The Unassuming Goal Celebration of the True Gael
Talking Balls Comments
The carefully weighted pass across the goal that has Brolly and Jarlath stroking themselves and everyone else in pleasure. . . Tommy Freeman gathers the ball and hammers it low into the net. A decisive chapter in the story of the game.
And what does Tommy do? Does he slide kneewise towards the adoring faithful from Magheracloone, Scotstown, Clones and Emyvale and elsewhere gathered on the Andytown Road end terrace; does he rip off his skin tight O’Neills shirt to reveal a heartfelt message to that other Easy Rider Dennis Hopper; does he embark on a bewildering routine of somersaults and back flips that Greg Louganis would be proud of? Does he dance like Roger Milla or pout like Cantona?
No, Tommy does what all self respecting forwards who have just rattled the onion bag do. . . he takes it all in his stride, running back out to his position, but most of all he’s pointing and gesticulating at real or imaginary positional deficiencies among his teammates. “Mark up there Finlay, get beside Mallon; McManus ye hoor ye, did ye see that finish; Rory ye big melder, mark that fecker Vernon; emptied the tank there boyz, our fella drop off, over there!”
Not for him a loud ‘Gwan ye f*******er ye.’ No stony-faced he wheels off, the only sign of emotion maybe a cursory handclap for the delivery of the killer pass. Nothing but the pointing, the signalling, the reorganisation. The poker face. A fortnight earlier, Owen Mulligan, a man who knows how to celebrate if needs be, the same. He reorganised the whole Tyrone forward unit that day, pointing and directing like an Italian traffic cop up Cookstown main street.
The next time some bollix sets off on a celebration a la foreign games, let us all remind him that the GAA way is stoic, sober, full of stern faced pointing and directing, lest any spectators should believe scoring a goal is an excuse for un-Irish and un-Gaelic behaviour. It isn’t. Up with Tommy Freeman and boys like him and down with somersaulting, fist waving, shirt twirling, message wearing, arse wiggling show offs. Feck off.
