The Star of the County Down
Talking Balls Comments
“We will conduct trials, but we want to invite the best possible players to those trials. In order to do that, we are going to have a night in the Canal Court Hotel where we will meet all the Division 4 and Division 3 managers.
“We want to meet them and ask them who they think are the best players in their divisions. We also want them to see that we are human, and that we are not these aloof people working from ivory towers.”
As anyone who knows any Down GAA supporters or worse again former Down players will know immediately there will be no shortage of highly opinionated pains in the arse willing to give their opinion whether they’re asked or not. The meeting could be a sell out!
In an ideal world the conversation would throw up some intriguing suggestions:
“Is yer man Jake still playing for St Patrick’s. No by Jasus be transferred to the Burren, but sure he was dropped from the panel for smoking fags. Aye I hear he give them up a while back. Jaze he’s some operator, he can quare’n kick points for fun. He scored 3.8 from play for the reserves the other night down in Castlewellan.”
Typically the opinionated Down supporter will wear a cashmere coat (or a waxed Barbour coat if over around the age of forty) accompanied by a large golfing or Club Down umbrella. If a former player, he may be sporting some sort of Down playing regalia given out at one of their regular self-congratulatory-celebratory events marking one of their distant All Ireland successes. Nothing less befits the self styled aristocrats of Ulster football.
They live in mortal fear of Tyrone or any other county matching their relative success of five ‘modern All Irelands’ and indeed their biggest problem may well be in convincing themselves that in order to win in Croke Park they need to do more than simply turn up. Only in Down could a double All Ireland winner in Peter McGrath be asked in a job interview did he think his team in the nineties under achieved? This at a time when Derry, Tyrone and Donegal were fielding handy enough outfits and McGeeney’s Armagh side were gestating. Ye can just see the gobshite that asked that question preening himself in front of the mirror before he left the house, waxing the jacket, extending and de-extending his umbrella and kissing the All Ireland medals individually before he leaves the long suffering wife and delusional children.
Anyway, good luck to James in the team (Note he has two good Tyrone men in there, that’ll drive the Down blue bloods mad altogether mind you!). If anyone feels like going along and lobbing a few red herrings into the name stew, then be at the Canal Court hotel in Newry on Sunday night. We’ll be there with a few white elephants, a few dead ducks and the names of the entire Down back division from last year. You never know, DJ Kane may even get a recall.
