes to club championships, it turns out Sundays are the Sundays in every week.

Who could blame Oisín Mullen for taking a punt?

A few years ago, a friend of mine, who grew up some 400 metres from the Atlantic Ocean in Galway, was contemplating moving home from Sydney, Australia to the town he grew up in.

Mayo's Oisin Mullen and Shane Walsh of Galway during this year's Connacht final. Picture: INPHO/Lorraine O'Sullivan

Ever the pragmatist, he decided to take an extended holiday back home to Salthill — in November — in order to fully equip himself with the tools to make the correct decision. If he could remind himself what it was to live through the wettest month of a Galway winter, he could at least make a fully informed call on what to do. He did.

Of course, it didn’t rain for an entire month, and so he decided to move home. He now lives in Ottawa. Anyway, I thought of him this week as unconfirmed reports linked Mayo footballer Oisín Mullen with AFL side Geelong Cats.

What to do for the young man with the footballing world at his feet? Chances are he will chase the sun. He’s 21. Who could blame him?

Rodgers makes a fumble for the ages

Another week, another entry into the never-meet-your-heroes-especially-in-the-Covid-context lucky bag.

This week’s candidate is Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who had to be benched after he tested positive for the virus. All of this after previously revealing he had been “immunised” against it, which many — understandably — took to mean that he had in fact been vaccinated.

Rodgers follows in the footsteps of fellow elite athlete basketballer Kyrie Irving as being the latest sport star to baffle with his logic for resisting taking the vaccine.

While Irving at least can fall back on the fact he never in fact claimed to (and still might), Rodgers has followed one PR disaster with another as he appeared on the hugely popular Pat McAfee Show on Friday, attempting to clear up his position, and in doing so scrambling, fumbling before eventually turning over the football.

As a fall from grace goes, Rodgers’ recent descent has been pretty dramatic, even by American standards. If Tom Brady’s off-field persona is a little too sweet for some people’s tastes, Rogers always proved a relatable counterpoint to the Californian.

His unguarded engagement with the media, and his commitment to the blue-collar town of Green Bay, the spiritual home of the NFL, set him apart as a superstar at peace with himself. His appearance on a GQ special with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon points to a guy who is erudite and interested. His otherworldly talent as a quarter-back made him box-office every Sunday.

His uncertainty about being vaccinated could almost be understood or forgiven had he not told McAfee he had consulted champion snake-oil salesman and “now good friend” Joe Rogan on how to treat the virus.

Rodgers will likely return soon to throw touchdowns, but by claiming Rogan as a friend and health adviser, he may have just sacked his reputation as a person you’d crack open a cold one with.

Time for Roy to save the day?

As Ole Gunnar Solskjær continues to confound everyone, including himself by holding on to his job, the possibility that Roy Keane will likely succeed him at Old Trafford grows ever more realistic, not because he is the best candidate, not because he even wants it, but with Antonio Conte going to Spurs, Keane may be the only one left to take it.

What I wouldn’t give to see it.