Talking Balls Issue 35 - Well Informed Ignorance
Talking BallsIn this Christmas season of joy and goodwill, there’s one place and one place only for your Christmas shopping:
Oh Come All Ye Faithful, joyful and triumphant
Oh Come Ye, Oh log on,
to Squareball.com!
Happy punters speak for themselves so get this from Jimi:
“T shirts ordered Tuesday mid morning, arrived Wednesday morning first thing…brilliant. Any chance you could train our club back line to be as fast!!!”
We couldn’t have made it up! Our only question was, is this Jimi Hendrix? Has he too faked his own death? Certainly if he has been alive he will have enjoyed the hurlin’ this year and maybe got hisself one of them Squareball tee shirts.
Talking Balls travelled up to Derry yesterday to take part in the attempt on the World Record attempt for the most Santas ever in one place. Needless to say the world record was shattered. As the office WAG said though they would have had no chance if Derry were trying to shatter the world record for Wise Men.
Anyway, continued season’s greetings. Remember if you have an Office party, make an arse of yerself - that’s what we’ll be doing at ours!
If everyone around you is getting paid, you’re on a county squad. If everyone around you isn’t getting paid, you’re a volunteer. For everyone else, there’s always Talking Balls.
Perfect presents… Santa sez Sledging is Only Part of It…
This week, exclusively and only in Talking Balls (and we’re amateurs at this remember?) the Mouthy Corner Back’s Guide To What You Can do With Your Presents…
Are you related to a member of the GPA and prepared to admit it? If so we have the perfect present for Christmas - a Squareball GPAP tee-shirt. Yep, that’s right Gaelic Players Aren’t Paid. Dessie, Donal and co can wear it and still look stylish over Christmas at the GPA Office party. That do’ll be some craic with them three - glum, glum and glummer!
But what about ole Uncle Hiram that used to play corner back for the Intermediate hurlers years back and has been visiting Weightwatchers of late to recover his former svelte shape? No better man for a Hendrix was a Hurler tee-shirt. Nicely fitted for Hiram to show off his incredible reduced bulk.
Now your cousin Orla’s some yoke - to the family’s eternal shame she is in the running for shirt-tugger of the year - oh dear. Yep, with our Missing a Stud tee - she can show off her assets over Christmas and let people know that she does exactly what she says on her tins.
Nothin’ like a hoodie or zip top to keep you warm at a match especially if you have a St Stephen’s Day special like some clubs. So if you’re moving swiftly from pitch to social venue a Squareball hoodie lets you show your true colours in style. PS Altho’ we say they’s for men the red hoodies also look the part on the female of the GAA species.
In the land of the blind the one eyed girl is queen - so for your sister, who thinks ladies football is the real McCloy - our Birds Are Better at Football will cover her glories as good you ever saw.
If your da is the curmudgeonly old hoor in your club that refuses to carry a mobile phone, modernised the club shirt ‘over my dead body’ and has two day jobs that require a charisma by-pass - tax inspector and club secretary - then get him an Open Croker to Other Sports shirt. Even grumpy old men can change you know! Well you can only try…
Gael Cliché isn’t an Arsenal soccer player - no, it’s every word that comes from the bake of the stereotype club manager. You know him - the man who looks for 110% and for whom every games has two halves. What does he tell you to do when the score’s on? Take Your Points and the Goals will come. Of course he does. Always has done, always has been…
Every year, they appear from the woodwork, the so called friends who always call when September comes maybe lookin’ an oul All Ireland ticket. Time to give them the message… and what better way than a Last Tickets tee-shirt.
Every county has a few of the ‘burn the ash’ brigade - especially up in the dirty Nort. Squareball’s Hurley tee-shirt is tailored and not just for the anti-iomaint brigade. Call themselves GAA men?
Dreamin’ of a blue Christmas… if you know a Dub, God help you. If you are one - commiserations. BUT, all is not lost - we have a real clinker of a present for you and your friends from the Hill? What is it? A Hill 16 tee-shirt - where the world’s blue and so is the language.
A famous Vietnamese dignitary visited Croke Park to watch Cork v Waterford. He was so impressed with what he saw he allegedly declared: “Puc Me, What a Game” thus inspiring a radically new Squareball tee-shirt. People from everywhere in the world will gape open jawed at a hurling match - and this tee-shirt.
Things can get hot and heavy during the Season. Sometimes, in the passion and heat of the moment - with all the pulling and off the ball stuff - things happen we might regret later. Remember, this coming Season, Play Safe - Wear Protection. If you need reminded - do that, & get the tee-shirt.
Now girls, every fella thinks Christmas is the time to be jolly especially after a tough oul season. But if you’re choosy about who you man-mark under the mistletoe then this is the tee-shirt for you. Tell those randy reindeer lovers - Out of Your League. Better still, get someone to buy this for you - save you the cash.
Wexford Girls Cash in For Dream Holiday
Not ones to miss a trick, the Wexford Camogs have brought out a trio of products that
Offers a ‘blow by blow’ account of their season.
A commemorative calendar, book and DVD have been launched at a do on Thursday night at which players were on hand to sign autographs, chat to punters and we suppose give ‘blow by blow’ accounts of the season just passed when they did a great job in bringing it all back home to Wexford for the first time since 1975. The PR blurb promises ‘action shots’ and fabulous footage of the after match celebrations.
If you would like a bit of festive viewing or reading, then send a cheque to Alan Aherne at 44 Pinewood estate Wexford. We don’t know whether the Calendar is one them coy ‘Calendar Girls’ type jobs, where the girls will have a pair of size 4 sliotars covering their assets and the bas of a goalie’s hurl covering up the bits lower down. If you want to find out, get the cheque book out and send some dough to Alan. The proceeds will go towards a dream holiday for the squad next March.
Talking Balls can exclusively reveal that the Junior All Ireland Champions Derry are producing no DVD, book or calendar and that talks concerning a possible team holiday weekend in Gaoth Dobhair learning Irish have broken down.
Brown Envelope Plans to Dig Out Players
Following news that Central Council has rubber stamped the pay per view arrangement agreed between ‘some members of the GAA’ and various other bodies as the resistance would have it, Talking Balls can exclusively reveal that a consignment of brown envelopes has been ordered from a leading stationery supplier to aid and abet the process.
It is believed that a white van will also be used to travel round county training venues for the disbursement - it is the same sort of van that was implicated in Dominic Corrigan’s removal as Sligo boss in a car park a while back.
It is also understood that the Powers that Be have invested in some of the new ‘Goggle jackets’ which will mean that any county board officials or other amateurs involved in disbursement activities can maintain their anonymity and go about their normal unpaid volunteer work safe in the knowledge that they can’t be accused of paying anyone. Talking Balls Link: http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/New-hoodies-are-a-yobs.3560688.jp
The goggle jackets are inspired by the achievements of some old fashioned Italian car racing dude. Squareball founder Niall Laird was nowhere to be found to comment when Talking Balls was looking to ask him if there was any oul chance of the leading Irish GAA themed fashion brand digging out the authorities on this one with a special limited edition.
Kerry Gold
In this the season of county conventions, strikes being called off and largesse from His Bertie’s Government for the prima donnas of the GAA world, Talking Balls read with interest the Kerry Secretary’s report on the running costs for the Kingdom’s footballers.
The team holiday for the All-Ireland winners to Australia last year cost over €322,000, an increase on the previous season when there was no official holiday, but players were rewarded with vouchers to the tune of €212,000.
Furthermore, it is reported that the cost of the Kerry senior team, including holiday and medical costs, is estimated at around €800,000 for this year. Meals, accommodation and travel to league and Championship games amounted to around €115,000, training expenses cost over €250,000, and physio and medical expenses are estimated at around €100,000.
In that scale of things, €2600 isn’t that much money is it? A few weeks back we heard that Francie Bellew God Love Him erroneously tipped a waitress $2000 dollars as he didn’t understand the money system in Florida. Is it wise giving some of these fellas pocket money at all when they go on their holliers?
Fess Up Lads
This week has been a great one for the holier than thou brigade. Talking Balls loves and cherishes the organization more than most and indeed we’ve done things for the games that we wouldn’t do for the wife…
But surely there’s a whiff of hypocrisy in some of the comments we have heard in recent weeks. How many clubs have we heard come out and say
“Yes, we pay a manager from another club to come and train our senior team. We do it because winning something is the only thing that’s important round here and we can’t agree within the club who should be senior manager because there are so many vested interests or because all the boys that managed in the past were shite and we won f*** all.
“So, the local contractor is throwing a big bung at some fella that drives miles twice a week and then again on Sunday from darkest Tyrone, Armagh, Derry, Down etc (Delete as appropriate) to try and turn our bunch of perennial losers into winners. If they last through the first few rounds of the league they’ll be doing well such are the demands from our club and the abuse they get from players’ mothers. I used to manage the team myself and the shit I got from people who knew me was shockin’. Imagine goin’ to a club where no-one knows you??”
So has there been an outburst of honesty or is Talking Balls doing a huge disservice to the managers on the merry go round that turn up at hick, tumbleweed-blown-thru clubs that might have been good once but now are dismal backwaters. Maybe all these fellas are driving miles and miles for years on end because they love the game. And that’s before we would even consider what county managers might be rumoured to get.
If we’re right, let’s see a few clubs fess up. If we’re wrong we’ll take our boot in the hole with pride, knowing that our association is safe in the hands of the amateurs.
Tyrone Hurlers off the Pitch
Tyrone secretary pulls no punches in his attack on his own county’s hurlers. Never considered a hurling powerhouse by any standards, Tyrone’s county players have been damned for taking a cavalier approach to preparation and training. Read for yourself:
“If Tyrone as a county intends to progress from its lowly position in hurling, there is an urgent need for those players that consider themselves as ‘county players’ to look at themselves and ask are they really serious about the game at county level.
“Perhaps they do not have any ambition, perhaps many are happy to treat league and championship fixtures as social games, where it is considered sufficient to turn up on the day without having undertaken any preparation, practice or training,” he says.
“If this is all that players want for Tyrone hurling, they should be honest enough to say so at the season’s start.”
He reveals that many of the players failed to show up for training sessions in preparation for the Nicky Rackard Cup.
“With the completion of the NHL fixtures there followed an 11-week gap until the commencement of the Nicky Rackard competition. Unfortunately, Tyrone did not make good use of this period of time on the training field.
“The team failed to prepare, with training sessions reduced to one per week, and the non-attendance by many making sessions worthless. Sufficient players did make themselves available to field against Armagh in the opening game, where a heavy defeat was the inevitable outcome.”
This phenomenon isn’t unique to Tyrone we should add. For example last season Derry travelled to an away match in the Christy Ring Cup, staying the night before at Co Board expense. A number of players went on the piss, staying out until five or six in the morning before lining out to represent their county for an early throw-in. Dual players in the Oak Leaf county repeatedly point out the lack of commitment to hurling by players when compared to football. It is no secret that many of the county’s best hurlers over the years have been playing for the football team. Maybe this year with Brian McGilligan at the helm, the Derry lads can build on the promise shown by their excellent Under 21 team from last season.
For Tyrone hurling the prognosis looks grimmer - being slagged off by Dominic McCaughey is a new low. Although he won’t be administering the funds I would say Dom would rather give them a boot in hole rather than dish out any financial reward.
Paddling Yer Own Canoe
In the week that yer man came back from the dead after goin’ missin’ out of his canoe, Resident Expert Ger Manas asks the question was he the coach of a camogie team? That would be enough to drive any man to fake his own disappearance - he speaks from bitter experience.
It must be an interestin’ experience - fakin’ your own disappearance, paddling your canoe off over the horizon hoping never to be seen again like that fella Reggie Perrin. I often felt like that mysel’ after sessions with a senior camogie team. With more PMT on the go than a full nunnery the broad Atlantic has its appeal. Many’s a time I drove straight from training them women right down to the pier and launched a wee bit of a boat I have and headed out for a bit of fishin’. One time after a particularly annoying load of oul shite between a couple of them I toul them I’d had enough so I set off down to me boat. Next thing I looks back up at the shore and the team was shouting and waving, callin’ me back in - one actually started to wade out into the sea. She felt a bit silly when I toul her I’d to lift a couple of pots I’d left down and forgot about.
Someone was asking me over the weekend at the John Duddy boxin’ match what it was like coachin’ women. I was in talking to young Duddy before he boxed that Eastman lad. Sez I ‘John, he’ll hit you good and f***in hard but it’s not if you go down but whether ye get up. Remember the dig Cahalane hit Enda Gormley in ‘93? Remember how well he played afterwards?’ He knew exactly what I meant but I though now he could have hit Eastman another couple of thumps from time to time. I was asking him about coming in to talk to a team of ours about his preparation and also maybe how to throw the punch to end all rows. If you’ve read this before ye’ll all know that I’m a great believer in the man that can burst some hoor with one almighty dig in the jaw - as if it was threwn by Thor himself.
Anyway back to coachin’ women, they are a total and utter mystery to me. I’ve been deliberatin’ whether to give a dig out again with a camogie team. The commitment of some of them is unreal - so too is their skill and ability. For others the level of fitness and the application is pure shite. One yoke won’t train, the thought of running more than a few yards makes her keel over lookin’ a physio. Grand I thought, she’s got some sort of problem. Then I saw her out one night we went on a ‘bonding’ session. I’ve never seen one woman dance like it - she was like a f***in dervish, poundin the air with the fists, backside swingin’ this way and that - one of our under sixteen lads was there, shouldn’t have been right enough but f***in hypnotized he was. Another one, would drink vodka and tonic to a band playin. Horses it into her, no bother but at least come trainin’ and playin’ she can actually play. Another one has all the talent but she needs more mental massagin’ than my dog - unreal. Another one wrecks hotel rooms like somethin’ out of Led Zeppelin. They’re grand girls but every so often one or two of them behave like f***in loopers. They start crying at training or they fall out with one another and bitch like there’s no tomorrow, or they f*** me and yer other man out of it or whatever. I dunno what the cure is, don’t even know what the cause is - all ye see are the symptoms.
So I can see why yer man decided to head down to the water and let on he fell out of his own canoe. Stupid thing is he came back - God Knows why. Apparently to try and prove he’d had amnesia he showed great surprise when he was toul Big Ian Paisley and Marty McGuinness were running the North. Now even a brain dead, amnesiac dumbo could have seen that one comin’ from years back. I see too pictures of McGuinness and Bertie with Donal Óg Cusack in New York last week. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall there. Maybe Martin’s giving Ogie advice on how to bring a large militant organization with him as he engages in delicate negotiations with the government. With Paisley guldering in from the sideline: “Young Donald, no surrender - not an inch - remember the inches you need are everywhere around you. Yes, in every break in the game. I always told Mo Mowlam that a dirty deal was no deal and look where that got me - I’m running the show so you hang in there.”
Anyway, all that remains is for me to tell you some of the Christmas presents I’ve been ordering. I’ve bought Liam 07 for the son - he’s part of the burn the ash brigade so if I buy him that oul DVD I’ll get to watch it myself. I got the grandson a set of goals from the GAA Store. Best couple of hundred euro I ever spent - God knows how we’ll get them up on Christmas eve after a festive gallon but sure Jaze it’ll be some craic. I bought the other nephew one of the undershirt jobs that keep ye warm when it’s cold. Was going to buy mesel’ one but they’re a bit clingin’ and I don’t want to be wobblin’ and scaring folks but hi, ye need something these days for winter football.
Other than that, I’ll be doing my Christmas shopping in one place only - and that’s Squareball.com. Jaze them tee-shirts is powerful!