BY JARLATH BURNS
columnists@gaeliclife.com
Springtime is just round the corner and all round the country, club players are well into the dreaded pre-season routine where mud, gutters and cold sweat are all you have to look forward to on a dimly lit, mucky, uncut pitch where even the resodded goal mouths are out of bounds, as if any player would have the audacity to even expect a bit of shooting practice at this time of year.
And that's the lucky ones. For many others, the slog is on some hillside, lit only by the lamps of a car, the silhouetted figures of your fellow martyrs in madness providing a momentary silhouette against the night sky, the rain and the mist and as you encounter yet another puddle, or land on your backside having slid on the clabhar at the furthest cone, you're asking why, for what and is it worth all this?
Ah yes – the pre-season. Always an occasion worthy of social commentary in modern Ireland, a ritual of pain, of good intentions, of sacrifice. For this moment, Lough Derg is on tour and residing in all the clubs that have any aspirations of glory. Slog, toil and sweat in the pursuit of victory on a different, warmer day when all the nights of misery would make sense and the cold, wet boots and backsides of winter would mellow into the warm sweet feeling of victory. The Joyful Mystery that must begin with the Agony in the Garden.
And many clubs will be having their first flirtation with that most enigmatic of human beings in the GAA world, 'The Outside Man'; usually in at the behest of the players who have gone to college and seen a more methodical, scientific approach and realised that the laps followed by more laps and then a match is not the future. 'The Outside Man'. A term only known to the inner sanctum of the GAA. Mention this expression to someone who is not a member and they'll not have a clue what you're on about, but we GAA folk know exactly what he is. He comes at a price; and it's not only financial because this brush with the world of professional ethics sees the club parting with some of its values and a few of their members as one or two lotto sellers throw in their books at the thought of their money going to pay an 'Outside Man'. But the club has done its homework and reckons that success is a tide that will lift all boats and some flotsam and jetsam might have to be shed along the way for the greater glory and consolation of all.
And a new mood will exist in the club too. Forty, maybe fifty at training. Tripping over other. A football apiece too, I bet you, because the Outside Man loves training with the ball and enough O'Neill's will have been brought in that would have lasted the club a generation in gentler times. But this is now and success is God.
And a real mixture at training too. Boys who had left after minor because of the drink, the attitude, the belly, the skinniness, the height; all the obstacles that stand in the way of making the great leap forward from juvenile to adult football. The pitch resembles a Weight Watchers Class in early January, the fit and the fat, all with ambition, only some with the application and the same hard core who will make it, because nature will find out most of them before the Outside Man does and they'll be gone before any hard decisions have to be made.
But they're all there now because of The Outside Man. The saviour who'll rescue a career that is residing between the B team, the bench and the bar. He'll see the spark, the shimmy, the catch, the intelligence that the local guys missed. All looking their chance. And then there's the clubman who has been picked to keep the outside man right. Usually a peculiar choice; certainly not one of the last five managers. He now has a new status; joined at the hip to the Outside Man and rapidly picking up his lingo and jargon.
The players hear this new attitude with a mixture of quiet amusement and disguised contempt because no one wants to be negative at this time of year; with so much hope, expectation and investment having been made in this year which will be the best yet.
And then the first selection of the new team. Always a surprise or two. A couple of regulars left on the bench for no apparent reason other than the cleaning sweep of the new brush. Well, for two hundred a week, he couldn't be expected to throw out the same old team that hasn't done the business in the past. The first match is a success. Everyone mad to impress, complacency is absent, an air of optimism abounds. And there is a buzz in the changing rooms where sweaty men congregate pre and post match. A new dynamic. Another victory, then a draw and the first loss.
Team selection is now being questioned, the critics corner in the clubrooms is getting restless. Is he worth the money?
Championship comes around. A jittery win against facile opposition. But the bigger challenge awaits. The next round; a local derby. A defining moment. And on the day it all goes wrong. The settled team of the league has been ridiculously tinkered with and five points is the difference. It's all over. The confidence has gone and another round of league defeats follow. Danger zone. Bottom half of the table, the sourness is all over the club now. Back-stabbing is rife. Smart comments from the previous coach who is heard saying 'Sure I could have got you'se relegated for nothing!' A bad atmosphere at training, maverick members of the committee are ganging up on him, while his paymasters upstairs are closing ranks. Players want to hold onto him for another year because they like his training methods, but while the Outside Man has his value, he also has his cost and is already being weighed up by more glamorous clubs with bigger cheque books and better players.
And then, like a flash he's gone. The team has stayed up, but there is debris left behind. The AGM is fraught. Recriminations are rife. Motions are passed never to repeat this experiment.
The Outside Man. The Messiah. The Mistake.
