How was it for you?
JANUARY starts with a bang in the Kingdom as Páidi Ó Sé mentions in an interview that the entire population of the county are animals. RTÉ fly Marty Morrissey to Cape Town to sort out the mess ... in a bizarre piece move of reverse Cromwellism, the IRFU decide to disband Connacht ... in an obvious portent of the summer to come, Mick O'Dwyer begins his 50th year in competitive football with defeat to Longford. He still smiles. Think he knew something we didn't ... in the Premiership, West Ham revive fading survival hopes with a couple of draws before Glenn Roeder details Gary Breen to shadow Ruud Van Nistelrooy in the FA Cup. No prizes for guessing what happens next ... England convinced Wayne Rooney is heading on the same road to ruin as Gazza because he chews gum on a TV show ... relations between the GAA and the GPA are described as cordial ... hearts murmur in tabloid offices as Anna Kournikova ponders her future in tennis.
FEBRUARY and with impeccable timing, Roy Keane finally closes the lid on his international career, the evening before Brian Kerr's first match in charge ... an exhausted Armagh demolish Dublin in Croke Park. Dubs hearten themselves, saying no All-Irelands are won in February. Or June or July ... Mike Tyson's behaviour is said to grow more irrational because he gets a tribal tattoo. Granted, it covers half his face, but those whom the media wish to destroy ... the Six Nations begins promisingly enough. England look ominous but the other five console themselves by saying 'at least, we score tries' ... well apart from Wales, where there are riots after defeat to Italy ... On the day millions march against the impending war in Iraq, Ryan Giggs misses the easiest chance of the season and Arsenal beat United at Old Trafford in the Cup ... everyone agrees it is an omen for the Premiership ... Mick McCarthy is back in gainful employment Bookies stop taking bets on Sunderland falling ... The Aussies beat the Poms at another sport football. The gloating is heard around the world.
MARCH and Nemo Rangers finally justify their tag as the standard in club football by defeating Crossmolina in Croker ... Birr people again put their back out carrying PadJoe Whelahan shoulder-high from Croker ... With an accuracy Diego Forlan will never have, Ferguson chips a football boot into David Beckham's eye ... real news is put on hold in Fleet Street for a few days ... Brian Kerr's reign gets off to a decent start with four out of six points on a fraught trip to Eastern Europe where Kevin Kilbane is almost knifed ... Cheltenham comes and goes with Rooster Booster among others making Irish punters pretty happy ... Ireland beat France in the six nations ... deluded folk talk of possible World Cups ... England put paid to that
APRIL is the cruellest month for anyone attending the Leinster-Perpignan European Cup semi-fina. ... Tiger Woods doesn't win at Augusta, yet. Despite fears, the earth continues to revolve around the sun ... at Congress, any progressive motion is laughed from the room but relations between the GAA and GPA are described as cordial ... a goal-less draw sees causes Alex Ferguson to engage in mindless triumphalism in Highbury ... Real Madrid are prove beatable when they meet a solid defence in Turin ... King Ken makes it all the way to the final at the Crucible but finds Mark Williams in ruthless form.
MAY and Annika Sorenstam becomes golf's Emily Pankhurst and Mary Wollenstencroft rolled into one as she is accepted to compete in the US PGA Colonial event ... in the Portmarnock clubhouse the boys gather and guffaw as the Swedish legend narrowly misses the cut ... Deco will never again be some lad from Dublin for thousands of Celtic fans, as the talented Brazilian shreds the Bhoys' incredible season with a magical display in the UEFA Cup final ... four days earlier, Rangers captured the SPL by a single goal ... Andrei Schevechenko reduces small children to tears with the intensity of his stare before he scores the winning penalty for Milan in the Champions League final ... in the previous 120 minutes, everyone else is was reduced to tears of frustration as watching two Italian sides cancel each other out .. Kilkenny and Tipperary engage in a thriller of a league final in Croke Park ... a stirring hurling season is confidently predicted ... United win the championship ... Arsenal stroll to Cup victory over Southampton ... Ignacio Garrido emerges from the golfing wilderness to take the PGA Championship after Darren Clarke had threatened to storm Wentworth on the Saturday morning ... Clare take the latest round in their feud with Tipperary.
JUNE and David Beckham is going to Real Madrid or Barcelona or AC Milan Ireland defeat Georgia and Portugal next summer becomes possibility ... Carl Lewis, the crusader for clean athletics, is implicated in a THG scandal ... in the championship, Laois beat the Dubs with Pauric Clancy giving a wonder show; Dom Corrigan leaves the bedside of his dying brother to direct the shock of the season, as Fermanagh beat Meath; Galway and Mayo inevitably reach the Connacht final; Limerick hurlers flatter to deceive; Kerry hurlers stun surprise the country; Tyrone slip slowly into second gear ... Tiger Tim plays above himself at Wimbledon again ... the tabloid attempts to turn Venus and Serena into sex symbols come to a sudden halt with the advent appearance of another nubile young Russian teen ... Wayne Rooney proves himself to be the great English hope against the Turks.
JULY and The Sun is the most outraged as Ramon Abramovich
buys Chelsea, or Chelski as
an oh so-witty sub-editor has
dubbed them ... Claudio Ranieri engages in the biggest spending spree football has ever known ... suspicions abound as to how a thirtysomething can become a billionaire in post-Soviet Russia ... Steven McDonnell gives the show of the summer in destroying Limerick, ... finally he is being recognised as one of the finest attacking talents football has seen ... Micko loses his teeth as Laois captured the hearts of a nation with a Leinster title success ... John Mullane takes a stand against Cork supporters waving the Confederate Flag ... Stephen Cluxton draws a kick at an Armagh fella and the Dubs have another fruitless season, Declan Browne finally gets on the Croker stage and doesn't disappoint ... Beckham-mania erupts in Madrid or so certain English organs would have us believe ... Kilkenny win another Leinster title ... the annual Leinster in crisis stories are wheeled out in the media ... Frankie Dolan plays the game of his life as Roscommon unexpectedly make it to the All-Ireland quarter-finals ... there are is no naked games of pool to celebrate.
AUGUST isn't the same without an obscure winner of the US PGA Championship. Shaun Micheel , on a break from his successful wrestling career, duly complies at Oak Hill ... blanket protests atin Donnybrook as RTÉ's GAA team get a little carried away by Tyrone's 'new' tactics ... the nation discovers professional walking is no longer just a fun way to wiggle your backside to loads of Irish people as Gillian O'Sullivan returns from Paris with a medal ... the Premiership begins with Sky promising the best season ever ... relations between the GAA and GPA are described as cordial ... Wexford hurlers perform that Lazarus trick of theirs in Croke Park again ... but can't do it two weeks in a row ... there is much consternation in the Kingdom at how Tyrone beat them ... the following week, Steven McDonnell and Tony Blake have a merry dance at Croker ... Armagh still emerge ... the World Championships pass in Paris and nobody really notices ... a nation weeps for Sonia again ... Glenn Roeder brands David Connolly an angry ant ... Irish supporters have other things they could brand him ... Arsenal and Man United turn up the heat from the very first minute of the Charity Community Shield with tackles flying, bodies lying strewn across the Millennium Stadium ... Thierry Henry complains the ref has no eyes as Gary Neville escapes an obvious red card
SEPTEMBER saw Dublin putting up the barricades for the northern invasion. Armagh and Tyrone people are were planning to run amok in the capital, on and off the field apparently ... when no trouble arisesarose, high-horses are mounted were found all over Ulster ... the game itself iswas a forgettable affair, 21twenty-one scores and the under-current of a ruck but a nation delights in seeing one of the greats finally get to lift Sam ... Colm O'Rourke feasts ed on a straw hat ... a few weeks earlier, there is was an air of inevitability about Kilkenny's double-double ... had Cork been more ruthless, they might have upset the apple-cart ... Old Trafford and Arsenal defenders over-react to a missed penalty ... the red-tops with an ear to Ferguson want Martin Keown hung, drawn and quartered ... the red tops on speaking terms with Wenger defend Keown's commitment ... Gerard Houllier pleads for more time to get it right as Liverpool resemble live relegation candidates ... Oscar De lay Hoya, the only boxer the world remains interested in, loses to Shane Mosley in Las Vegas ... sometime around this month, Michael Schumacher wins yet another Grand Prix title although it iswas closer than recent years ... on the 23rd, Rio Ferdinand goes shopping in designer store Harvey Nichols rather than take a drug test ... lazy columnists don't have to work for months.
OCTOBER and that Heineken ad is has been shown so often on television that we are all beginningstarting to believe that every four years the nations of the world gather for the biggest celebration of sport. For a few weeks, Mondays see more stifled yawns and red eyes than usual normal in offices around the country as for three consecutive weeks, the country gets up to cheer on Ireland. A poor performance against Argentina, one of those heroic failures against the Aussies and a drained display against the French and it is all over. Luck isn'wasn't t a bedfellow, Denis Hickie and Alan Quinlan followed Murphy's lead and join him ined the sick-bed ... and three tough games in three weeks, nobody else hashad that sort of schedule ... There are was no such excuses for our soccer team, the loss of Kenny Cunningham notwithstanding, as they are were out-classed in Basel with Switzerland trampling all over the flicker of qualification hope that still burned. We consoled ourselves, by saying Brian Kerr's real reign won'wouldn'tt begin until the World Cup campaign ... Andy Reid is proclaimed the great white hope of Irish football ... Steven McDonnell excels once again, as Ireland lose to the Aussies in the Compromise Rules ... By Melbourne Cup time, everyone is exhausted by the early starts ... good thing, too ... a man in Chicago continues the curse for the Cubs as his maniac lurch for a baseball means the Cubs miss out on the World Series final ... again
NOVEMBER begins with one Australian newspaper asking the pommies ifwas Jonny Wilkinson is all they havegot and endsed with the no 10 emphatically answering that he is was all the poms need ... Wilkinson looks ecstatic when his drop-kick goes over ... thousands of faces turn from the telly in disgust at the sight of Martin Johnson lifting the Webb Ellis trophy ... the paramedics are on hold in Donnybrook in case George Hook needs them ... TG4's Underdogs blatant disregard for the watershed grows with each episode. Grandmothers around the country unite in shock, crying 'he didn't learn that kind of language from me' ... Scotland shock Holland but it only lasts four days ... Latvia shock Turkey and the world, and despite the whole of Ireland cheering them on, heroic Wales are defeated by Russia ... Thierry Henry gives one of the finest individual performances in Champions league history and is immediately proclaimed better than Zidane ... Gerard Houllier pleads for more time ... LA Lakers stand behind Kobe Bryant on his home debut as he scores 21 points ... Irish man Brian Carney stars for Great Britain 'and Ireland' as they lose to the Kangaroos in the Rugby League Ashes.
DECEMBER starts with the exciting prospectexcitement of those fabulous footballers from France coming to Dublin and renewed pressure on the GAA to open the doors of Croke Park ... the dyed-in-the-wools emerge in Cork to criticise Sean Kelly for being the most progressive President since Peter Quinn ... Gary Smith's U-20 side fight gallantly in the UAE but a trio of suspensions and a determined Colombian team eventually are their undoing, despite a heroic come-back to bring their second round match into extra-time ... Setanta Ó hÁilpin, hurling's first sex symbol, absconds from the sport to try and revive the sleeping giant of Aussie Rules, Carlton. In his first televised interview from Melbourne, he breaks the record for saying 'jaysus' in one sentence ... Another heroic failure from Celtic after a rush of blood to Bobo Balde's head ... The Dubs almost lose to the Underdogs ... Tommy Lyons refuses to talk ... Chelski plan to spend even more money in January after going out of the Coca-Cola Cup to Aston Villa ... time is almost up for Gerard Houllier ... Páidi Ó Sé trains the Westmeath footballers on Christmas Day
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