The Hitchhiker’s guide to the GAA-laxy

The Road to Croker is littered with costly, and painful, extras, but none as painful as Adrian Russell’s (pictured) attempts to do it on the cheap (And he still spent €100 on us). This is his tale of woe.

ASK A New York cabbie, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” and they’ll invariably tell you “practice, practice, practice”.

With my collar pulled above the nape of my neck, to shield myself from a sheet of the wettest Kerry rain, as I shuffled along the road between Killarney and Tralee before 8am on Saturday morning, I realised getting to Croke Park was a journey not dissimilar.

But it’s more a case of thumb, thumb, thumb.

It started out as a journalistic experiment to gauge — as ‘The Recession’ casts a long shadow over our depressing summer — how cheaply one could get to Croke Park and take in one of the ever-present highlights of the season: the Championship action.

And in doing so, I was to cross the border from Cork, under cover of darkness, and join the Kerry fans wending their way to Dublin, and perhaps unravel one of the Association’s great mysteries — if it is a mystery — why Kerry fans don’t travel before September.

Like St Patrick crossing the Irish Sea to convert the masses, a Cork man, perhaps, needed to show his neighbours the way to Croker (Letters to [e-mail]).

I was to do this by reeling in the years, to a day when the Celtic Tiger was but a cub and people stopped along the road to offer much-needed lifts to those thumbing on the highways and byways of our little country. I was to achieve this though, deep behind enemy lines in the Kingdom, on the day their footballers played a much-anticipated All-Ireland quarter final against Galway in HQ — while wearing a Cork jersey.

I quickly realised a day I thought might resemble an interesting episode of O’Gorman’s People mixed with Up for the Match, was about to descend into what No Frontiers might look like if Kathryn Thomas developed a crippling crystal meth addiction amid the Indian sub-continent’s most violent monsoon. It was to be the longest day, and I’m certain no one coming out of Kerry — not Gooch, Donaghy, no one — worked harder than me to get to Croke Park on Saturday.

A national radio station last week heralded the death of the hitch hiker in Ireland, insisting the practice is extinct — partly, perhaps, thanks to our new-found wealth and busy lives etc. Certainly, my teenage sister, when told what I was undertaking, was confused as to what exactly we were talking about. “Hitch? Hiking?” Thumbing a lift is not on her radar.

Presumably she thought the ribbon of scruffy looking youngsters, she may or may not have noticed down the years, who dot the nation’s road network with their thumbs cocked, were just congratulating my father on his impressive driving.

The radio station’s argument became all too real to me on Saturday morning. Walking from Killarney, out the road towards the county’s biggest town, I was passed by car after flash car. Some offered half-apologetic shrugs, one a heart-felt two-finger salute, more still just ignored the idiot in the Rebels’ 1984 jersey.

Money spent: cup of tea and breakfast bap: €6.50

Like a child on the night before a school test he hasn’t prepared for, promising to study if it just snows during the night, I vowed I’d pick up any old vagrant waving a sign for Rosslare in the future, if I just managed to get in next to someone’s car heater for a while.

Eventually — and after, in fairness, just an hour of feeling like the ignored wallflower at the parish disco — the glorious flash of an indicator signalled acceptance at last and I skipped giddily after the stopping van.

The driver was a Romanian man, living in Killarney for the past few years, who seemed more preoccupied with the weather than even your average Irish native. He was going about his business delivering refrigerated goods though he wished he was back at home, he admitted, on the ivory beaches. He knew the English for ‘topless’, but not, for instance, ‘war’.

A lover, not a fighter.

He didn’t know anything about Kerry’s trip to Croker, but explained he hasn’t watched any Gaelic games since his arrival. He brought a TV receiver from home and watches Romanian channels only.

As we careered wildly towards the next leg of my journey, which I had suddenly found new enthusiasm for, he revealed an almost Tourettes-like habit of offering a little, sexist beep of his horn anytime we passed an attractive woman, accompanied by a sharp yelp — as if he was in pain.

When I enquired gently about this custom, and how it has gone down here, he admitted that he honked and hollered unconsciously on the way to bringing his pregnant wife for a hospital scan recently; which provoked a loud and sustained attack.

My new friend kindly dropped me at the bus station in Tralee — I didn’t have the heart to explain my complicated modus operandi — and continued with his working day.

After a 30-minute-or-so spell walking around the town, and then out towards Castleisland and Limerick — which seemed like the way I came, to be honest — I was happily picked up by a young lad on his way to look at a car for a friend in Limerick. An apprentice mechanic, he was full of chat, curious to know too why I didn’t get the bus.

Though grateful for the spin and glad he wasn’t an axe murderer, I would’ve almost taken my chances on the road again, after a few miles listening to the ridiculous dance music he obviously felt was ambient. When given the option to jump in Newcastle West, I bailed with thanks.

From the picturesque town, I happily scored a lift with a girl called Aine, who was happy to take me a lot of the way to Dublin. It was before noon still and I was confident of striding, like Phileas Fogg, entering Leicester Square, into a packed Croke Park to a standing ovation.

But as we edged through the throbbing traffic, I realised this would be tight. Outside Portlaoise we came to a complete and sudden standstill. After hours on the road — and having a good run at it — I was to be undone it seemed by a slight accident. Cars emptied, as Kerry jerseys filled the road, while more still pulled U-ies and rushed elsewhere. At last at 1.50pm we were ushered through the bottleneck.

The 2.06 train to Dublin from Portlaoise was now the target as no lift would get me to Drumcondra in two hours, and that’s if I got one at that stage. We made the train. Aine said she felt like Anneka Rice. I could’ve done with a helicopter.

Money spent: €6.50 + €10 for train ticket = €16.50.

From here I thought it was easy: I folded myself into a seat and promptly fell asleep only to be awoken by my own snoring, to be greeted by the faces of two visibly upset children. But we had arrived. I shared a cab, with a father and son from outside Tralee, all the way to Croker.

Money spent: €16.50 + €5 for taxi = €21.50

Picking up a match ticket wasn’t as easy as envisaged. A wave of Armagh fans were washing out of the stadium, while their championship hopes were shattered. With them came a crest of tickets that looked fine but had already been scanned. So I bought one from the box office and took my seat.

Money spent: €21.50 + €35 for ticket = €56.50

And what a game we were treated to. It made the slog worth it but, as we know, reaching the summit can be the easier part compared to the unglamorous descent. And so it proved, as every cloud that chased me all day, opened up directly above Hill 16, I think you’ll find, and unleashed hell. Jones’ Road flooded, taxis disappeared, buses were full. How was I to get home?

€56.50 + €9 for hot dog and beer = €65.50

I waded through the city to Busáras to find there was no room at the inn; I made it to Connolly station to find the Luas stop is closed for the summer. Who knew? And when I ultimately made it to Heuston, I had no qualms about handing over the money for a train ticket.

Now I truly was behind enemy lines. I peeled off my soaked Blood and Bandages — everyone was stripping down — to the loudest cheer of the day. From there to Killarney again, it was banter all the way. But I’ve been invited back for the semi-final, where it’ll be same seats again, apparently.

Money spent: €65.60 + €33 = €98.60

And so I made it back to Base Camp Killarney, having spent less than €100, feeling like Jack Kerouc’s Sal Paradise character in On the Road as he sees the bright lights of San Francisco after bumming his way across the great American continent to the rhythm of the beat generation.

My Saturday has been more green and gold than star-spangled banner, but a day on Ireland’s highways proves the Road to Croker is invariably full of incident and character.