When the World Stopped Spinning: Spartan Times in Crete

It was March 2020 and I found it all so amusing looking at how everyone on television and the media in general seemed to be losing their sh**t over this strange ‘novel’ flu that those lovely people – the Chinese Government – had discovered.

With my two Irish-based French friends Jean-François and Christophe, we had packed our bags and were heading off to the island of Crete for a week of walking, talking, eating and drinking. We try to make this an annual event. Normally, it’s JF that chooses the location and organises it, but the objective is to choose an island and go for a week’s walking. It’s a simple plan and it usually works brilliantly.

With the whole of Sfakia out of power from the overnight storm and everything suddenly closed for fear of plague, it was back to basics, lighting a big fire to cook our dinner – a much easier thing to do in Crete than in Ireland with its persvasive dampness

Our first night was a strange one. The drive from Chania was challenging enough in the dark. On the good roads, the markings were a bit hit-and-miss (like Ireland) but as we got nearer to the destination, there was a distinct lack of tar and approximately 40 million goats, who would reluctantly move out of your way only when your bumper almost touched their lazy hides

The village of Livaniana where we were staying was like a famine village in Ireland – i.e. with sparse crumbling structures but almost completely devoid of humans. One human who was really conspicuous by his total absence was Constantine – the guy who owned the place along with his brother. The house was a new construction – all bright and Cretan. We found a guy next door, who seemed equally puzzled at the absence of yourman. He didn’t seem to mind being summoned to his door at 10pm.

We were exhausted but the location was, even at night, stunning. The full moon showed us that we were perched on a hillside with the Aegean Sea sparkling and vast before us way down below. A dog showed up. He was quiet and shy and had a vague look of rabies about him to our tourists’ eyes. Constantine hadn’t left any note or welcome pack or bottle of wine. He hadn’t even made the bed. It was like he too had suddenly taken flight for fear of the dreaded Chinese plague. At the car-hire place, the guy had told me that there were lots of cancellations. Were there any cases in Crete, I asked. “No,” he said and then added with a wink, “At least not officially. Not offically,” he had said a second time for emphasis.

Big Future in Waterford Hurling?

Ryan: "We were chasing the game all day long"

When interviewed by RTE on July 30th last, Michael Ryan was in philosophical mood, saying that he believed that there was a good future for Waterford hurling.

It’s a strange one that Waterford have been there or thereabouts for the last ten years, yet we haven’t manage to break through and win that All -Ireland title. This is the greatest period of Waterford hurling since the heady days of Ned Power, Austin Flynn, Frankie Walsh and company in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Back then, we won just the one title. After 1963, the fortunes dipped alarmingly quickly and steadily into the mire and stayed that way for many years.

So what has happened in the meantime? How has the county managed to pick itself up and why can it seemingly not seem to get into a fully upright standing position and do something that other counties can – i.e. win an All-Ireland?

In the intervening years since 1959, we’ve looked on while Clare, Cork, Galway, Tipperary, Offaly, Limerick and Wexford have all tasted success in Croke Park. These are all teams that Waterford have beaten and which we beat on a regular basis. You’ll notice that I’ve left out Kilkenny. But, as Galway have already proven, this Kilkenny team, great and all as they are, are not Gods. They’re men and men can be competed with, men can be forced to make mistakes. Men can be beaten.

If you analyse Waterford’s record in Inter-County hurling, it’s simply not logical that Waterford have not won an All-Ireland in the last 10 years.

Michael Ryan is hopeful. He has good reason to be hopeful because the senior team put in a very good showing in this year’s championship. They were close to the mark but short of it. It’s a new team in construction but it shows signs of honesty, commitment and no shortage of skill.

Looking at the broader picture, though, on what basis are we allowed to expect Waterford to win an All-Ireland? None, it would seem. For whatever reason, the collective belief doesn’t seem to be there. And if the belief isn’t there, then are we just wasting our time?

Hurlers Getting Heated up in Advance of Historic Replay

“Take that, Kilkenny!” Joe Canning wheels in celebration after landing a three-pointer without chasing referees.

It's great to see people highlighting bad sportsmanship. Joe Canning will no doubt incur the wrath of Kilkenny supporters from his comments but he's absolutely correct.

Any player who goes chasing after linesmen and referees looking for a decision has a serious attitude problem, as far as I’m concerned.

That it was someone of the talents and ability of Henry Shefflin is very disappointing, but one element of the Kilkenny game has always been about playing the officials. You need only look to how the players are led in this unsporting aspect by their coach.

“I will destroy all of you!”
Naked aggression spills over in a most unsporting-like fashion at last Sunday’s All-Ireland SHF.

At the end of the game  last Sunday, Brian Cody was nothing short of disgraceful in his behaviour towards the refereeing officials when he launched into a tirade of abuse upon them. After the match, he was all sweetness and light when he maintained that it didn’t matter what he might have said or not, and that it was only the referee’s decision that counted.

Nonsense. He says one thing but he acts in another way and it’s by his actions alone that he will be judged. Bully-boy tactics shouldn’t be tolerated in any sport and I hope that this message will have got through to the powers that be in GAA in time for the replay. We’ll see who wins. As long as it’s a sporting game played in a sporting spirit, I don’t mind.

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out .on paperback.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Kilkenny Hurling Books its Place in the Final… Again!

“Gimme that f***in’ ball!” Sir JJ Delaney & Tommy Walsh Esq. demonstrate how things are done in Kilkenny to Mr Maher.

Question: How do you make Kilkenny play at their best and ensure that they win the All-Ireland yet again?

Answer: You beat them early on in the season.

Kilkenny produced a second-half display that was simply stunning yesterday. This was the Kilkenny of old: back to their belligerent, dirty, skilful, brilliant best. The last few years of  being beaten in a League Final by Dublin, being beaten in an All-Ireland by Tipperary and, (the straw that really broke the camel’s back), being beaten by Galway for THEIR Leinster crown! (They weren’t even a Leinster team!) have finally caused the genteel mask to slip. They were only fooling us all along.

Can you imagine the dressing room after the Galway defeat? The spitting and the shouting and table-banging ? I wasn’t there, of course – I’m only using pure conjecture here, but you can be certain that Mr Cody was unhappy and would have mentioned this fact on several occasions as he knelt down in front of each of the brave warriors that had so failed him on this fateful day and gently spoke to each in turn.

You could see the anger mounting as Kilkenny were forced to go at the All-Ireland the long way around; having to play the likes of Limerick and totally messing up their training schedule.

Since the Waterford/Kilkenny massacre of a few years ago at the All-Ireland final, it was clear to anyone that part of Kilkenny’s success lay in interpreting and carrying out their own set of highly physical rules in hurling. It was time to put a halt to their gallop for the sake of clean hurling and, perhaps, for the sake of hurling generally, as nobody else could compare with them.

Referees suddenly got a bit tougher. They stopped letting Kilkenny backs away with the illegal shoves and ankles taps and they paid particular attention to the Kilkenny tactic of surrounding your opponent and beating him up until he releases the ball.

Things seemed to change. Dublin beat them to a major crown. Cody whined and whinged and cried “conspiracy!” He was partly right, of course, but it also looked as though Kilkenny had been found out and that their crown was beginning to slip.

The second half unleashed the original Kilkenny once again. And do you know what? We kind-of missed it.

Galway must atone for the grave sin they committed. They will suffer a heavy defeat in Croke Park in September.

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Hurling Book/ Memoir Launch in Time for Christmas

The launch of a hurling book in time for Christmas is always a bit of an occasion. In this case, it was the turn of my own effort under the Three Good Boys label. It’s part memoir and part sports book. A large crowd gathered in Dungarvan for the occasion. Here are a few of the memories of a memorable evening…
Section of circa 500+ crowd at Book Launch

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” was released in November 2009 and was long-listed for the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year in 2010.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

The Long and the Short of GAA Books, Hurling Books and other Sports Books

There was a time not so long ago when I couldn’t finish a book – I literally could not get to grips with reading the whole thing through to the end without nodding off or getting distracted in some way and only ending up reading a couple of pages at a time, then losing the momentum of the story and finally abandoning it.

The only books during that time that kept me interested enough to finish them were “The Gingerman” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude“. Those days are long gone and I’ve no trouble flying through books these days, but the length of the book is an important factor in measuring how much you enjoy it.

Yawn! Getting through too much detail has its toll

Yawn! Getting through too much detail has its toll

All credit to the likes of War and Peace, but I’m firmly on the side of keeping it brief. If a book sticks to the essence of the story without deviating too much, staying humorous as much as possible, then it will entertain and grab you and you won’t want to put it down. Moreover, if it hasn’t waffled on, then you’ll want to read more by the same author.

There is a problem with a lot of GAA books, hurling books and other sports books in that they are overloaded with waffle. There’s a dilemma, for sure, to be faced by the authors of such books: If they are being written primarily for the benefit of the fans of the subject, then the assumption is that the fan/buyer will want to know as much as possible about their beloved subject. The tendency, therefore, is to make sure to cram as many facts, figures, scores and results as possible into the thing.

The trouble with that is that it makes it boring and that has been a problem that has plagued such books. They become reference books.

In setting out to write this book, ( about former Waterford hurler and skills coach Ned Power) I wanted it to be not so much a reference book but entertaining in the first place, and devoid of the boring overload of technical detail that drags down similar books.  Hopefully, that’s been achieved – we’ll see what people have to say…

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

GAA Beo and GAA Books

Before delving into the latest GAA Book this year, it’s worth noting that our national broadcaster is looking after its citizens in the area of transmitting what remaining important matches there are left to play this season.

The national club championships are a strange sort of end to the year, I have always thought.  I’ve wondered about how motivation can be kept going at this late hour of the year, when so many people have deserted the trail of adventure that the summer brought and when the weather is even more awful than it is in summer.

Ballygunner - Waterford's representatives take on Cratloe next Sunday

Ballygunner - Waterford's representatives take on Cratloe next Sunday

From the comfort of your home, you can follow most of the action live by tuning in to one of the most worthwhile uses of tax euros – TG4: as creative and energetic a channel as you’re likely to find anywhere.  So many people in this country of ours pay out a subscription to a nasty half-wit megalomaniac to watch overpaid clowns cheat and feign injury on the circus that is the English professional soccer league.

See some real people playing real sport for real reasons on TG4 every weekend with the All-Ireland hurling and football championships.  Once they’re over, then get back to your GAA books.

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

The Best GAA Books and Hurling Books of the Year

Over at An Fear Rua, a vote has been gathering as to what is the best GAA book of 2009.

So far, Henry Martin’s “Unlimited Heartbreak” seems to be well in front with Cody’s biography scoring a low count just at the moment. Also, Donal Og Cusack‘s biography/autobiography is not really on the radar just yet.

A view of approximately one tenth of the GAA Books of 2009

A view of approximately one tenth of the GAA Books of 2009

The poll should be more interesting once the reading public has had a chance to get their teeth into the books that will be put out over the coming month.  So far, the size of the votes seem to be reflective of how long the book is out, so before the end of the year, we may get a more representative picture emerging.

One that isn’t out yet (although it will shortly be in print – this week, in fact) is the biography of Ned Power – due to be launched in Dungarvan on the 26th of November.

Part hurling book and part memoir, it will have a broader appeal than most so-called GAA books and it will therefore be interesting to see how it fares.

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

GAA Books and Hurling Books in Evolution

There was time when hurling books and GAA books were all about snippets of reminiscences of the good old glory days of one team or another or some player or group of players.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  There are still books like that coming out.  Even the one about Ned Power is a little bit like that in many ways.  The GAA itself brought out a coffee table book of many images recently too.

But nowadays, the tendency is for the “tell-all” book; the one that reveals something spectacular, something sensational, something controversial that will have the head honchos in Croke Park bristling and the ladies in every parish blessing themselves while the gentlemen hang their heads and tut them over and back in disbelief and disgrace.

But are these books saying anything worthwhile? Yes, and no, I suppose. It’s all down to how sincerely and entertainingly the thing is written. The novelty wears off and you soon see what you’re left with.  Just don’t judge a book by its cover.

Front coverMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.