Gutted for Gooch on my generation’s Darby day

BEING a football analyst requires checking one’s emotions at the door and delivering cold, impartial analysis. For me this is much harder this time round.

I will come to the match presently. When my parents’ generation explained to me about Seamus Darby’s goal in 1982, I never quite got it. I never got the crystal clear recollections of that day, the tears and the sorrow. I understood what a disappointment it was but never managed to understand the emotional baggage that went with it. Now I understand. Yesterday’s defeat is my generation’s Darby moment. I am heart-broken, but most of all I’m heartbroken for Colm Cooper.

In 2002 I had similar emotions after we lost a game we should have won against Armagh with Darragh Ó Sé as our captain. We were desperate to get him up the steps, as desperate as the Kerry lads were yesterday to give Gooch the biggest honour in our game. Unfortunately life and sport does not always work like that. Gooch knows better than anyone. He has plenty of life experience and won’t dwell on the disappointment.