Cork lose to Kerry in Croker…again

In Boston they say that a baseball season never ends so much as a new one begins. After the curtain fell on another season for Cork’s footballers on Sunday – with so little drama on the sport’s brightest stage – it’s that evergreen attitude we on Leeside must adopt.

When Kilkenny won their fourth All-Ireland SHC on the trot, their supporters – acting in politeness rather than real instinct, I suspect – vaulted the pitch side barriers at Croke Park and invaded the pitch en masse to celebrate as they always have – with their players.

The stadium officials, of course, had attempted beforehand to encourage fans to stay off the surface so they could carry out the ambitious plan of a Champions League-style trophy presentation in the centre of the field. When their hope was brazenly trampled into Bono’s freshly-laid grass in Drumcondra, the big screen (the largest outdoor telly in Europe) screamed the ominous but instantly-classic message in large white letters to the long-suffering stewarding staff: Go to Plan B.

They might have well have flashed it up a few more times during Sunday’s game as both Cork’s team and the red half of the attendance were compelled to change tack quickly, despite an encouraging start. Beforehand the bandwagon creaked under the weight of the Rebel County’s new-found football support, who boasted a cockiness and confidence that sounds as natural as Shandon bells in the Rebel County. Now as it became clear Sam was not in fact returning, the refrain became: ‘ah sure it’s only football’.

It’s what pollsters who gauge feeling in the run-up to elections might call ‘soft opinion’. We were certainly all for the proposal of an All-Ireland title. But if it doesn’t look likely we’ll insulate ourselves in a layer of cruel humour and nonchalant sporting snobbery. But it is only football, after all.

A great Bostonian, one John F Kennedy, of course, fought a dual war (exactly like Cork GAA does) in battling Communism in an overt Cold War as well as a clandestine, back-door diplomatic chess game to ensure the Cuban missile crisis didn’t bring a violent end to the world in the early 1960s. In short, because of Kennedy, we on Leeside can again say ‘there’s always next year’.

But I’m not sure how many have the stomach for another season right now after what was an All-Ireland Sunday knotted in disappointment; we can handle defeat (even to Kerry)– but the manner of the capitulation is a dull ache that will throb for the winter.

In these straightened times, a more frugal approach on the pitch would have seen us reclaim Sam after 19 long summers in exile. Charlie Haughey – the Kingdom’s favourite Charvet-shirted prince – once warned us that we were living beyond our means. He could have said the same to the Cork forwards who offered their neighbours the ultimate bail out with a bankrupt policy of hitting wide after wide throughout the game. Waste not, want not.

Late on the Monday night after a similar defeat in an All-Ireland final in recent years, I saw, as I made my way home, one of the county’s stars (I won’t say if it was hurling or football, so don’t ask) in a darkened city centre doorway, being consoled expertly by a sympathetic female admirer. A police squad car rolled alongside kerbside, the Garda (probably a Kerryman if we’re honest) furtively rolled down the window and leant out into the September night to address the humbled and now-preoccupied hero. “Imagine if ye won the f******* thing?” he said to the startled couple, before freewheeling off down Washington St. Imagine indeed.

It wasn’t a spur from the Vince Lombardi School of motivation, but it wasn’t too bad. However, maybe the difference between the two counties is that if Kerry had lost on Sunday, the panel would have been cloistered on the side of an isolated mountain for the winter, with only the warm breath of failure on their necks when in bed at night. Alone, apart from the ghosts of failure, until redemption was once more on the horizon. That’s certainly what happens in Kilkenny.

The last time Cork brought the Sam Maguire home in 1990, I was eight years old. The Berlin Wall was down, marking the end at last of the Cold War, but the dust was yet to settle at Checkpoint Charlie. People still went jogging in tracksuits they procured with tokens from Flahavan’s Porridge. And young soccer fans were still paying off loans and repairing relationships after a memorable trip to Italy. Yes, it’s been a long time.

But for the hurler on the ditch, waiting is part of the joy. And this team, in the main, is a young one. Like a good slap from a Christian Brother, when the stinging eases, the lesson will be learnt. This felt like corporal punishment, but we won’t forget it in a rush. And so there’s a whisper of optimism for next year.

When Aaron Boone’s home run landed like a dart in the left field seats of the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in the earliest minutes of October 17, 2003 it brought to an end to the Boston Red Sox’s title hopes for another year. Against the city’s great rivals – the Evil Empire, as they called the Yankees – Boston had failed again, prolonging the wait since 1918 for a World Series pennant. Any other city (or county) might have dumped all remaining optimism into the harbour like a War of Independence tea party.

But in retrospect, the end was just the beginning. Twelve months later the supposedly-cursed Red Sox came from three games down in the World Series to complete the most dramatic comeback in baseball history – and spark the wildest and wettest celebrations – as they beat, you guessed it, the Yankees. The bitter half-empty glass you taste in defeat to your greatest rival is the sweetest motivation to fill the cup with champagne the next time. Drink deep for now, but the race for Sam starts after the next full stop.

This guest column first appeared in this week’s The Kingdom newspaper

Contact adrian.russell@examiner.ie Twitter: @adrianrussell