Neal Horgan on the hardest thing in Irish sport: When the two sports you love playing clash

Cork City's Neal Horgan goes past Red Star Belgrades Dejan Milovanovic during the 2006 Champions League clash. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Any child with an interest in multiple sports is familiar with the dilemma.

The weekend eventually comes into view when there’s a fixture clash, and the child has to pick one sport over another.

Neal Horgan, who enjoyed a successful professional soccer career with Cork City before publishing two must-read books about his experiences, identifies those clashes as his hardest thing in Irish sport.

“For me, it was picking between sports at underage level in particular, and the clashes involved.

“I played underage with St Finbarr’s and we had a pretty successful team. We won minor titles in hurling and Gaelic football in the same year — Fionán Murray was on the football team, Cathal McCarthy, Aidan Fitzpatrick, and Alan McCarthy were on the hurling team.

“It was an upbringing in GAA culture, and an amazing way to grow up, singing GAA songs on the way to and from games.

“But I was playing soccer as well, with Wilton and Glasheen, and I enjoyed that too. I enjoyed playing all of the sports, but the hardest thing for me was when the games clashed.”

Horgan points out that “the sports are all trying to do their best for the kids — the Barrs tried to do their best for me, the same as Wilton and Glasheen, but there are going to be occasions when you’re caught in between, and I found that very difficult.

You don’t feel that you’re just leaving down the manager, but you’re leaving down the team if you don’t pick them.

“It’d be great if there was some kind of policy stating that it’s good for kids to play as many sports as possible — maybe the Government could have a role in that, in looking at accommodating kids in playing the different sports at different times of the year. That might sound bananas in one way, but in another way it’d be great.”

Horgan makes the telling point that if sports were organised from scratch now, then those timetable clashes would surely be avoided.

“I know it’s not as straightforward in every other country either, but in some countries there are different seasons.

“Certainly if you were creating the situation in the morning afresh then you’d facilitate people playing more sports and you’d avoid clashes between the main field sports up to a certain age, anyway.

“If you wanted to play hurling, Gaelic football, soccer, and rugby, it would be great if that could be facilitated at least for kids up to the age of 11 or 12.

It’s better for kids, too. I think the science largely supports the idea that the more sports you play, the better, compared to early specialisation.

“I certainly got great benefits from playing football with the Barrs in terms of playing soccer later — you develop other strengths and transferrable skills, you have a wider experiential base.”

Avoiding those clashes would also be better for most players, he adds.

“Instead of focusing everything on the rationale for elite athletes, and the need to specialise at some point, we should realise the vast majority of people won’t end up at inter-county level in GAA or at the professional level in soccer.

“They’d be much better served if they were facilitated in playing all of those sports as long as possible without them conflicting.

“If you think of the length of the seasons, and issues like the weather, those are factors that have an impact on how sports are run. But the basic point is that if you were starting to organise sports from scratch now, particularly at underage, then you’d find a way to accommodate all the schedules.”

For all of that, Horgan acknowledges that he managed the situation: “I did manage to do it, to play the different sports — but you end up playing on about 16 different teams across various clubs and age groups and school teams.

“And I loved it, it was great fun, but it was chaotic enough. What eventually got me off the hook was getting offered a professional contract by Cork City, which ruled out playing other sports. Everyone in the Barrs was delighted for me when I got the contract, as much as I might have been a loss to the football side of the club.”

The wheel turned eventually.

When Horgan finished with the professional game he fell back in with the Barrs footballers.

At the same time Tommy Dunne was managing Cork City FC: When he invited Horgan back to play for City, though, it was a case of revisiting the past. Horgan had to advise Dunne of his commitment to the Barrs for the county championship and the likelihood that he might not be available for certain City games... the code-juggling of childhood, back in adulthood.