Keano GAA style...

Dinny Cronin's story: in his own words



WE ARRIVE in Thurles. The hotel is a kip, i have to share a room with a family of Romanian asylum seekers. Sunday is a rest day. In the evening Timmy McCarthy calls a meeting. There's been a problem. The ham sandwiches haven't arrived. We also have no training gear, no footballs. No holy water in a plastic bottle or other medical equipment. The 2 litre bottles of Nash's fizzy orange we need to take to help us acclimatise are missing as well. The committee reckon the asylum seekers robbed them but it
would be politically incorrect to accuse them of it. Nobody knows what time we're going to train on Monday. McCarthy says we'll just do some running up a hill with two men on our backs.

Because the gear hasn't arrived we'll have to use the Guiney's tracksuits we wear around the hotel. They're heavy,
impossible to pick our lads out from the track suits that all the asylum seekers are wearing.

I went to see McCarthy that night. Quietly, (the family in his room were asleep). What's the story, Timmy? They've let me down, he says. Who are they, I'm thinking (the committeeee?). I said
that the gear should have been here a last night. We're at all Ireland junior club football finals. The following morning we're hanging around the hotel waiting to find out what's happening. Eventually we get on the 1982 'Declan O'Brien' coach to go to the training ground. Timmy got stuck on me cos i had them all at the back of the bus singing 'oh there all a shower of langers up to the front'. The training pitch is like concrete, pot-holed with loads of loose stones and trolleys lying around. Turns out it was a deserted halting site with a big hill up the side. With my injury problems the ground is dangerous.

Afterwards I went to the county board liaison officer, a local guy. I told him there were no ham sandwiches or nash's fizzy orange
here either. He said he was sorry but nobody told him we'd be
training on the halting site today. We could have got Bridie to go to Tesco's if anyone had told us you were coming down. I say, you must have known the BallyMacflurry team were going to train today. No, he replied, nobody told us.

The gear arrived on Monday night and it wasn't washed but sure it doesn't matter anyway, O'Neill's gaa jersey's have the smell of B.O. built into them so they smell whether they're dirty or clean. Next morning we arrived at the halting site. There was a truck there with a water hose apparently the travellers had some scrap cars and they were hosing the oil off the surface. About 20 yards of the site was flooded, the rest was full of used washing machines and shopping trolleys. It looked dangerous. I laughed.

We ended training with a game of backs and forwards. There were no goals, only a couple shovel handles. So we had goals but no umpires. When running up the hill with two men on your back you don't need umpires but when playing backs and forwards you do. So I ask about the 'umpires. O'Driscoll tells me, they're tired. But I said we need 'umpires to have a proper game. We're at the all ireland junior club football finals! "They're tired," o'Driscoll insists, the county board threw on a tab in bar last night for the selectors,mentors and offeeshills..

"We're all f***ing tired," I replied. The game went on; no umpires.

After training I went over to Donie, the 'holy water bottle' man. "Could the umpires not have turned up" I ask. "They drank pretty hard this last night," he answered. "I bet they'll be all
right for the pitch & putt in the morning," I said. Then Tony Murray, one of the umpires chipped in: "What have you got a
problem with, Dinny?" "I've got a problem with you," I said, "Could you not f***ing get in goal for the game?"
"We've drank hard this morning," he says.
"Do you want a f***ing medal for that? You've come to the all ireland Junior club football finals, you expect to drink hard.
You've only drank for an hour." McCarthy and the 'holy water bottle' man watched all this. Never said a word.

I got back on the coach. I was angry. I'd put up with our under 14 b's approach to the game throughout my club career. We all had. Driscoll and McCarthy were both shop stewards in the local co-op. Now with the power to put it right they were presiding over the same old joke. By the time I got back to the hotel I'd had enough. This wasn't for me. This is not what I trained my balls off for all season. Back at the hotel I had a dump to calm me down. Leaving the room I met McCarthy in the corridor. "Can I have a word with you, Timmy." "Yeah, yeah. What's that smell, seems to be coming from your room?" "era, i had a bad battered burger last night, listen, I've had enough. I want to go home."

"What do you mean?"
"I'm going home."
"Oh yeah. Are you sure you know what you're doing' cos the last bus to Cork went an hour ago?"
"Yeah, i'll thumb it, and don't try to persuade me, just let me go."
"What is it? . . . Is it me? . . . The ham sandwiches?, is the fizzy orange not fizzy enough? . . . The halting site?"

Of course I should have said yes, it is you, the training, the halting site. This whole thing is a disgrace. I didn't.

"No, it's just me, I've had enough."
"All right, all right," he said. "What will I tell
the committee?"
"Tell them there an awful shower of langers!!!." With that I
left, they lost and I can't get served in my local anymore.