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Daniel Carey
HALF-TIME at McHale Park, Castlebar. Mayo 1-6 Sligo 0-3. Nothing to worry about, eh? But what’s this? An announcement on the PA system – “Noel Judge to the Mayo dressing room”. Had the defender’s man of the match performance against Kilmeena led to a late call-up, or were a few Bonniconlon lads taking the law into their own hands?
Whatever the reasons behind the tannoy appeal, the Mayo rearguard reappeared intact for the second half for the second half. Neither was there any place for Kieran Varley, Pat Clarke and Seán O’Shea, although all three were named in the caption which accompanied a recent Mayo squad picture in the match programme. The members of the trio bore remarkable resemblances to Enda Varley, Pat Kelly and Seamus O’Shea respectively, while poor Pat Harte (who scored 1-1 on Sunday) was left out of the caption altogether.
Issues of possible mistaken identity weren’t confined to Castlebar, however. One sports fan at a Mayo hostelry listened to John Giles’s views on the European Championship game between Holland and Russia on Saturday night and commented astutely: “Isn’t your man awful like Pádraig Nally?” There was further confusion on the east coast on Sunday. Those following the Leinster football semi-final over the web would have read that after 30 minutes, Wexford’s Matty Forde managed to get away ‘from his maker (sic), Laois corner back Joe Higgins’ before hitting the post. Not even divine intervention was enough to deny the Model County, and the man who had masterminded the downfall of God (or should that be Higgins) was deservedly taking the plaudits.
In all the excitement, Wexford manager Jason Ryan was inadvertently labelled on radio as Jason Byrne – a Dublin comedian who refereed the All Priests’ Over-75 Indoor Challenge Football Match on Craggy Island.
No such hullaballoo in McHale Park, and so the national anthem went off without a hitch – unlike the previous evening, where one attendee at an Achill wedding had stood to attention for ‘My Life’ by Billy Joel in the belief that she was listening to the opening bars of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’.
The football mightn’t have been much to write home about, but those decrying the poor quality of fare on show could at least turn to the match programme for confirmation that things could have been worse. The clár’s revealing trip down memory lane trail revealed that Roscommon had beaten Galway by 0-2 to 0-0 in the Connacht final of 1912 – now that’s a centenary worth commemorating. Sligo fans looking for succour could also find it in the programme, where their 1-7 to 0-0 defeat by Galway in 1929 (when they were also reigning champions) was recalled. “At least we scored this time,” said one man decked out in black and white who needed cheering up.
Some of his fellow countymen seemed determined to enjoy their trip regardless of the outcome, and gave us a dose of ‘Champ-iones, Champ-iones’ in the second half. The theme music used by Sky Sports for darts competitions also got what must surely have been its first outing at McHale Park.
Some of the national media journalists thought Sligo were even worse than Clare, and as Kevin Keegan would say, there’s no higher praise than that. Jubilant Mayo supporters sang ‘Tommy Murphy, Tommy Murphy, Tommy Murphy’ to the tune of ‘Here We Go, Here We Go’, but by the time they thought of it, many of the visiting fans at whom it was directed were already on the road home.
