Larry Ryan: One giant leap for mankind into the split season
SPLIT SEASON: David Clifford of Kerry and Shane Walsh of Galway shake hands. Kids will still get to see the Clifford and Walsh starring for the rest of this year - just at a more local level. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
We have crossed the line, passed the GAA equinox, tumbled into the great unknown. The season has split, for the men anyway. And for mankind, this is a huge leap.
There are various concerns. Not so much from the countyman, who doesn’t appear to be missing an extra couple of weeks logging his sleep patterns and studying the process.
Nor indeed from the clubman, who just wanted to know when his match would be on, roughly.
But I think it was Dalo who said once, that even if there were no players, there would still be heated argument within the GAA.
There will be some sympathy for the countyman who is plugging away since last Christmas, and is passing himself out still at it next Christmas. But if the colony of performance consultants and S&C gurus can’t say no, at some point, on behalf of these lads, what are they at?
A few youngsters have slipped off to the States, is another concern. An age-old concern. Once, you could have threatened these fellows with the old line, ‘there will be no job in the bank for you’. That should be even easier now the bank is a GAA partner, but alas there are no more jobs in the bank for anyone.
Those worried about ‘conceding ground’ might be somewhat placated when they realise there will be more GAA than ever on various media, considering the managerial merrygoround, the avalanche of club matches, the sudden loosening of the tongue of the countyman, as well as the endless debate about the split season itself.
Though no doubt some will be spooked by the mouthwatering URC fixture list released this week. How many hearts and minds will be lost to the magnetism of the Vodacom Bulls?
But for those concerned that the young lad won’t kick a ball off the wall unless he can see David Clifford kick three points from play on a Sunday, I suppose it’s incumbent on us to bring him to a field where he might see David Clifford kick 10 points from play.
Winning tournaments didn’t make the Premier League great. That was down, of course, to Richard Keys and Andy Gray.
They have enough heroes now, what women’s football needs most is villains. And scapegoats.
There is no need for any more inspiration. Bring on aggravation and revulsion. The small girls have seen enough at this stage to know whether they are in or not. Alessia Russo provided the final piece of that jigsaw by satisfying the English’s great infatuation with the backheel, up there with escargot as a hallmark of continental sophistication.
Russo has also been at the centre of the biggest sign yet that something significant is happening during this tournament — a selection debate has broken out across the pond. Her form coming off the bench has provided a break from discussions about ‘what this would mean’ so they can decide if Ellen White should be axed.
A break from the big picture to focus on the small picture, that’s the kind of thing that will make terms like ‘women’s sport’ redundant.
But it is still no match for the power of controvassy.
Sure, in the short term, defeat might cost Georgia Stanway or Leah Williamson or Beth Mead an appearance on Norton or Jonathan Ross. But consider it an investment.
England may need Alessia to step up again in the final, this time to harshly see red after some obvious baiting by a sneaky German. Lena Oberdorf looks like someone who might oblige, with Alexandra Popp providing a pantomime wink.
They need outrageous wrongdoing by VAR, a hugely costly defensive howler, a penalty sent into orbit in the inevitable shootout, an outbreak of atrocious social media abuse. And a week-long war of words and recrimination waged across all media channels.
That’s the tried and trusted to route hogging the spotlight while you have it.
Ideally, Oberdorf or Popp, or whoever is anointed villain of the piece, will then arrive in the WSL, probably at Chelsea. While Russo flicks up her collars and fires Man United to the title, their boss Marc Skinner having taken an emergency course in mind games and belligerence.
That’s how you build the greatest league in the world. Not through goodwill and joy and entertaining football.
Isn’t it?
In , last year’s satirical, if only slightly dystopian, novel by Dave Eggers, the world gets told what to think by their ‘wearables’. An app called Satisfied? crunches pulse rate and endorphin count to tell you if you’ve enjoyed a meal.
The Golden Globes are handed out by artificial intelligence that measures how much punters liked shows. Sports like figure skating are judged by AI. Another app, called WereThey? trawls childhood photos, texts, college grades and all sorts to rate how good a job your parents did.
And a smart scarf uses an EmotiBit biometric sensor in the fabric to monitor emotional, physiological and movement data during a sporting event.
Hang on, that last one — the Connected Scarf — was launched this week, by Manchester City, and will measure heart rate, body temperature and emotional response, “offering information on how fans feel at different moments”.
“It’s a brilliant idea and gives us more of a special connection with the fans,” were the words typed up for Aymeric Laporte.
It’s a high-risk move by City on the eve of a new campaign, on par with selling all their squad players. What if the numbers don’t stack up? What if pulses don’t quicken? What if the smart scarf tells us watching City is as boring as the football cognoscenti tried to convince us last season?
As a manager, he produced a cup team, before that was a jibe. And he came closer than anyone to showing us what a competitive united Ireland team might look like when he fielded Brady, Stapleton, O’Leary, Nelson, Rice, Jennings, and Devine.
Condolences to his family and friends.
Fergie doesn’t seem to be on the record, mind you, with his appreciation for a lengthy saga where it’s the player fighting tooth and nail not to join Manchester United.
But it can’t be great for the prestige of the brand, that United’s two summer sagas — with Cristiano Ronaldo and Frenkie de Jong — involve trying to talk players round. One threatening to turn into a hostage situation, the other a kidnap.
