‘Gooch’ reveals shock at media reaction

KERRY attacker Colm Cooper has revealed his shock at the media reaction when he broke a squad alcohol ban prior to last month’s All-Ireland qualifier tie against Antrim.

Cooper and teammate Tomás Ó Sé were dropped from the Kingdom line-up by manager Jack O’Connor because of a breach of discipline after the qualifier win over Sligo. Cooper admitted he “was offside” for drinking after that game, but has slammed the subsequent media reaction.

“I made the front pages and I was thinking, ‘Jesus, if this is what happens to a 26-year-old, a guy working down the country and having a few pints, there’s something wrong somewhere’.

“It doesn’t hide the fact that I had a couple of pints after the Sligo game. We weren’t supposed to be having a few pints, that was the bottom line. It’ll make me stronger, maybe mentally stronger. It’s part of growing up too I suppose. I’m only 26 but I put up my hands and said, ‘Look, I was offside’.

“The management had made up their minds and we got on with it. We had to take our medicine. It wasn’t until Friday it made the national media and then it was difficult going to work. I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, this happened, I’m trying to get my work done here and my mother’s at home looking at this splashed across the front of a paper and wondering what’s going on.

“You wonder how you’re supposed to deal with it but it was fine in the end. I told my family the situation. They had no qualms and were very supportive. Similarly in work they were very supportive. I dodged a few bullets that day.

“I felt disappointed because I shouldn’t have done it. Obviously it was because of the way I was playing and the way we were playing as a team. Things weren’t clicking in those games and I’m a person who bottles things up a little bit. So this was my kind of release.

“By Friday I was fine and then it appeared. There were two ways I could go — throw my hat at it and say, ‘F**k them, it’s me versus them’ or just be as tuned in as I could be. That’s the road I went down. Thankfully it worked out and the rest is history.”

Cooper, who was speaking to the Irish Mirror, also insists that he is not burned out.

“You’re not a full-time athlete. In football, particularly in Kerry, you’re a focal point. People want to talk football to you and I enjoy it to a certain extent. But sometimes I think, ‘Jesus, I’m blown out by this’. I get the texts and supposedly I might be going for pints here and there. Supposedly I was at U2 for three nights. I wasn’t even up in Dublin. Myself and Marc Ó Sé apparently weren’t talking at training recently.

“It’s worrying for whoever these people are that they go making things up. I laugh about it. It’s probably disrespectful more than anything. But I can’t control what people write or say or what the experts think. I’m a young fella who plays football to enjoy it. That’s the way it was when I was 19.

“If you’re not enjoying it, pack it in. I won’t pursue this anymore if I don’t. I want to play with a smile on my face.

“I don’t know where people get that I’m not enjoying it but they’re making up their own minds.”