Michael Moynihan: Are these really too much to ask for?

Is this not the proper forum for remedying my minor irritations?

WHO'S THAT: Michael Moynihan wants clearer jersey numbers - to save from a repeat of his social media blushes in the future

“I suppose you’ll be writing a Christmas list?” This was the opening sentence I got from another sufferer in the long queue in the supermarket one evening last week. I was about to point out the grey hair is a fair reflection of my years when I realised what he meant. And it’s attractive as a concept for a column, particularly at this time of the year.

People are preconditioned to think in terms of what to expect and — hopefully — what to get for others. You therefore muse for a minute or two on what various sporting individuals, teams, organisations, stewards, spectators, and others would benefit from and the column is done; on with the turkey sandwiches and that strange labelless bottle at the back of the fridge.

I was snooty enough about the idea until I remembered my own tendency to complain about matters small and apparently inconsequential — yes, believe it or not — and wondered if this was not the proper forum for remedying those minor irritations.

And some which aren’t so minor. On a sliding scale of possibility, from realistic to laugh-in-your-face.

Jersey numbers: I know, I know. But tell me honestly, is this something that has never affected your enjoyment of a GAA game? I don’t want to name and shame particular teams — not all of them at club level, it must be stated — because I know jerseys cost money, but remote entanglements can become a matter of guesswork, particularly when numbers blend almost seamlessly with stripes or hoops.

A few years ago at a Cork-Tipperary U21 football game I credited a goal to one of the midfielders. When the piece appeared online that evening said midfielder thanked me via social media but pointed out politely that his partner, in fact, had scored the goal.

Spare me such embarrassment in future.

Speaking of social media: Again, I know. I know. Pleading for common sense or human decency in such rancid, suppurating scabfests is futile. All I ask is a small tweak in the terms of engagement — could we pause with the constant cross-sport comparisons and oneupmanship?

Do we really need to hear ‘you wouldn’t see that in _’ or ‘that’s not accepted in __’ with the concomitant moral superiority whenever anything happens? The ‘that’s typical of (sport X)’ when some aficionado of sport Y wants to bray? Trick question: We don’t.

And a news flash. No matter what sport you support or espouse, there are as many brealls, go-by-the-walls, and footpads in your sport as there is in any other. Bear that in mind when you think about pontificating and leave the rest of us to funny cat videos.

The first person plural: Thanking you all in advance for giving us a holiday from including yourselves in the gallant adventures of Liverpool FC or the New England Patriots or some other organisation you don’t represent, contrary to your delusions.

Common sense: If this could be applied in all sports and at all levels I’d be eternally grateful. Anyone reading this has experienced a situation/decision/initiative in their own favourite sport which beggared belief, or beggared a six-year-old child’s understanding of reality, which is probably a more accurate measurement.

I have included common sense as the last in my list of pleas because, unfortunately, there is a greater chance of that fella you know in work who bores for Ireland about his team dropping the first person plural than there is common sense being introduced in any sport.

Enjoy the holidays!

No gain, no foul...

Interesting piece in the New York Times last week about the evolution of the foul in professional basketball — how various serious individuals’ fouls led to reappraisal of the consequences of those fouls, rule changes and adaptations, how the game itself evolves, and how the rules have to move with the changing sport.

This kind of deliberation is irresistible to your columnist because it soon moves from small technicalities in a rulebook to some far deeper, more searching questions.

What is the appropriate sanction for a game-changing foul? What if that foul was accidental but still game-changing in its consequences? What happens when several small fouls have those kinds of consequences? What about a team which sets out to manipulate the rules to their advantage, breaking the spirit if not the letter of those laws or rules?

The takeaway for referees at all levels may be more straightforward: Even professionals make allowances.

Seasons ending in the sun

Had an interesting chat with Limerick manager John Kiely last week, and among the many interesting points he made, one related to an issue I raised about team preparation.

I asked whether he and his management team were getting used to the rhythm of the season, given they were a few years on the road. He pointed out the difference in the structure of those seasons: “Look at the last two seasons. We had one season which started in September and finished in December, one which started in April and finished in late August, and now we have a season starting in January and finishing in July.”

It brought home to me, with a bit of a start, that there are actually going to be All-Ireland finals played next July, a scheduling decision I intend revisiting at a later date, but it also threw the last couple of years into what bad writers call sharp relief.

If you’d said at the end of 2019 that the next two seasons would look like that, you’d have been advised to lay off the sherry trifle.

At this stage, though, a July finish to the All-Ireland championships looks like something near normality.

Bidding farewell to Didion and Kinsella

Adios to Joan Didion, who passed away last week at the age of 87. You may have come across her work in The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), a stunning work which deals with the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and its aftermath.

She wrote novels and, with Dunne, screenplays, including The Panic In Needle Park, which gave Al Pacino his first starring role.

But the early books of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979) are... is there an emoji we can drop in here for ‘chef’s kiss’? David Grann of the New Yorker mentioned the cool cadences of her sentences, and if you’re looking for cool cadences, try the last two books mentioned.

However, I can’t let the day pass without a nod to another great writer we lost last week.

All of us of a certain age remember Mirror in February, and Another September, Thomas Kinsella poems that were taught in school, the first two in the evocative Soundings book with the green-blue cover.

Kinsella had a long and fruitful writing career, which includes Butcher’s Dozen on Bloody Sunday and a groundbreaking version of the Táin. If he came to mind last week in relation to your grappling with English in the Leaving Certificate, though, that’s no bad legacy either.

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