Boxing clever for big stories

At the London Olympics last year I could see that John Joe Nevin didn’t want to do an interview after losing his gold medal bout.

I’d have known him from covering the boxing over the years and I could see from the body language — the towel over the head and so on — that he didn’t want to talk, but to his credit he wouldn’t pass me.

He said: ‘I’ve left the country down and I can hardly talk.’ I said: ‘You haven’t let the country down, you’ve won a silver medal.’

I was only going for the mood of the moment, but there was a big reaction to that — I got a load of e-mails and texts about it, and when I met John Joe later he thanked me.

Also at that Olympics, RTE were looking for Katie Taylor to do a piece the night she won the gold, obviously.

There was no sign of herself or her dad, Pete, afterwards because she had to do her drugs test.

Eventually I saw some officials outside the testing zone: I put a towel over my media pass and bluffed my way through security and found Peter and Katie.

They agreed to do the piece, in fairness, which was great. I suppose people wouldn’t be aware of the knacks you have to pull at times to get sportspeople to talk.

In GAA terms I remember being in South Africa on holiday back in 2003 and bumping into a few of the Kerry footballers in a shopping centre in Cape Town.

They said Páidí Ó Sé, then the manager, was in a bad way over an interview in which he was quoted as saying Kerry supporters were the ‘roughest type of f—-ing animals’ you could meet, and that I should give him a call.

I met up with him and he insisted on giving an interview — I had to organise a crew in South Africa, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do — and he spoke about the controversy.

I asked if he’d resign and he said, ‘no more than that man out there on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela.’ And of course he resigned a week later.

There was a big reaction to that interview, too. The funny thing was that he said beforehand he’d have to ring the boss and he borrowed my phone to ring Ireland.

My curiosity was aroused and I said, ‘Well, what did Maura (his wife) say?’

‘Maura? No, I rang the boss.’ ‘Who’s that?’

‘There’s only one boss in Ireland. Charles J. Haughey.’

He’d only do the interview after he spoke to Charlie.

He was one of a kind, Páidí, and I miss him.

I don’t know if it was the worst but there’s certainly one that people remember. I was doing Mayo-Galway a couple of weeks ago and I was hurrying up to the gantry when someone called out, ‘Hurry Marty, Cody is after you.’

After the 2009 All-Ireland final, I met Brian Cody down in the media area in Croke Park and interviewed him after the game live on air.

During the chat he said it was very brave of Henry Shefflin to go for goal from the penalty, and I asked if he thought it was a penalty, not knowing how he’d react.

And he reacted by asking me what I thought, and so on — he got annoyed.

Back to the studio then, and Loughnane saying ‘will someone pick up Marty off the floor’ or whatever.

I wasn’t expecting that response. I thought it was an appropriate question and still do, as the penalty was the turning point in the game. It’s worth saying, though, that I’m as friendly with Brian as I ever was. I thought that might change after the interview, but it didn’t.