A lament for Giants Stadium

February 4, 2010 in American Football, Football, Sport | Comments

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Old soldiers often visit now-green fields which long ago heard their last gunshot in order to retrace hard-made steps and remember battles fought.

If any gnarled and scarred Irish veterans of the memorable USA ‘94 campaign ever make the pilgrimage stateside, the site of their most famous victory will be utterly unrecognisable.

Earlier today, the demolition of Giants Stadium got started when a massive metal claw bit chunks from the cement helix. Dust clouds poured into the Meadowlands air as concrete and metal spokes poked through the shredded facade.

The stadium is merely 34-years-old and was, apparently, perfectly fit for purpose. But in that most American way, it was decided to topple it and start again. Renewal.

Just like the renowned and beautiful Yankee Stadium which went the same way recently and the Mets’ Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium was discarded like an old fashioned overcoat, before a new ‘facility’ is built right across the street.

There are, I think, few pleasures in life more exciting than a great sports ground in the pregnant hour or two before a much-anticipated event. Like that Heineken Cup TV advert which depicts a grizzled old groundsman recounting sepia-tinted days in the stadium while memories of solid tackles and spectacular tries visibly haunt the turf, sitting in a stadium and imagining the history that was played out in the little bit of real estate is a wonderful little experience.

Anyone whoever played the backroom in Cork’s Sir Henry’s could claim a shared performance heritage with Nirvana and Sonic Youth (and they did) and so too anyone who sat in a stadium seat that was witness to sporting soap opera, plugged into its rich history.

I wasn’t at the game in 1994 on that searingly hot June Saturday. And now, alas, I won’t be able to sit high in the bleachers in New Jersey and replay in my mind’s eye what I witnessed on the televison on the green canvas in front of me.

Due to the mutli-chrome spectrum of sports that was hosted in Meadowlands, I could have made my X on any blade of grass and hit upon a splinter of history.

As well as field goals kicked, Springsteen anthems bellowed and goals scored, labour leader Jimmy Hoffa was said to be buried in the foundations at one end zone (the Hoffa Zone, predictably).

This has since been disproved but it’s a good story, and it’s a great place to be dumped – if you were, in fact, killed by mobsters.

Here in Ireland? We’ll always remember Giants Stadium for Ray Houghton’s looping goal over a stranded Pagliuca that sent the country into absolute raptures. Paul McGrath once recounted a time when Villa played Inter in the UEFA Cup I think and the Italian goalkeeper grabbed him by the arm in the tunnel and sang, unblinkingly, ‘Oooh Aaah Paul McGrath’ at a bemused Black Pearl of Inchicore; a ditty learned that day in New Jersey.

If the demolition machinery creaked to a halt now, you might just hear 50,000 red-neck Irish people oohing and aaahing still.

Cross posted to the Irish Examiner sportsblog.

The wisdom of Shaq

February 3, 2010 in Basketball, Sport, Twitter | Comments

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Anyone who follows NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal on Twitter is lucky enough to have their mundane, work-a-day lives punctuated by lightening strikes of comic genius – intentional or not – from the Cleveland Cavaliers star.

Now – at last! – someone has made motivational posters for you, reader, from Shaq’s musings. I encourage you to print them out and paste above the office watercooler, next to the ab-crunching machine in the gymnasium or simply leave on the LUAS for random and demotivated commuters to pick up and find a morsel of inspiration.

If you feel you’re ready for the wisdom, you can find the rest here.

Another dimension

February 1, 2010 in Football, Sport, TV | Comments

From the front page of today’s Irish Examiner: Bertie Ahern watches the Arsenal-Man U game in 3D in Fagan’s. Insert your own joke.

Emmet Ryan of Action81 was there for us – you can check out his report there, including the former Toiseach’s opinion.

On the road to Croker

January 25, 2010 in Uncategorized | Comments

Ask a New York cabbie, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” and they’ll invariably tell you “practice, practice, practice”.

With my collar pulled above the nape of my neck to shield myself from a sheet of the wettest Kerry rain, as I shuffled along the road between Killarney and Tralee before 8am on Saturday morning, I realised getting to Croke Park was a journey not dissimilar. But it’s more a case of thumb, thumb, thumb.

It started out as a journalistic experiment to gauge – as ‘The Recession’ casts a long shadow over our depressing summer – how cheaply one could get to Croke Park and take in one of the ever-present highlights of the season – the championship action.

And in doing so I was to cross the border from Cork, under cover of darkness, and join the Kerry fans’ winding their way to Dublin, and perhaps unravel one of the Association’s great mysteries – if it is a mystery – why Kerry supporters don’t travel before September. Like St Patrick crossing the Irish Sea to convert the masses, a Corkman, perhaps, needed to show his neighbours the way to Croker. Letters to the editor at sport@examiner.ie.

I was to do this by reeling in the years, to a day when the Celtic Tiger was but a cub and people stopped along the road to offer much-needed lifts to those thumbing on the highways and byways of our little country.

I was to achieve this though, deep behind enemy lines in the Kingdom, on the day their footballers played a much-anticipated All-Ireland quarter final against Galway in HQ, while wearing a Cork jersey. Read the rest of this entry »

The American way

January 24, 2010 in American Football, Sport | Comments

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Many of my readers – perhaps even both of you – will spend this rainy Sunday night in front of the fire, watching the NFL action on Sky.

American Football has now more than a cult following, I would suggest, on this side of the water. The Cork Admirals compete in the Irish American Football League (IAFL). It is some operation, as I saw for myself here.

I received an email from the Admirals, who are again recruiting players for the upcoming season which begins in March. For anyone interested, the details are below and there are plenty of other teams around the country who are no doubt in the same need for players.

[We] are always looking for more to get involved as the sport and its clubs are a big set up from coaching staff to game day crews, club members and of course they the sport is demanding of high numbers for its squad set up. A lot of people think the Admirals have no openings which is quite the opposite and if you are interested in learning more or getting involved look up their website for contacts www.corkadmirals.net and there are plenty of links to other teams around the country

Contact: admiralsironman@hotmail.com Web: www.corkadmirals.info

Busy days, Busey nights

January 21, 2010 in Sport | Comments

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God knows it’s lonely out there in computer land.

So, in the first of a new series, which will almost certainly petter out immediately, Hollywood odd-ball Gary Busey takes time out from his busy schedule of not reading scripts and painting with his feet (seriously) to round up the best of the world wide web.

Bussey’s first pick is a an interesting piece on Futfanatico about how new pay walls will affect your television consumption of sport. This is unusual, as he thinks TV is the devil.

Despite a much-acclaimed portrayal of the eponymous Rock’n'Roll icon in The Buddy Holly Story, Busey likes a bit of funky, cartoon trip-hop. Consequently, he’s very excited about Gorillaz upcoming album and this track with Bobby Womack AND Mos Def.

CNBC’s newest documentary is set to blow the lid on the seedy world of the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit edition. I for one will be watching. Gary, meanwhile, watches the seaside magazine photoshoots from an anchored dinghy so has no need to.

The Conan and Leno thing has been fascinating for all of us. But especially so for wacky film actors who live within sniper fire of the Sunset Strip. Gary is interested in the roots of O’Brien’s relationship with the network boss, however.

Steven Seagall, an avid Sligo Rovers fan inculcated a love of the League of Ireland side in his co-star on the set of Under Siege. So, naturally, Gary was excited to see Bit’O'Red forward and Benin international Romauld Boco interviewed by Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian in Angola.

Having starred in the first Lethal Weapon, Gary knows a thing or two about a young talent/sociopath shaking things up in a workplace. Cesc Fabregas is Mel Gibson to Sol Campbell’s Danny Glover on the Examiner sportsblog.

And an Italian reporter decides to find out for herself whether or not David Beckham was enhancing his goldenballs in all those racy Armani ads. This is nuts, and not even Busey condones it.

Baseball and 30 Rock

January 20, 2010 in Baseball, TV | Comments

I saw this in the latest episode last night and thought of you guys.

And here’s some good dancing from my favourite character in the show.

The End of the Road by Cormac McCarthy

January 19, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

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FIFA decided earlier not to punish Thierry Henry for his cheating in Paris in November.

Fortunately, as I sunk into a deeper spiral of frustation and self-pity, America’s greatest living writer Cormac McCarthy texted on a few bits and pieces, in an effort to make sense of this dystopian, achromatic football world.

Nice one, Cormac! LOLZ xxxx

“People were always getting ready for tomorrow.
I didnt believe in that.
Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.
It didnt even know they were there.”
— The Road

Essentially, what the Pulitzer Prize winner is saying here was actually best paraphrased by one Roy M Keane: Fail to prepare; prepare to fail.

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”
— The Crossing

This one is clear: we need goal-line technology and/or a video referee.

“Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you’re happy again, then you’ll have given up. Do you understand? And you can’t give up, I won’t let you.”
— The Road

A note of optimism. Trap has a good squad with some lovely young players coming through – James McCArthy, Seamus Coleman et al. The skies grow greyer by the day. But come July, some sunshine may crease the sky again and Euro 2012 will tilt into the horizon.

“If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
— The Road

Translation: why didn’t the Duffer just stick that one-on-one with Lloris? Henry could’ve thrown the ball into the net afterwards and we wouldn’t have cared.

“The rain falls upon the just
And also on the unjust fellas
But mostly it falls upon the just
Cause the unjust have the just’s umbrellas”
— The Stonemason

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini protect the bigger nations, according to McCarthy (no relation to Mick, incidentally). The seeding system is endemic of a flawed process. We have no umbrella and John Delaney, we now know, needs an umbrella.

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
— No Country for Old Men

This book was written during the Staunton era and so the sentiment is understandable: we could’ve been mullered in South Africa.

Old-Timey reporter invades modern press conferences

January 10, 2010 in Internet, Merk, Sport | Comments

This is the cat’s miaow. “Why, this is the daffiest word-slinger this side of Tuscaloosa. He’s a grade-A quack, we tell’s ya.”

Ice, ice baby

January 9, 2010 in Athletics, Features, Football, GAA, Golf, Hurling, Rugby, Sport, Swimming | Comments

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The news broadcasts are creaking under the weight of cliches like ‘blankets of snow’, ‘big freezes’ while footpaths are engaging in treachery.

As the country has slowed ground to a halt, the sporting world has been the same.

Meanwhile, in today’s Irish Examiner, despite the present icy inertia, about two dozen of our staff writers and columnists have looked ahead to the events that will define the Irish sporting year. I can’t link to the website as it’s a graphic but check it out in the hard copy if you’re in Ireland. There’s some surprising calls.

In the meantime, here’s my effort: Read the rest of this entry »

Take me out to the ball park

January 9, 2010 in Baseball, Sport | Comments

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The great American novelist John Updike, though not a sports writer, did at times indulge his nation’s favourite pasttime. And when he did, he hit a home run.

Updike, who passed away this year, was once in Boston to visit a friend. He knocked on the door, received no answer, so with a summer’s afternoon to kill he headed to the Red Sox’s famous old home, Fenway Park, for his first visit. He picked a good day. While the press box was bloated with the city’s jaded baseball beat reporters, Updike, like a scientist who inadvertently discovers a much sought-after remedy, found he was witnessing, from the bleachers, the last game – and the memorable farewell – of Sox giant Ted Williams.

He dispatched a song of a report to the New Yorker magazine recounting poetically William’s typically cranky so-long speech and the home-run that was the denouement to a heroic career at bat. “Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs – hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn’t tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted ‘We want Ted’ for minutes after, he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.” Wow.

Those who stumbled upon the championship game in the B division of Ireland’s baseball league last Saturday may not have realised they had wandered into their own little Fenway, but I wondered what Updike might have made of the apple pie scene folded into Clondalkin all the same.

Munster Warrior players are strectched out on the grass in preparation for the final game of their maiden season. The motley playing roster are, in turn, relaxing in fold-up chairs, swapping last-minute tips, talking about their favourite TV comedy (it’s The Inbetweeners) and discussing Saturday night’s planned celebrations in Limerick city. They have a record this year of 12-0. And judging by the mood, everyone expects to make it 13 for 13 with a win over today’s opponents: The Hurricanes. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t bring your guns to town

January 8, 2010 in Basketball, Sport | Comments

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I thought we had actually smashed through the looking glass when Tiger Woods and his over-active micky became valid topics of discussion around watercoolers, on bar stools and, weirdly, in golf clubhouses.

But just when you thought the world of sport couldn’t get any weirder, two NBA stars pull guns on each other. And then one of them makes a joke of it (above) in front a shocked audience. Bang bang.

It’s Deadwood meets Curb Your Enthusiasm as the Washington Wizards’ already embarrassing season (in last place, despite high expectations) has spiralled into farce thanks to an armed stand-off which was sparked by game of cards and an unpaid debt.

Essentially, Arenas and Jarvis Crittenton quarrelled over a post-game, in-flight game of poker. Reportedly, Arenas attempted to change the rules to suit himself mid-game and subsequently welshed on the debt.

When Crittenton demanded the $80,000 Arenas apparently owed, the more senior player presented three guns and a scibbled note, reading: ‘Pick one’.

Last night, before the Wizards game, Arenas was surrounded by his teammates as he knelt on the court and pointed his index fingers at them, as if he were firing guns. A photograph, above, shows nearly all the players laughing or smiling.

This is Jimmy Bullard and his Hull City teammates’ celebration for slow learners.

NBA officals went thermo-nucleur today and said the fines would be contingent in part on whether Arenas and his teammates planned it ahead of time.

The player is now under investigation by the feds and local authorities for possible violations of the strict gun laws in the US capital, and evidence is being presented to a grand jury. Because the Verizon Center in a designated “gun free zone” Arenas would be subject to twice the fine or jail sentence if he is convicted.

The Wizards leading scorer says he kept the guns in his locker and took them out in a “misguided effort to play a joke” on a teammate. Gotcha!

Aside from the off-court repercussion, the Wizards could well use this mess to get rid of one of the worst contracts in the league. Arenas’ six-year, $111 million deal could be cancelled by invoking a morals clause, and team president Ernie Grunfeld could break up the rest of the struggling team as the trade deadline approaches.

The New York Post is currently giving the Tiger situation front-page blanket coverage. Last year, I was in New York when the Giants’ Plaxico Burress was enduring the same treatement.

He was sentenced to jail time for taking a loaded handgun into a nightclub and accidentally shooting himself in the leg. He also faces a significant league suspension upon his attempt to return to the NFL. Could the same be in store for Arenas?

Like the majority of NBA players, Arenas has a rash of tattoos all over his body. On his leg, he boasts what he calls Mount Blackmore – depicting Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Barack Obama.

Obviously, two of those men, were killed by gunfire. It remains to be seen, if Arenas’ career recovers from this pistol-whipping.

The Power and the glory… and me

January 4, 2010 in Darts, Sport | Comments

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After Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe died, her one-time lover and baseball giant, Joe DiMaggio had flowers delivered to her graveside daily, such was his devotion.

Since I met 15-time darts world champion in November, I’ve felt the same. Every day I’ve thought about that overweight, middle-aged man from England’s midlands, and kept a vigil for his PDC title hopes.

And yesterday ‘The Power’ delivered another famous victory at the Ally Pally beating the unseeded Australian Simon Whitlock 7-3 in the final.

And all this despite – proabably because of – being one of the most difficult men I’ve ever had to talk to – and I interviewed Tommy Tiernan once.

I caught the post train from Cork at 5.30am to make our breakfast meeting where I was promised, I’d get to throw a few arrows with Taylor. But when Taylor continually ignored our suggestion to go to the oche, or go and get darts, the press guy remarked in an over-the-top stage whisper behind his hand: “I don’t fink the champ wants to throw this mawnin’.”

I then conducted a ground-breaking and far-reaching interview while he supped herbal tea by a hotel lobby fireside. He hung up the blue showtime shirt he wore yesterday next to him, and casually preened it while I fired questions at him.

I can now reveal:

a) despite contrary claims by a certain King, Taylor does not remember former Port Vale midfielder and Cork City legend George O’Callaghan.

b) James Milner is the best footballer with whom he ever played darts.

c) he won’t be doing and celebrity weight loss shows anymore.

For more, you’ll have to read the column.

God bless you, Phil. But I’ll be shouting for the other guy next year.

Back to Bryant

January 4, 2010 in Basketball, Sport | Comments

Ok, normal service resumes after a lot of end-of-year stuff that kept us ticking over during the Christmas period. Normal service, around here, means video footage of Kobe Bryant’s weekend, obviously.

Is the great man losing his touch. He got swatted by mere mortals in the last two Lakers games. Via (Hoodoctors)

Quotes of the year: football

January 3, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

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Irish Football

“I remember hearing about Brian Clough trying to get Archie Gemmill to sign, he slept on his sofa. That’s what I’d do with Stephen (Ireland) … well, I wouldn’t sleep on his sofa, I would sleep outside his house to try and get him back.” — Roy Keane — who we’ll be hearing of a lot of here — advising Giovanni Trapattoni to invest in a sleeping bag.

“We are arguing about Henry when we should be erecting a statue to him … when I think that certain politicians want to replay the match… they don’t even know if the ball is round or oval and they would be the first to come and drink champagne in South Africa. The replay? I’ll do it when you want on a PlayStation.” — A remorseful Patrice Evra after Ireland’s World Cup exit to France.

“In the case of Thierry Henry’s handling of the ball … an entire nation has taken on the role of unjustly oppressed victim — something the Irish do well, having had several centuries of practice.” — Dominic Lawson writing in the Sunday Times. How can you justly oppress a victim, by the way?

“I want to pay tribute to the Irish team and their fans, what they did over two matches — they gave us a lot of problems and I want to congratulate them. I’m disappointed for them and their public. But bravo to them.” —– A puke-inducing Raymond Domenech.

“France were there for the taking and Ireland never grabbed it. The usual stuff. Afraid of that next step. Mentally not strong enough. They can complain all they want, it’s not going to change – France are going to the World Cup, get over it. We don’t want sympathy… it’s the usual carry-on, boring. Bore you to death, they would. Boring.” — Roy Keane offers us a shoulder to cry on.

One Liveline caller to Joe: “I’m fuming over that Roy Keane fella, Joe. The cheek of him. The men of 1916 would be spinning in their graves.”

Joe Duffy: “Listen to him again Anto (the tape of Keane’s press conference), you can interrupt him if you want.”

Anto: “Interrupt him? I’d knock him out if I got my hands on him. The cheek of him. He was a great player but I tell ya Joe, as a manager he’s s**t. Even his Cork people — and I’ve never heard them do it before — even they’re calling him a langer. And that’s what he is: a langer.”

Joe: “Thanks Anto.”

Anto: “Good luck.” Read the rest of this entry »

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