The Kieran Shannon Interview: ‘Football is something you do, not something you are’

This is a story of a Cork schoolboy, though not the one we’ll begin with. When I was in fifth and sixth class in St Columba’s National School, Douglas, we had a brilliant teacher called Billy Madden. He’d nurture a love of reading, expose us to a range of sports beyond a GAA about to celebrate its centenary, and calmly guide us through that cold transition from sums to maths. To help us with the even more challenging Gaeilge, he’d proffer a number of templates that were likely to come up as an essay in an entrance exam. What is your favourite pastime? What do you want to be when you’re older? He knew his students well enough to gauge that football was a favourite pastime and a topic which would engage them, but he also knew the harsh ways of the world enough to suggest to us that the odds were against any of us ever playing for Ireland or a team in England. And so, he’d coolly wipe the chalk off his hands and bring us through what he’d just put on the board.

‘Nuair a bhí me níos óige, bhí me ag iarraidh bheith I mó pheileadóir…’ When I was younger, I aspired to being a footballer…