Mayo: the story of our lives

PAINFUL MEMORIES Meath's Tommy Dowd celebrates scoring a goal against Mayo in the 1996 All-Ireland Final replay at Croke Park. Spot the famous white plastic bag on the ground? Pic: Sportsfile

Reflections
Colin Sheridan

With a start he was awoken
From a middle of a dream,
He’s making movies in his head
That never will be see,
He’s holding oscars in his hands
And kissing beauty queens
What might have been
- Whipping Boy, When We Were Young

A PLASTIC bag swirling in the wind. A torn hamstring. A lost ticket. A desert holiday.
A moment of clarity at the Wailing Wall. Nobody’s asking for it, but I realise my life story could be told as “Losing All-Ireland Finals; a play in three parts.”
Nine acts that have tracked me from childhood to parenthood. The tenth instalment coming this Saturday, just as the first did; with me absent from the action, surrounded by children, sitting on a couch.
For many of the current Mayo squad, 1989 is not a year but a Taylor Swift album.
Only David Clarke may recall the Mayo team climbing the steps of their chartered flight from Knock to Dublin, waving back at us like astronauts boarding a shuttle for the moon. TJ, Jimmy Browne and Willie Joe; theirs was a voyage into the unknown; victory an idea, not a realistic possibility. Whatever turbulence the team may have experienced on their short flight, it was nothing like what befall the Sheridan family as we traveled to Dublin via Castleblayney, where, unbeknownst to me, I was to be left.
There I was, nine years old, thinking I was destined for the Canal End, when the only “end” I was ever going to be on was that of my cousin’s couch. The trip was beset by punctures and car sickness. Eight of us in a Ford Granada. The Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan went smoother. I was still a little confused as to my whereabouts by the time Anthony Finnerty bagged his onion, and the Canal End - where I was supposed to be - erupted.
That Mayo lost to Cork seemed to matter little to my nine-year-old self. I recovered from the deception and the loss. The homecoming was more fun to witness anyway.
If the novelty of 1989 was defined by my innocence, 1996 was marked by what a sceptic I’d already become. Successive losses to Cork in minor and Under-21 finals – punctuated by
the emotional hangover of the 1992 Donegal debacle — had ensured the innocent boy had matured into a cynical young man by the age of 15.
Nothing shocked me; not the targeting of Liam McHale, not the dubious refereeing.
Sceptic or not, that loss was like a knife to the heart. I’ve often thought I imagined the white plastic bag dancing in the wind as Tommy Dowd sunk the dagger under Hill 16. Sam Mendes - the director of American Beauty - was obviously seated in the Nally Stand and was inspired by the traumatic poetry of the moment. That bag has remained in my subconscious, like some irremovable dirt beneath a fingernail, for 24 years.
If I emerged from 1996 world weary and stubborn, 1997 was more of a midlife crisis.
With stoicism came expectation. Reaching the ‘97 final was almost a given. Kerry held no fear. Even so, I thought I was ready to take whatever cruelty the Gods had ready, but, truthfully, I was reduced to tears by half-time. My brother Maurice tore his hamstring minutes before the break, and, as he hit the hallowed turf, felled by the invisible sniper, I gave up. My other brother Mark was seated beside me and, a little embarrassed by my public display of anguish, he gently urged me to cop on, that all was not lost. He obviously reported my emotional capitulation to my parents, as I was shipped off to the army within weeks.
You could argue the seven years between finals provided welcome respite, but for the unmerciful pain Galway heaped upon us clocking up a couple without breaking sweat, mocking our “tortured soul” self-view.

Dream sequences
THE 2004 final is like a blur; I recall meeting family friend, Fr. Michael McGreal from Westport on the way into the ground, and as he casually lectured me on Durkheim, the division of labor, and anomie, I got distracted and dumped my ticket in a bin outside Croke Park with a load of Domino pizza fliers I’d been handed. As signs go, it was a rather emphatic one, delivered by an esteemed Jesuit cleric. The fool I am, I returned to said bin and emptied its contents onto the street, receiving very christian encouragement from punters as they passed. By the time I took my place on Hill 16, the dream was all but dead again.
In 2006, I chose a holiday in Dubai over attending the final. I’d need a ten-part Netflix series to fully explain the forensics of that turn of events, only to say it was a decision not taken lightly (or, quite frankly, by me). It could be argued that of all the finals to miss, it was perhaps the best/worst.
I compounded my guilt by calling home that night from the desert, a little emotional, incurring a phone bill that would have bought me an apartment in Bulgaria at the time.
In 2012, it was not love but duty that deprived me. I listened to the game on a wireless alone in my room (could we call it a bunker?) in the middle east, as the drought got a whole lot drier. I spent the entire week before contemplating what it would be like to not be there when it finally happened? Perhaps the players would dedicate the victory to me?
Another phone bill for the ages. The day after the final I found myself at the Wailing Wall in the old town of Jerusalem. As I sat and watched the pilgrims do their thing, I figured if there was anyone who should be wailing, it was me. What had they to wail about?
Try being from Mayo.
The finals of 2013, ‘16 and ‘17 all morph into Kubrickian dream-like sequences, bookended by tragic texts from friends that read more like Tom Waits lyrics than rational game analysis.
I can recall moments from each, but can rarely differentiate one game from another, save for I sat beside my father for one of them.
He played an All-Ireland minor final for Mayo against Dublin in 1958, as a 16 year old. He won Hogan Cups in Croke Park and a senior championship for Mayo as a teenager.
How profound it would’ve been to be beside him when we finally won it? Alas, the auld triangle went jingle jangle, again. Dublin paying no heed to the movie playing in my head.
Each of us has our story, each story no more important than the next. None of us foresaw watching from home this Saturday as Mayo once more go over the top. Not having a choice on the matter will assuage any guilt we may feel for being absent.
It might just be that the one time we absolutely can not be there, is the one time we wish we were. Whatever happens, another act in an epic story is set to be written.
Let’s hope it has a happy ending.