You Too Can Love Leinster

Two things which illustrate why more people don't just absolutely adore Leinster's rugby team (who are playing possibly the aesthetically finest rugby seen this side of a Fijian Sevens blitz). The Dubliner magazine (they of last year's hilarious 'satirical' feature on how Tiger Woods missus was some sort of filthy porn star, a joke which Woods failed to get) ran with a front page feature on "how Brian O'Driscoll made Leinster the hippest rugby team in Europe."

Now, rugby has undoubtedly come on a bit in recent years, but for the love of God, hip? The word is against the very nature of the sport. And it will take a lot more than O'Driscoll fluttering around some trendy Dublin bars and Hooky and Popey wearing jeans on the telly to make it so. Hip is a performance art 'happening' in a Manhattan loft featuring two Brazilian transexuals reciting Ginsberg's Howl backwards. Not fifteen men climbing over each other in mud. Although when you put it like that....

Secondly, this Allez les Bleus business. Yes, very funny. You went over to France, and demonstrating that you were educated, multilingual types fond of a little deligtful irony, appropriated the chant that amounts to the French Olé Olé. Sure, and when your team's back is against the wall and they're defending for their lives, they'll want to hear you snorting out a delicate play on cross-cultural sporting mores.

So that's why, despite the poetry of their rugby - Saturday's hammering of Edinburgh being their magnum opus so far - many people would still rather invest their good wishes and support in the cause of the stout yeomen of Munster, with their set-piece squeezes and monstrous mauls.

Which is a damn shame.

Surely, for rugby as a sport, the success of Leinster in this season's Heineken Cup would be an Astonishingly Good Thing. I cannot fathom any worthwhile argument to counter the rationale that any neutral should hope that Leinster's 'total' rugby (as a giddy Tony Ward repeatedly called it in commenatary on Saturday) brings them past the many sterner challenges of the coming months and to glory in Twickenham on May 20th.

The use of the phrase 'total rugby' is apposite, in this case. In the event that - as most sage observers fear - Leinster will meet some mean, nasty bruisers who slow down the ball, stick it up their jumpers and get into the faces of their brilliant runners, would not their defeat be the sport's equivalent of the heart-rending failure of the Dutch 'total football' team to fulfil their potential in the World Cup finals of 1974 and 1978?

Would it not be the harsh, chilling wind of reality blowing in the confirmation that, in sport, the butterfly will always be crushed on the wheel?

There is, of course, the argument of the sport's purists: that a well-executed maul is as pleasing to behold as any improvisational passing movement; that the real soul of the game exists in the tight, sinewy confrontations invisible to the eye, not the gallivanting in the loose that comes as a result of the hard work.

To me, this is like an accountant eulogising the beauty of an immaculate balance sheet. To other accountants, impressive; but I've just gone to put the kettle on.

In any event, the only right way to play any sport is the winning way. No team is obliged to entertain, no coach expected to put razzmatazz before results. But Leinster's stated aim is to do their job in the most pleasing way to the eye as possible. To use their skill as a means to the end of victory. When any team does that, they must be cherished and supported, and their brave quest championed by all neutrals.

As the cameras panned around Donnybrook in the latter stages of Saturday's win, I experienced a thaw in any iciness I may have felt for the province due to the nonsense of the Dubliner and the infernal Allez les Bleus. Looking at the well-fed, happy faces, several generations of the most affluent sector of Ireland's demographic, I thought: why not? Why shouldn't they be happy and content? It's not their fault they were born with opportunity. Haven't they worked hard, got their qualifications, made the best of things? Don't they have worries, fears, hang-ups?

And the killer: don't they deserve this team? And just because they have this team, why can't the rest of us love it too?

Becks: The Vegas Years

"Laydeez and gennulmen...live from the LA Galaxy stadium, it's Daaaaavid Beckham!!"

The screaming of the fans hadn't decreased any over the years, but it annoyed him now. Pulling the string tight on shorts so as compress a little the gut that had developed on his once lithe torso, he snorted his derision.

"We love you David!"

"Who do ya love, baby; this ole heap of washed up star, or that picture on your wall from ten years ago?" he murmured to himself, as an assistant yanked a corset secure and another pretty young thing dappled some make-up over his sagging features.

He looked over at his half-soused wife, already on her third martini and dragging on a cigarette. She'd lost her little runt of a chihuahua in the chaos of the dressing room: "Mr. Cuddles, Mr.Cuddles, where are you?....Mr.Cuddles you little bastard! Come here or I'll tear your balls off!"

Becks shook his head. Afternoon games were the worst; at least with evening games she'd drink all day and soon pass out in the corner.

Five years he'd been doing this, city to city, trotting out the old standards.

Curling free kick just over the bar, grimace of frustration, run hands through suggestively through hair.

Screeeeam!

Sweeping crossfield pass, peer with furrowed brow, smoulder when ball lands at feet of teammate.

Aaaarghhdddaaavidd!!

Another free-kick, this time arcing over the wall and into the net - still got it - run to corner flag, pump fists and smile; brace for teammates jumping exaltantly on back.

Waaaaailll!

L.A.; Chicago to New York then D.C.: the big shows. He'd always get up for them. Maximise the charisma, ham it up with the Soccer Superstar persona. He watched the Zidane documentary over and again, trying to add gravitas as the looks faded.

The stadiums were packed, in general, but it was delivering the money shot for ESPN Sportscenter's highlights that paid his wages.

Free kick + goal + smouldering look in direction of camera = Play of the Day folks! Leverage the image rights another notch please!

But the provincial backwaters, God!: Columbus in Ohio, Colorado, Kansas bloody City, frickin' Salt Lake! Every time he went through the motions in Kansas bloody City, selling some "sophisticated European glamour" to midwest rubes, he thought of Fergie. Retired now, and out of sight but for the occasional quote snatched at a horse race meeting.

He thought of that pinched mouth, the purple face; the cold, cutting remarks he would undoubtedly have been privately making on his former charge's late career. The aspersions cast on his sexuality, the snorting insults about his wife. He once cared though. He owed it all to him.
Like fuck he did. He did it all for himself. He wasn't going to be controlled and caged by that monster. Look at Scholesy and Nevs, though. Legends now, just retired from playing. Nevs in the England coaching set-up.

He remembered the early days. The goal from half way at Wimbledon; in the dressing room in awe of Cantona; Barcelona in 1999; how Keane would snarl and, where once he would look to Fergie for reassurance, how over time the boss would avoid his glance, in tacit agreement with Roy. Nevs and Scholesy (and Phil and Butty and the rest) though; it made him smile to think of those first few years.

But he wasn't like them, he wasn't happy to settle. Home comforts, hah!

He believed it at the time, all the rubbish about growing the game in the U.S. He always believed what he said, that was the problem. People said it was all marketing, spin, PR, image with him. But he thought he meant it all: how he was going to get back in the England team after the 2006 World Cup, when he told Victoria that the stuff with the women wasn't his fault (look at the state of her now). That the Cruises (him and whoever the 'other half' happened to be that week) were really good friends.

And yes, that he, David Beckham, the biggest superstar in the world, would make the Americans love soccer. How could they not? As far as they were concerned, he was soccer. And now he would be among them; and it wouldn't be like Europe where it was so damn intense and full of hate and pressure and lunatics with empty lives and nothing better to do than talk about every little detail of some bloody football team and what prats footballers were.

No. It would be fun. New. Shiny and glitzy. Living in Los Angeles, at the heart of the entertainment industry, broadcasting to the nation every week: must-see TV.

Five years later and the show was rumbling on. He was still a draw alright; but like Riverdance, Les Mis, or going to Disneyworld. "Yeah, honey, L.A.'s great, took in a Beckham game last night." Just bog-standard family entertainment

Who was it this week? Houston Dynamo? On we go then.

Receives ball 25 yards out, bouncing, cracks a right foot volley, inches wide, ooooh! Run both hands through hair, give thumbs up to passer, and, nice touch this, a little wink.

Daaaaaavvvviddd!

Thangyouverymuch...

McGwire Locked Out; Balco Journos Locked up?

There are two threads developing currently in the long-running story of performance enhancing drugs in the U.S.A., or more precisely in relation to the efforts to combat them since the BALCO revelations of recent years.

Firstly, last Tuesday, the Baseball Writers of America turned down former single season home run record holder Mark McGwire's nomination to the sport's Hall of Fame.

McGwire, of the St Louis Cardinals, broke Roger Maris' long-standing record of 61 homers in a season in 1998, recording 70 by the end of a season in which his battle for the record with Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa had captured the imagination of the American public. This record was subsequently overtaken by Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants' slugger who hit 73 homers in 2001, and who is one of the central figures over whom suspicion hangs in the BALCO case.

However, rather than proceeding to what would appear to be a well-deserved berth in the sport's Valhalla, McGwire himself has seen his achievements discredited due to the sudden exposure of the issue of steroid use in the sport since the BALCO revelations.

Ironically, it has been suggested that Bonds alleged use of steroids was prompted by the very attention that McGwire received in 1998. It was revealed that season that McGwire had indeed taken a dietary supplement called Androstenedione, however, while banned by the NFL and the IOC, there was no prohibition in existence in Major League Baseball.

This fact - that only since 2003 have steroid-prohibition and testing for banned substances been taken seriously by MLB - demonstrates the legal and ethical grey area that exists with regard to the subject. McGwire has steadfastly refused to "discuss the past", even in a Congressional committee hearing on illegal performance-enhancing substances.

While the substances discovered in BALCO are classified as illegal, because of MLB's hitherto almost non-existent doping policy, some have suggested that McGwire should not be persecuted for possible misdemeanours during his career which were then not necessarily against the sport's laws.

However in refusing to admit him to the Hall of Fame, it is clear that the baseball writers have made their own, damning judgement on his right to immortality.

**********

Elsewhere, the two journalists who brought the BALCO scandal to light and revealed the involvement of a number of top athletes in the laboratory's activities are facing possible jail sentences. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, whose book Game of Shadows, brought much attention to the scandal and the alleged use of banned substances by the likes of Bonds (others implicated were British athlete Dwain Chambers, former Olympic gold medal-winning sprinter Marion Jones and 100m runner Tim Montgomery), could go to jail for refusing to name the source that leaked to them the court testimony linking a number of athletes with BALCO.

The US Department of Justice has demanded that the two journalists provide details of the leak, information which Fainaru-Wada and Williams are unwilling to provide. The two are appealing a local court sentence of up to 18 months in prison.

A poor reward indeed for helping to expose the cheats whose activities have demeaned their sports, and led to the moral morass in which the likes of McGwire's legacy now resides.

The Humanity! Top 5 Irish Sporting Heartbreak

For those unaware of the majesty of the Observer Sport Monthly magazine (free with the Observer newspaper on the first Sunday of every month), firstly accept my pity, then check out the link above for the online version of last Sunday's issue, which featured sport's 50 most 'heartbreaking' moments.

Of course being a dirty English publication, there's none of our own home-grown heartbreak - which leaves a rich seam of gut-wrenching calamity sadly unmined.

For the sake of record, here are a mere five occasions when the cruel hand of fortune slapped Irishmen in the face, leaving them prostrate on the floor, crying "Why?!"

1.Wim Kieft and His Magically Spinning Header
Proof positive that the extraordinarily unlikely turn of events that had gotten Ireland to Euro 88 (specifically Scotland's purloining of a victory from darkest Sofia) had seen us drain dry the well of serendipity, was the bizarre trajectory of the ball which beat Packie Bonner to send us home from the finals.

You might add that we rode our luck till that particular steed was only fit for making glue in the opening, mythical victory over England in Stuttgart. Thing was, in the second match against the USSR in Hanover, not only did Ronnie Whelan score The Greatest Shinned Goal Ever, but the team performed magnificiently against the eventual losing finalists, earning us fairly our shot at the semis against the Dutch.

The fatal goal was not the only mysterious, supernatural phenomenon that day - Paul McGrath's bulleted first half header was a goal in every way but the formality of it having actually crossed the line. It should have been awarded posthumous goalhood. Somehow neither it nor the playground-style scramble which ensued thereafter led to a score.

No matter, a draw would be sufficient to see the archetypal green army progress to the semi-finals, a spectacular achievement for a team were presupposed to have ticked the 'For the Beer' box in the 'Purpose of Visit' section of the immigration form.

With eight minutes remaining, a scuffed Ronald Koeman volley bounces off the ground, brushes Kieft's crown at an angle sufficient to imbue the ball with the spin of Shane Warne's Ball of the Century and past a bamboozled Packie.

Why!?

2.Barry McGuigan in Leaving Las Vegas
In hindsight this defeat served the purpose of getting McGuigan's boxing career out of the way so that he could proceed with his phenomenally successful motor racing and singing incarnations. But at the time, the sight of poor Barry wilting in the searing heat of the Nevada desert as Steve Cruz took his world title from him was pretty harrowing.

Having been used to seeing McGuigan in those fleeting glory nights in packed British and Irish venues (McGuigan's time at the top spanned only three fights: the title win over Eusebio Pedrosa at Loftus Road, and defences against Bernard Taylor in Belfast and Daniel Cabrera in Dublin) the fierce heat of the Caesar's Palace car park was always going to work in favour of Cruz, rather than the man from the more temperate climes of Clones.

Despite starting well, he suffered dehydration, went down in the 10th and 15th rounds and was rushed to hospital for rehydration. It was all a terribly sad sight.

3.Lynagh's Try makes Hamilton's Academic.
The 1991 Rugby World Cup final between Australia and England almost never happened. In the semi-final against Scotland, the scores were tied 6-6 with around ten minutes remaining. Gavin Hastings had a straightforward penalty to put the Scots ahead, one normally a formality for a metronomic kicker such as the Watsonians man. He missed, Rob Andrew dropped a goal and England were through.

Even more of a twist in history would have occured had not Michael Lynagh's late try at Lansdowne Road in the quarter final denied Ireland what would have been the greatest result of their test history, the current golden era included.

It's testament to the lean stock of happy memories that Irish rugby has that Gordon Hamilton's sinew-wrenching run to the corner with five minutes of that match remaining is one of our bona fide Golden Moments. The fact that Australia responded with a score of their own to eliminate us is generally left as an aside, spoiling as it does the perfection of Hamilton's try. Jack Clarke beating Campese to the set-up, then Hamilton pumping his thighs defiantly. The crowd mentally dragging him over the line, then engulfing him.

Yes, let's leave it at that, shall we?

4.The Five Minute Final
There is a warm, lively metaphorical house in Irish sport, wherein reside the counties and characters who made the 1990s a storied decade in the history of hurling, Ger Loughnane banters with Liam Griffin; Brian Whelehan and Anthony Daly share a drop; Clare, Wexford and Offaly laugh now over old enmities.

Looking in the window, forlornly and bitterly, are the 1994 Limerick team. Four minutes remained on the clock in that year's All-Ireland hurling final, and Limerick led Offaly by five points. Johnny Dooley lined up a close range free. Under instruction from the sideline to point it, he defied, and struck it incredibly into the net. Limerick collapsed, Offaly scoring a further goal and four points in the remaining moments.

Hold on and it would have been Limerick who would have kick-started that egalitarian period in which the Liam McCarthy Cup was a prize for more than the few. Instead, it will be 34 years since their last success come this September.

5.Sonia's Problems 'Down There'...
Sonia O'Sullivan, Ireland's greatest modern athlete, ended her peak athletics years with one solitary Olympic medal - a silver in the Sydney 2000 5000m behind Romanian Gabriele Szabo. She also missed out on a medal in 1993 World Championships 3000m when beaten by three Chinese (boo hiss!) competitors. Both Szabo and the Chinese later had serious accusations of drug taking made against them.

But it was O'Sullivan's retirement from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics 5000m final - for which she was favourite for gold - which provided the most memorable major championship heartache for the Cork woman, and this time, it was apparently her own body which conspired against her.

When something goes wrong in a middle distance race, it generally doesn't happen in that shocking, sudden way it might in a sprint race: a hamstring tear or a false start disqualification. The best laid plans in distance running gang aglae slowly; the runner falls inches, then feet, then yards behind, until the gap cannot be reasoned away through the explanation of a sudden burst from a leader.

For O'Sullivan, it went wrong nastily. She dropped back through the field and kept on going, until her tearful withdrawal and the subsequent revelations that she'd been suffering from a 'stomach upset'. Unquestionably her time to win Olympic gold, and was denied her in the most undignified way.

Cup Cheer Refreshes Bitter Taste of Premiership

It is fitting that the FA Cup third round sees the BBC get itself all dolled up and take centre stage with the broadcast of live matches. The combination of cockle-warming nostalgia, a cast of hokey provincials and the reverent adoration of a national institution fit the BBC's brief much better than the cut-throat free marketeers of Sky.

In many ways football as it is experienced through the FA Cup is almost a different game altogether than the harsh world of the Premiership. Not just in the fact that the BBC get their pick of the games to show live, but in the entire atmosphere that surrounds it.

The commentator introduced the Tamworth v Norwich tie on Saturday with the declaration that this was "the best weekend of the football calendar." The selling of the FA Cup, and its third round in particular, in this way is part of the Beeb's job in buttressing their flimsy live portfolio. And this sort of veneration is much more likely to be heard from those who curate the game's image and history, and supporters of lower division teams, than the vast majority of Premiership worshipping hordes.

To them, particularly supporters of the top clubs, the Cup is often a distraction, a scratch in the normal groove of league matters. Their opinion of the Cup has declined in a fashion almost commensurate with that of the managers and chairmen of their clubs, many of whom rest players for cup ties in order to preserve resources for crucial relegation or European place battles.

Most in the media castigate this attitude and bemoan the 'blatant disrespect shown to the FA Cup', claiming that the supporters would love to win the trophy, the only chance - along with the even more degraded League Cup - for many of them to win silverware at all.

But the fact that no club outside the 'big four' (Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea) has won the Cup since 1995 has almost totally obscured visions of glorious Saturday afternoons in May from the view of the rest of the clubs, only exacerbating their managers' prioritisation of league safety.

Still, what this denuding means is that on weekends like the one just gone, football seems to exist in a much nicer, warmer place. Indeed after a weekend of early round Cup action, the snarl of controversy and overseriousness that the Premiership returns with seem inappropriate, or even ludicrous. It's a little like when one of your friends comes home from travelling in Nepal, or studying yoga in India, and goes on about how ridiculous the rat race of the developed world is.

It really puts things in perspective, man.

Undoubtedly, this quality helps keep the tournament alive and in relatively rude health. Of course, the fact that it provides novelty - in the spotlight that it throws on hitherto unheralded corners of the football map - and excitement - for those who enjoy those rare moments in the limelight - is part of it too.

But just as the attention the Premiership receives adds to its perceived 'value', the excessive importance it is imbued with is frequently tiresome and undoubtedly unhealthy. The microscopic analysis of refereeing decisions; the paranoiac vitriol of managers who, to a man, swear to being the victims of all-encompassing plots against them; the 'simulation'; the tapping; the hangdog, sleepless countenances of struggling managers whose very public humiliation seems like some unbearably cruel torture; the fear football that paralyses teams for whom relegation is now 'unthinkable' rather than merely unwelcome.

It is, of course, condescension of the first order that characterises the coverage of the cup exploits of such clubs as Tamworth. The interviews with the milkman-cum-centre forward, the chairman who spent the week painting the grandstand, the tea lady who remembers the last big Cup run in 1975.

But for all that, the restorative quality of a bit of a wander around the unfashionable outposts of the game is clear: as well as providing football with a much needed link to the past in a time of rapid change, it also reminds the game's many 'consumers', like the goat-herders of the Himalayan foothills do our bead-wearing, incense-burning friends, that there is, indeed, a whole other world out there.

The Ten Big Questions of 2007 - Part Three

9. Will Celtic be the 'peepul'?
While schadenfreude is probably one of the politer emotions Celtic supporters will be experiencing as their eternal rivals' bloody civil war continues, the feud between Paul Le Guen and Barry Ferguson is only the latest chapter in the seemingly unstoppable downward spiral in the fortunes of Rangers Football Club.

Triumph and disaster are often fleeting impostors in football, as Leeds United's descent from the Champions League demonstrates, but over the course of a number of seasons, genuine statements on a club's standing can be made. Taking the last seven years into account, it can clearly be said that Celtic have replaced Rangers as the pre-eminent force in Scottish football.

In that time Celtic have won four championships and have almost certainly secured a fifth. Rangers won two titles in that time. But both Rangers successes were achieved in the final minutes of the season's final days, in contrast to the monstrous points advantages Celtic enjoyed in all of their championship victories.

Rangers 2003 success came while Celtic were preoccupied with a run to that season's UEFA Cup final, and their 2005 title was won on the back of an incredible collapse by the Parkhead club in the dying minutes of their final match against Motherwell.

This gradually emerging picture of superiority stretches to another area in which Rangers were traditionally dominant: the clubs' relative financial states. Enfeebled by Scottish football's limited market, neither are stupendously wealthy; but Celtic have been returning consistently more solid balance sheets, a fact that has had its logical conclusion on the park, where the Hoops have been able to recruit to a markedly higher standard of late.

What is significant about this switch is what it represents about deeper cultural roles in that divided city. Rangers supporters' familiar chant, "We are the People!" (pronounced "weearrapeepul!"), describes a deeply ingrained sense of superiority, borne of their membership of the Protestant establishment, in particular in how it related to the lowly, Catholic, immigrant stock who supported their rivals.

The fortunes of their respective football teams - in general - supported that view, with Rangers winning 51 league titles to Celtic's 40, but the feeling overrode mere football results. It survived Celtic's European eminence and nine league titles in a row in the late 1960s and early 1970s and Rangers' prolonged mediocrity until the arrival of Graeme Souness as manager in 1986.

But while the attitudes of the Rangers support were unchanging, Celtic supporters' refusal to accept their cowed status spoke of a more upwardly mobile nature than the 'tattie-munchers' their rivals liked to characterise them as.

Better educated, more successful and having thoroughly penetrated the professional classes in a way their predecessors were unable, or not allowed to do, Celtic supporters, led by businessmen like Fergus McCann (an expat Scots-Canadian millionaire) seized control of their dying club in 1994.

The revolution that overthrew the club's century old cabal of families and effectively drives it to this day, was as ruthlessly ambitious as anything Castro and Guevara could have dreamed of. Indeed, coupled with the market-savvy shrewdness which wrested control of the crucial shares in '94, was a populist, car-park picketing, Bolshie element - a hangover from Glasgow's very recent industrial might - that provided much of the initial momentum.

But the forces that have steered the club today are, ironically, of the blue chip variety. Careful stewardship of the club's financial affairs in the precarious marketplace of Scottish football has allowed the club to reflect the sense of fiscal strength that their cross-town foes once embodied.

The messianic presence of Martin O'Neill helped no end, of course, and Gordon Strachan's careful reconstruction of the club's footballing affairs has already borne fruit with a Champions League last 16 tie with AC Milan to look forward to. But undoubtedly at the heart of Celtic's rise has been an utterly reconstituted ethos from within the club.

Meanwhile, Rangers are stumbling through the sort of financial penury and on-field embarrassment that Celtic once patented as their own.

The ferocious grief expressed by many of the Rangers supporters gathered outside Fir Park on Tuesday was as much the shock and anger at the continuing loss of that which they had presumed a birthright, as the registration of their opinions on Le Guen's banishment of Ferguson.

United Lack Ruthlessness of Chelsea

A pivotal day, and no mistake. The gap at the top of the Premiership, hitherto contemptuously dismissed by Jose Mourinho, is now down to two points. In a tight title race - if this Premiership rivalry does continue in a nip and tuck fashion until its conclusion - it'll be the tiny details that matter.


Like, had Eggert Magnusson kept his powder dry for another couple of weeks and left Alan Pardew in his job, would Manchester United have met a West Ham side stumbling haplessly in the relegation zone, rather than the team which defeated them yesterday via a clear case of New Manager Bounce?

The Hammers were changed, but not unrecognisable. No - they bore such a striking resemblance to the effervescent side that skipped up the Premiership and into the FA Cup final last season that the recently sacked Pardew would be excused for suing Alan Curbishley for copyright breach.


Pardew's demise would have been unthinkable only a few short months ago, as his team's attitude to their return to the Premiership seemed to create a new model for newly promoted teams - one characterised by a fearlessness and wholehearted commitment to attacking football rather than craven protectionism.


Pardew lost the ability to draw such performances from his team, but they had plenty of that bite on show yesterday, and it was enough to expose the soft edges of Manchester United.


A few hours earlier Chelsea had responded to the slipping away of three points with a violent, retaliatory bludgeoning of the impertinent Toffeemen. Ballack, Lampard and Drogba's goals were all shows of strength, stunning strikes that denied Everton a well-deserved point.


United's response to West Ham's new-found fight seemed flimsy in comparison. They peppered West Ham's goal and ran at the back four incessantly; but there was something lacking from their advances - they seemed blunt, unthreatening.


Yesterday saw Cristiano Ronaldo at his worst for United. The graver the situation, the more inclined he seems to pointless dribbles and wasteful long range shooting. Just like in their defeat to Celtic, United were presented with a free-kick in an advanced area late on. And just as on that occasion, Ronaldo chose to shoot from distance, driving the ball into the wall, rather than clipping it into the box. The problem is not necessarily the decision itself, rather simply that the boy's temperament suggests that there is no way he would have the collectedness required to score at such a juncture.


That's not to pick on Ronaldo alone. Wayne Rooney hasn't played in the manner of the future great he is supposedly destined to become for some time. Scholes' influence was blunted by the rejuvenated Nigel Reo-Coker (how Pardew must fume at his erstwhile skipper's sudden reawakening), whose goal saw United's defence carved open alarmingly easily.


After United and Chelsea drew a few weeks back, we were by no means alone in suggesting that their squad would not have the depth for a successful campaign. A couple of days later, United thumbed their noses at this idea by comfortably defeating Everton 3-0, with squad players such as John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson all starting.


Yesterday demonstrated where their lack of options gets found out: not at Old Trafford or when they get a goal in front against opposition who lack the belief required for a comeback, rather in situations like yesterday, where a spirited side gets ahead of them. They never seemed to have the requisite ruthlessness within them that helped Chelsea to dismiss Everton.


All is not lost however. United's inability to break through West Ham yesterday looked like a situation tailor-made for the gentleman sitting behind Alex Ferguson in the stand. Henrik Larsson took in the match yesterday; the Swede's arrival looks as well-timed as any of the forward runs with which he made his name.

Champions League Sweet Sixteen

Podgy Swiss fingers were put to their best use other than the consumption of stacks of luxury handmade chocolates today as the Champions League second round (or last 16, if you wish to make it sound more exclusive) draw was made.

As is the norm when plastic balls are plucked from erstwhile goldfish bowls, some protagonists fare better than others. For every club exec chuckling with confidence during the post-draw canapés, there is another suit bawling in the corner, crying "Why??!"

On the face of it, Liverpool secretary Bryce Morrison, representing the 2005 champions in Nyon today, would be the inconsolable wretch, seeing as his club was paired with Barcelona. With admirable optimism, however, he refused to be cowed by the prospect of playing last season's free-flowing champions.

"We hope we can go all the way once again, starting with this big one!" quoth he, presumably too woozy from the complimentary wine to conjure the image of Ronaldinho slithering past a statuesque Sami Hyypia.

Whereas the Pool were ill-rewarded for their group-topping feats, the other English teams got the spawny draws one might expect from being seeded. As if to continue the theme of retribution for last year, Manchester United, having exacted revenge on Benfica in the group stage, will now get an opportunity to pay back Lille for defeating them at the Stade de France in the 2006-06 competition.

As with their superiority over Benfica, United have come on more than enough since losing to the French to go through comfortably.

Arsenal will undoubtedly make heavy work of PSV Eindhoven, but should also progress. The return of Jose Mourinho to Porto will provide what is generally dubbed "spice" to their tie, but the bold Jose is well used to whistles and boos - and his team will have little trouble there.

While all over Milan, impeccably shod and coiffed folks may have been rattling their improbably tiny coffee cups in pleasure at their team's draw against Celtic (arguably the weakest of the second seeds on paper); the corresponding celebratory clank of Tennents Special Export cans in the East End of Glasgow might also have been heard.

Milan are in what is known as a 'period of transition', which is a euphemism for being rubbish. Even without their 8 point deduction for match-fixing naughtiness, the Rossoneri would only have been in fifth in Serie A, rather than the 15th place in which they now languish. The loss of Shevchenko's goals has not been properly addressed, their three main strikers - Alberto Gilardino, Filippo Inzaghi and Ricardo Oliveira - only managing four league goals between them. Meanwhile Paolo Maldini and Cafu continue to wearily police the defence, and the team is generally over reliant on Kaka's creativity.

The other ties are rather tasty; perennial powerhouses Real Madrid and Bayern Munich meet, Valencia take on Inter and Roma face Lyon. Lyon are the team to tip these days when trying to show how shrewd a football judge you are, and it will be intriguing to see if they can finally reproduce in the latter stages their scintillating group stages form.

Its hard to see past old money, however: Barca, Real and Inter are still the front runners, with Chelsea the only new name that might get on the trophy.

Hook and Pope On Tour

RTE lost the live rights to broadcast Heineken Cup matches at the end of last season, catching the conclusion of Munster's epic quest for the trophy just in time. With Sky now providing the context to televisual consumption of the tournament, and Dewi Morris, Stuart Barnes and Paul Wallace now the large-men-squeezed-into-swivel-chairs, RTE's old analytical war-horses, George Hook and Brent Pope, are left outside to press their bulbous noses up against the studio glass (metaphorically speaking, of course).

RTE Sport, wishing to retain a slice of the zeitgeist-y appeal the tournament now holds, and to bask in some of Munster's continuing reflected glory, has sent the two oval-ball opinionators out rattling the doors of the nation's rugby clubs in The Heineken Cup Roadshow with Hook and Pope. I caught this last night for the first time, finding the chaps in the Clanwilliam Rugby Club in Co.Tipperary, home of Munster and Ireland back-rower Alan Quinlan.

It's only right that these guys should be actively deployed when the Heineken Cup is on; they have become synonymous with rugby television in this country during its most successful era and have almost reached the same level of mental association with their sport as Dunphy and Giles have done with soccer.

Still, the idea of bringing them around drafty old clubhouses and - crucially - leaving them to host the show, live, without the strong hand of Tom McGurk on the tiller, seemed risky. Would this be a rugby Nighthawks?

That the show works quite well says much for the George Hook's unheralded presenting skills. Presumably honed on his radio show (Newstalk's The Right Hook), George's presenting style has an effortlessness about it which suggests that he is either a natural, or vastly more self-aware than we hitherto suspected.

Unlike RTE's other Superpundits, Eamon Dunphy and Pat Spillane, for whom the presenter's chair was as Kryptonite to their analytical powers, Hook retains the use of his x-ray opinions and a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet instinct for a one-liner. Thankfully the nuts and bolts of presenting have not robbed him of the opportunity to lean back in his seat and pour forth, giant sausage-like hands adding gracenotes to his condemnation of the Munster front row and such.

That well-decorated three occupied much of last night's discussion time in Clanwilliam, in light of Hook's criticism of their scrummaging in last week's show. This being Munster, and them being chippy, defensive types where the honour of any of their "liginds" is concerned, dear old George was subject to the whole repertoire of Munster self-righteousness.

Brent Pope was, of course, no help to his pal. Popey, as he must be known, is a fascinating character. A resplendently healthy looking man of indeterminate age (in Irish years, about 25, in Antipodean, possibly 50), he is by all accounts the archetypal rugby hale-fellow-well-met, the sort of sociable man-boy that the sport looks after and cherishes through decades of after-dinner speaking after his direct involvement with the game ends.

He is honorary Irish now, having spent the last 15 years here in one capacity or another since he arrived to coach Clontarf in 1991, and as the straight-man to Hook's flights of metaphor and allegory, he seems more Irish at times than the lyrical George.

Anyway, when Hook was getting a good pummeling from the Munster folk - including John Kenny of D'Unbelieveables ("D'you know, I don't know as much about de technical side as ye lads, but how ye can say dat Munster front row can't scrum I don't know") and John Hayes' wife and Ireland ladies team player Fiona Steed - Popey remained neutral, eye instinctively on not offending his meal-ticket.

Still, Hook doesn't take positions for the sake of controversy and battled back doggedly, pointing out that while the Munster front row brought many good things to the game, scrummaging was not one of them, whether their other advantages compensated or not.

For a big man, he's light on his feet though. Another lady prefaced her scolding with the line "You're paid big money to have those views..."; Hook prefaced his response by admonishing the woman for pointing out his large salary "when there's a revenue commissioner in the audience."

Nice touch - deflect stick onto that collective hate-figure, the taxman, and everyone reconsiders what a nice chap you are again.

As I said, either effortless, or enormously self-aware.

There's Something Vaguely Familiar About This Glittering Award Ceremony

After using its dead-eyed analytical skills and shrewd judgement to tell you why Darren Clarke would win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award last week (an annus mirabilis for Zara Phillips and no mistake), it's only fair that TSA brings the same sagacity to bear on the field for our own national broadcaster's humble award.

Otherwise we would be subject to accusations of Anglophilia, be put on a register of some sort and be run out of town for whistling Land of Hope and Glory near playgrounds.

The RTE Sports Person of the Year (Oh! How that subtle change in nomenclature distracts us from the shamelessly ripped off origins of the award! Well done, RTE brains trust people!) shortlist does seem to glow with the light of achievement a little more than its British counterpart did.

Probably, however, that is because our status as a small nation whose flag generally flies fairly limply at international sporting events means that anything we do accomplish gets properly Olé-Olé'd until just short of the declaration of a national holiday.

Also the international isolation of the GAA means that, as someone has to win the All-Ireland in the major codes, then it can generally be said to have been a good year for at least two people within the GAA, which pads out the list a little.

Soccer gets nary a nod, having to compare itself as it does with other countries. That, however, doesn't excuse an ignominious twelve months for the game on this island. It comes to a close with the Eircom League (now, post-merger, run by those crack logistical experts, the FAI) promoting the third place team in its second tier over the second placed, due to them having more nice astro-turf pitches and such, rather than the usual, antiquated criteria of a superior points total.

Yes indeed, domestic soccer is taking administrative sporting farce to exciting new places, bookending a year that started with Walsall's assistant manager becoming the 'world-class' captain of the good ship Republic of Ireland, and was defined by that listing vessel being wrecked on the hitherto unprecarious shore of Cyprus.

Enough of absent friends, then. To the people in the tuxedos and ballgowns (on that note, pray to your God, whomsoever he may be, that we may be spared Tracy Piggott in another plunging neckline. My eyes! IT BURNS!)!

Once again the Darren Clarke issue arises. Thing is, rather than the mob-emotion of the general public being considered, the RTE award is voted for by a panel of "esteemed" experts. Chaired by Tom McGurk, the panel includes Eamon Dunphy, George Hook, Pat Spillane, Cyril Farrell, Ted Walsh and Jerry Kiernan. Therefore we can expect the casting of cold eyes of analysis on the affair, which may preclude Clarke.

Anyway, would Darren have won a public vote since the whole new girlfriend business?

- "But he's been through so much! Isn't it nice for him?"

- Is it not a bit soon though? I mean, it's not for me to say, but...."

Darren's great mate Padraig Harrington is also nominated, as befits the man who heads the European Order of Merit. One feels, however, that, until Padraig brings home the Major-flavoured bacon, the whiff of underachievement will, probably unfairly, deny him an award like this.

In GAA, Kieran Donaghy might be a contender, for the meteoric, fairytale nature of his rise, were he not lacking mantelpiece space from all the GAA and GPA awards he has squeezed into his hourse over the last few weeks. Henry Shefflin was only his usual perfection, and thus may be passed over in the manner that consistent brilliance is often taken for granted.

Non-horsey people like myself would tend to regard Aidan O'Brien as a token contender, there to represent one of the few sports in which we are a world power. But then you look at what his horses achieved this year - a fairly normal one - and you think that perhaps the esteemed RTE panel should get together only to thrash out who should finish second.

The Irish Champion Stakes and Irish Derby (Dylan Thomas), the Irish and their British equivalent (Alexandrova), the Phoenix Stakes (Holy Roman Emperor), the Critérium International (Mount Nelson), the 2000 Guineas and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Goerge Washington), the Ascot Gold Cup (Yeats), the Queen Anne Stakes (Ad Valorem) and the Shadwell Turf Mile at the Breeders Cup meeting in Kentucky. All were scooped by Ballydoyle this year. Phew!

Still, one imagines this award will go to someone who performed under the glare of the cameras and the pressure of the occasion, and as such a trainer like O'Brien is likely to be passed over.

In boxing there is a World (Katie Taylor) and European Champion (Bernard Dunne). As many are still a little 'iffy' about female boxing, Ms Taylor will probably be congratulated politely and sent on her way, the lads on the panel trying desperately, and failing, not to patronise her.

Dunne may get a podium place, the hoopla and excitement of his big night in the Point still fresh in the memory.

After Zara Phillips, Jessica Kurten might have a chance, but I feel the jodhpur madness must end here.

That leaves Derval O'Rourke and Paul O'Connell. Personally, I hope that O'Rourke gets it.

We're very cosy with our major sports in this country, probably because we don't have as many

successful competitors in other sports as we did in, say, the 1980s. O'Rourke deserves our attention and the recognition of this award for genuine achievement (World Indoor 60m Hurdles Champion and European (outdoor) 100m hurdles silver) in a sport we (Sonia O'Sullivan apart) have not excelled in for a long time, and in a discipline that we have generally found to technical and 'foothery' to be bothered with.

And I have a sneaking feeling Paul O'Connell will be getting to lift the team award anyway....

This House Ain't Big Enough For The Both of Them

Sometimes a landlord just doesn't like the cut of a tenant.

"That fella, I don't trust him. Shifty lookin'. Comes in late at night, sleeps all day. Has strange folk around at all hours. Not like that nice professional I have in the other place. Well-mannered, accountant I think, or something in the legal profession. Keeps the place tidy, everything just so in there...."

The GAA and the FAI never did get along. Maybe landlord and tenant is the wrong analogy. Two diametrically differing brothers, maybe that's better.

You know those sworn sibling rivalries: one is into sports, drinks pints down the local with his mates (they talk work and football, make mildly racist jokes, no harm), solid job, steady girl, makes the old man proud.

The other: wears only black, and that extends to eye make-up. Spends all day in his room on his computer; reads endlessly - William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, bit of Romantic poetry - his Mammy's favourite, though it breaks her heart.

Their differences are irreconcilable, though they are as stubborn as each other.

The FAI wanted to use Croke Park for a training session before heading for San Marino in February. Were they asking just to rise the GAA? We may be short on adequate sporting facilities in this country, but surely there are other fields somewhere on this island on which some cones could be arrayed for an afternoon?

You can see why the GAA were peeved at the request. But then you get Munster Council Chairman Sean Fogarty harrumphing:

"Ever since permission (to play soccer in Croke Park) was given to the FAI, there has been a lot of talk, a lot of photo opportunities at Croke Park.

"There's an air of triumphalism about the whole thing. Let them not forget than they are on our patch."

Triumphalism. There you have it. This man feels that the GAA's decision to allow the garrison games into Croker was a defeat - not a mature, considered response to a peculiar situation- and any expression of pleasure from "the soccer people" at the undeniably exciting prospect of playing in the magnificient arena is akin to dancing on Michael Cusack's grave.

The "soccer people" ("them") should come in, heads bowed in reverence, play their insiduous womanly sport, then get the hell out, leaving as little damage as possible in their wake.

Honestly, I don't know what we're going to do with the two of them.

Courageous Arsenal Worthy of Point

In the end, the Thin Red Line held out. Nine brave young privates - as well as Jens Lehmann and Gilberto Silva - against the four star generals of Chelsea. The Few scuppered the Many.

Arsenal supporters may baulk initially at the characterisation of their team in such lowly terms, being as we are the only two short calendar years since their team was dubbed "the Invincibles". Paul Merson, in the Sky studio, was certainly displeased at the caution of his team's first half approach, for example.

But the respective forces that ranged up against each other yesterday were so unevenly matched that the pride which Arsene Wenger will have felt in his young team's performance was fully justified.

More justified, though, than any sense of injustice which, knowing the one-eyed Frenchman's usual attitude to objectivity, he will probably be harbouring over Chelsea's equaliser. It certainly did appear that Ashley Cole, the disowned former son, fouled Aleksandr Hleb in the lead-up to Michael Essien's astonishing strike. But Chelsea rattled the woodwork so often that the Stamford Bridge groundsman will probably be touching up the paintwork on the goalposts this morning.

Having said that, for the second time in a couple of weeks, Chelsea pulled themselves around by dispensing with what is becoming a mystifying initial tactical set-up. Although Arsenal only went ahead in the 78th minute, eleven or so minutes after Chelsea brought on Arjen Robben and Shaun Wright-Phillips, that opener was much less in keeping with the run of play than had it been scored before Chelsea went to 4-3-3.

Even with only twelve minutes remaining, the likelihood of Chelsea's scoring at least one in response seemed quite high, and as it turned out, they could have had several.

The strange thing about the fact that Chelsea have had to change to the 4-3-3 formation to save matches is that it was exactly the system that had brought Jose Mourinho's side success in the first two seasons of his management. Clearly, the signing of Michael Ballack and Andrij Shevchenko - and the need for their deployment - has forced Mourinho into an unnatural reshuffle of his tactics.

Also, the good form of Didier Drogba this season has meant that the man whom many felt would make way for Shevchenko has been himself, as Mourinho called it, "untouchable".
But the introduction of the wingers Robben and Wright-Phillips brought a dynamism to Chelsea's attack that is generally non-existent as they seek to bludgeon teams with the heavyweight midfield four of Ballack, Lampard, Essien and Makalele.

Prior to the changes, Arsenal's heroic young defenders, with tremendous assistance from the heroic Gilberto Silva - a man who appears to be becoming more naturally suited to the captain's armband than Therry Henry is - were able to hold out the powerful champions. At times it was quite desperate stuff: Fabregas' clearance off the line from Essien, Gilberto Silva's lunging distraction as the Ghanaian shot on another occasion.

But the guerilla tactics kept Arsenal hanging in there, breaking with purpose and threat. The goal was typical of this approach, the Gunners moving up the pitch, committing numbers enough to stretch Chelsea and leave the space for Flamini.

On another day Chelsea would have overran them, but the character and courage the young Arsenal team showed made them worthy of a point.

Heineken Stakes High For Irish Sides

Is it any wonder that the profile of rugby in Ireland seems to be inflating nearly as exponentially as my stomach is likely to over the coming weeks of mince pie and savoury party snack heaven.


Not only does the everyone-loves-a-winner factor mean that our strutting, gunslinging national team are the nation's darlings du jour, but also the scheduling of two crucial rounds of Heineken Cup group matches for just after the November internationals means that the sport's box office stars will continue to occupy our thoughts for another few weeks.


There will be more Heineken Cup in January, before the boozy city-break bonhomie of the Six Nations kicks in for six weeks, and then the concluding stages of the Europe's premier competition bring you up to May.


This means that rugby will be at the forefront of the minds of those fickle, low-attention- spanned scoundrels, the General Public, for a good eight months - not including the much dreaded summer tour to Argentina. Not bad going in the bustling marketplace that hawkers of top class sport inhabit.


What did rugby folk do before the Heineken Cup? Traipse around mucky club fields of a winter Saturday, shuffle along to an interpro or two, offering it up as penance for the indulgence of the springtime international debauchery to come. We live in no-guilt times now, of course, and can debase ourselves almost every weekend if we wish.

Anyhow, Munster are unlikely to debase themselves in these group stages at least, starting them as they have in the firm, businesslike manner of champions. They were inches away from losing against Leicester - the distance by which Ronan O'Gara's monstrous last gasp hoof cleared the bar - but seemed, even as they went behind in the game, to retain control of their destiny, rather like in the manner England manouevred their winning drop goal situation in the 2003 World Cup final.

That might be understating how close they came to losing, as, had Shane Jennings not offered dissent on the awarding of the crucial penalty, then the kick would have been out of even O'Gara's reach. Still, you'd kind of had fancied them to stick it in the corner and rumble over for a winner anyway.

Where Munster are now is confirmed in the stats: if they defeat Cardiff on Sunday they will match Leicester's record of 11 tournament wins in a row and go past the Tigers' record of 5 consecutive Heineken away wins. And then there are the 30 home wins on the trot.

Cardiff should be a tough one, although the Blues will have to deal with a whole different Munster proposition from that which they defeated in the Magners League in September. They will attack Munster with ball in hand from the breakdown through Martyn Williams and burly scrum half Mike Philips. Munster have more than enough class for this one however.

Leinster and Ulster are not bobbing along anywhere near as gracefully as Munster; both of them face must win games this weekend.

London Irish are already the makeweights in Ulster's tough group, and victory at the Madejski on Saturday will be seen as a prerequisite if hopes of a quarter final place are not unfounded. Not only that, but in this group every bonus point is a prisoner, and Ulster have to pick one up somewhere to make up for that spurned in the opening day win over Toulouse.

A big performance is needed and, with the ego-boost of international honours many of their players now have, they should have the confidence to it against an exiles side out of the running already.

Leinster too have no margin for error, against Agen. That frustrating defeat in Edinburgh felt like an unexpected stumble, but one that Leinster are all too capable of. They lack that drive and unity of purpose which Munster have, a deficit of practical know-how.

You can pretty much guarantee that Saturday's game at Lansdowne (the latest "last game" in the old ground, this time being the final Heineken Cup match - Christ, would someone knock the place down already) will be open and high scoring, given the presence on Agen's team of the exuberant Fijian winger Rupeni Caucaunibuca and on Leinster's of Ireland's dashing blades of the backline.

The good thing is, the more open the game, the better for Leinster, capable as they are of out-running most teams. The absence of out-half Felipe Contepomi, however, is bound to diminish them, and you worry for them a bit if they fall behind or find themselves misfiring creatively.

Will they be able to battle out a win? They'll have to.

Gotta Have Personality

It is rather ironic that, in the year the BBC moved their Sports Personality of the Year shindig from the cosy confines of Broadcasting House to the cavernous, 3000-capacity NEC in Birmingham, it should be presented with the limpest shortlist of contenders in recent memory, following one of the Brits' poorest sporting years in some time.

"Poppycock!", cry the champions of minority pursuits, fond as they are of quaint admonishments. "Did not Nicole Cooke win the women's Tour de France and top the road race world rankings this year?", they say, indignantly.

"That's not all! Beth Tweddle overcame the disability of having a silly name to win a world gymnastics gold medal in the uneven bars! And what about Zara Phillips, herself bravely surmounting the handicap of several generations of inbred British royal blood to win the world three day eventing gold, Gawd bless you Ma'am?"

"Wot about Ricky 'atton and Joe Calzaghe?" piped up a flat nosed fellow in the back; "Ricky won the WBA world welterweight title, and Calzaghe took the WBO and IBF super-middleweight belts after what was described as one of the best performances by a British boxer ever."

"Then you've got Phil 'The Power' Taylor," belches a portly fellow in a silk shirt holding a pint glass. "Isn't it time the 13-times World Darts Champion got some proper recognition outwith the bounds of the Circus Tavern, Purfleet?"

"Surely that high-achieving bunch make up for the runts of the litter: one-Grand-Prix-win-in-113 attempts Jenson Button," they declare in unison, "world no.17 tennis player Andrew Murray and the cricketer who can't get a game ahead of Drop the Ashes-ley Giles."

No, my poorly-catered-for-by-the-media friends. For, you see, this is a sports personality contest. Which is why Darren Clarke, who won several important golf matches in September, will win the award for crying over the recent death of his wife in front of millions. Well, winning some important golf matches, then crying over the recent death of his wife in front of millions.

The BBC is a mass appeal television station (although the Ryder Cup was broadcast on Sky, but that's neither here nor there), in case you didn't know, and therefore deals heavily in broad, affecting images. Del Boy falling through a bar flap; Dirty Den being shot by a bouquet of flowers; the Queen on a horse. Snapshots of the nation in cultural congress.

The Sports Personality of the Year contest cares not for the minutiae of the tennis player's serving technique; it craves the climb into the centre court crowd toward aged relative. It has no interest in the laborious process of perfecting a gymnastic manouevre; it rejoices in the tearful waif with seven weighty gold medals around her neck. It yawns at consistency and doggedness; yelps in appreciation at emotion and spectacle.

Winners of previous years illustrate this. In 2001 David Beckham won the award for scoring one free kick in about forty-two attempts against Greece in that year's final World Cup qualifier. Second placed Ellen MacArthur only sailed around the world on her own - quite clearly an inferior achievement.

In general - or rather, in good years - the winner has achieved something worthwhile. But, more importantly, they will also have contributed a defining and timeless moment to a wide spread of the population. They will have made a lodgement in the collective bank of celebratory shared experience.

In a sparse year of sporting accomplishment across the water, Darren Clarke's public catharsis at the K Club was this year's most intensely affecting sporting image, which is why he will take the BBC's award and, while he's at it, any that are going on this island as well.

The Lonesome Death of the Centre Forward

The death occurred sometime in the early hours of the 21st century of the Old Fashioned Centre Forward. Despite having been in failing health until shortly before the end, his passing came as a shock to those who knew him. It is believed that he never fully recovered from complications developed after a routine cosmetic tactical procedure.

Having had his partner removed and reconstructed as The Makalele Role, the Centre Forward was unable to sustain life in isolation. He is survived by his brothers, Crafty Midfield Schemer and No-Nonsense Centre-Half.


A venerable and much loved figure, OFCF came to prominence in the early days of the game. A robust, ruddy-cheeked youth, he was usually to be found levitating in mid-air around the six yard box, from which location he was ideally situated to propel himself towards either a crossed ball, or the fleshy midriff of a trembling goalkeeper.

In his own phrase, he was "bloody useless" outside the penalty box. Indeed, his interventions when roaming far from his natural habitat earned nomenclature of their own: the Centre Forward's Tackle, for instance, being a variety of that art peculiar for its lack of the slightest resemblance to a tackle at all.

Ditto his contributions when drafted into his own box on defensive detail: a Centre Forward's Clearance typically undertaking a vertical, ballooning trajectory, before settling at the grateful feet of an attacking player.

But he was readily forgiven these shortcomings - indeed, they were merely source material for gentle, ribbing banter - due to the compensatory nature of what were reverentially termed his "predatory instincts".

Predatory Instincts were OFCF's broadsword, his stock-in-trade, the medium by which he delivered his message. He used Predatory Instincts like a singer uses song, like a poet uses verse, like a fireman uses a hose. He was them; they defined him. Without them, he was nothing. A Utility Player maybe; a Pacy Winger if he was lucky.

With them, he conquered the world. He advertised hair cream, after shave, Shredded Wheat. He slept with pop stars, models, barmaids. He appeared on Parkinson, This is Your Life, Quiz Ball. He won World Cups, European Championships, Leyland DAF Trophies.

He wore his Predatory Instincts like the medallion on his chest and the sideburns on his face: with atavistic pride, happily allowing any priapic symbolism to suggest itself.

And then one day, he turned up with his Predatory Instincts, his medallion and his sideburns, and found to his horror that everyone else was wearing skinny ties, tight buzz-cuts and talking about something called an "All Round Game."

"But what about Predatory Instincts?" he protested, gesturing over his shoulder in the direction of his penalty box domain.

"Not enough these days, mate," sighed his manager in response. "We're only playing one man up front now, since we brought The Makalele Role in. We can't be having you ambling about up there like a bloody elephant on the African plains. We need someone with an All Round Game."

"It might look like I'm aimlessly loitering like a disenfranchised youth in a shopping mall, but when the ball comes near I spring dangerously to life!"

"That's the problem OFCF. Because we have The Makalele Role here now, most of our players are dedicated to important things," said the boss, avoiding eye contact, "like covering, marking, tackling, holding, and suchlike. Scoring goals, is it? Hah! That's an anachronism, boy."

And then, lowering his voice, and staring at the distraught OFCF: "You're finished lad."

"You need to make your own goals now, OFCF," whispered one of his oldest colleagues, Tidy Full Back.

He tried to adjust, to get on board with this All Round Game notion. Dropping wide, or into the hole. But he looked confused and sad; his heart wasn't in it. Every now and then he would head for the comfort of the box, and make the little runs he used to love - waiting to spring dangerously to life. People turned away; old friends shook their heads.

And so OFCF began to disappear from the game, tumbling from the top of the tree and bumping painfully off every lower league branch on the way down, until he resurfaced every now and again in third round cup ties, played in cramped little grounds where time, happily, stood still.

The end was peaceful when it came, thankfully. May God rest him and heaven abound in sweet crosses on his 'ead.

Larsson Gets Chance For Happy Ending

It seemed such a shame at the time that Henrik Larsson’s last contribution on a major footballing stage would be that missed penalty in Sweden’s World Cup finals second round match against Germany. He was never much of a penalty taker even in his Celtic pomp, one of the few aspects of the striker’s art that he did not master; but it was a poor kick, a limp conclusion to a career at the top level that deserved rather to have as its final flourish his match-turning contribution from the bench for Barcelona in the Champions League final a few weeks earlier.

With due respect to Helsingborgs, the club in his homeland with whom he has spent the last few months, and to whom he will return in March for the beginning of the new Swedish season, it seems that Larsson will now add another unlikely chapter to the glorious twilight of his career when he signs, on loan, for Manchester United in January.

One can only presume that many clubs – including his last, Barcelona – wished to secure Larsson’s services at the end of last season. The sapping of pace from his legs through the advancement of years seemed to be progressing in an inversely proportionate manner to the cultivation of a footballing intelligence that no top manager can have missed. Whether Alex Ferguson was among those managers inquiring as to whether he could obtain the Swede’s services last summer we do not know, but the snapping up of Larsson could prove to be a crucial piece of business for the club.

Even so gilded a team as Barcelona were visibly boosted by his introductions last season. In the Champions League tie against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, the Catalans, despite being a man up, had begun to toil against the formidable Blues rearguard. Repeated probings by Ronaldinho and co. had failed to pierce the Chelsea rearguard, until Larsson entered the fray. His exploitation of space in the inside-left channel, particularly in the run-up to Eto’o’s winner, helped Barca come from behind to win 2-1.

In the Champions League final, in an almost identical situation, Larsson’s impact was unmistakeable. Firstly guiding a Deco ball through to Eto’o for the equaliser, then turning at the goal-line and rolling an immaculate pass to Belletti to score the winner. Little wonder that despite only being at the club for two seasons, and having spent much of the first injured, Larsson left Barca as something of a cult hero.

Those who have followed Larsson throughout his career, or at least since his arrival at Celtic in 1997, will have become familiar with the man’s admirable character, exemplified once again in his refusal to abandon his commitment to Helsingborgs, both at the end of last season and in the stated intention to return to the Swedish club for the beginning of their season in March. Whether in his recovery from a horrific leg-break at Celtic, or in his decision to spurn offers to leave the Glasgow club at the peak of his career because of his emotional attachment to them and his family’s happiness in Scotland, he has consistently come across as being a footballer of rare emotional intelligence and perspective.

United’s surprise manouevre has little to do with emotional intelligence however; Alex Ferguson will be looking to bolster his youthful forward line with Larsson’s experience and nous at a time of the season when he hopes his team will be reaching full gallop in the title race. Will Larsson do for this United side what Eric Cantona did in the 1992-93 season?

Now that would be a fitting end to his career.

Great Sporting Beards

Pakistan's Muhamad Yousuf distracted the cricket world's gaze from Steve Harmison's remedial work and Glenn McGrath's heel by virtue of his breaking Viv Richards' record for runs batted in a single calendar year yesterday. Yousuf has attributed his success to his conversion to Islam from Christianity two years ago.

And quite right he is. Clearly his faith's requirement to sport a luxurious, bushy beard has inspired him to these record-breaking heights. By providing a natural ballast around his jaw-line, the facial foliage anchors his head, preventing damaging flights of impetuousness at the crease.

We salute some other notable whiskermongers.

W.G. Grace
The most famous beard of them all, Grace lived in a time when chins were rarely bared - making his achievements in bristle-cultivation all the more admirable.

Much like Ali's mastery of the great heavyweights of the 60s and 70s, the scale of Grace's monumental beard easily bested any of the lushest facial thatches of the Victorian era.

A contemporary report described how Australian pace bowler Ernie Jones bowled Grace a bouncer that appeared to "go through his beard" so close was it to his face. Nonsense: it went through his beard alright; but the blighter pitched up no higher than the great man's knees!

Ricky Villa
Spurs' signing of Ossie Ardiles and his hirsute compatriot Villa generated enormous excitement in English football in August 1978.

The World Cup winners brought a rare dash of exoticism to England during the drab days of No Future and binmen's strikes. It is a testament to the swarthy magnificence of Villa's beard that it should have remained intact despite that era's firmly stated opposition to the hippy aesthetic.

Villa did not always fare so well on the field while in England, but the untamed growth was happily in place three years later for his finest hour: that unforgettable dribble through the Manchester City defence in the 1981 FA Cup final replay.

Bjorn Borg
Borg had a custom - subsequently imitated by Brighton's 1983 FA Cup finalist centre-half Steve Foster - that he would disavow shaving until losing. This meant that, for five years in succession, Borg sported a healthy Bjorn-and-Benny growth while winning Wimbledon.

The Swede's icy, inscrutable temperament was credited with helping him dominate tennis in the late 70s and early 80s, but his shock retirement at the age of 26 and his subsequent difficulties with drugs and underwear demonstrate that it was surely the soothing comfort provided by his sandy whiskers which allowed him to maintain such control over his mental faculties.

Giant Haystacks
Largely responsible, along with Charles Manson and Rasputin, for the perception abroad that men with beards are not to be trusted. Unfair, as the man known to his closest chums as Martin Ruane was a deeply religious fellow from honest Mayo stock who was reputedly a friend of Paul McCartney's - he even appeared in the 1984 Macca-written movie Give My Regards to Broad Street.

But Haystacks, for anyone who devotedly followed his epic bouts with Big Daddy in the 70s and 80s heyday of British wrestling, was simply the most fearsome, baddest man on the planet. To be a kid at that time was to suffer nightmares of his gruesome form, crushing you as Big Daddy and Kendo Nagasaki lay helpless in the first row. The power of the beard, my friends.

My Top Ten Sport-Watching Pubs Ever In The World Ever

The Guardian had a feature in its travel section yesterday which claimed to classify the Top Ten Bars of the World. Studies of this kind tend to either robustly objective and painstakingly collated, or entirely and brazenly subjective. This one is the latter, being the opinion of the newspaper’s deputy travel editor, Isabel Choat.

I am presuming Ms Choat has never supped stout in the Waxie Dargle just off Parnell Square, and question therefore the breadth of her knowledge on the subject. But I was still surprised not to find any Dublin pub honoured, considering this to be akin to finding a top ten of pizzerias bereft of Italian-based establishments.

Anyway, while thinking of pubs - a most agreeable pastime of an afternoon - I decided to publish my Top Ten Pubs For Watching Sport In, a hopefully useful – but, like the Guardian’s, entirely subjective - reference guide for those caught short two minutes before kick off. Most of these are Dublin hostelries, given that that is where I live, so please feel free to suggest your own favourite Big-Screen Valhalla.

1. Sharkey’s Bar, Annagry, Co.Donegal.
A nostalgic choice. The venue in which I earned my pub football stripes, back in the 1990s as the Sky Sports pub-sub-culture took root. Initially accompanied by Coke and Tayto crisps, Old Firm matches in Sharkey’s were washed down with some of my earliest pints. No obscurantist pillars, clear views from all over the pub, a goodly-sized screen in the corner of the lounge, beside the window through which you would watch the tide coming in. Watched Celtic’s 6-2 win over Rangers there a few days before leaving for a year in Australia. Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?

2.McDaid’s, Harry St.
The factors considered in assigning places to pubs on this list include ambience and swill-quality as well as the conduciveness inherent to watching sport therein. McDaid’s houses a single, humbly dimensioned screen above the door, but the atmosphere and the magisterial nature of the pint it offers make it a sure-fire winner - no matter what the score! (as it could be marketed, were it not unrequiring of the input of advertising industry dullards).

3.Gleeson’s, Booterstown
An unlikely gem. Hidden away on Booterstown Avenue, with a warm, middle-aged glow, this was the pleasant venue for a recent Champions League viewing. Sizeable, without being vulgar, a rear-drawing room affair housed an ideally proportioned plasma wonder, which hung above a roaring fire. Fetching lounge-girls buzzed helpfully around to administer to your refuelling needs. Comfort and atmosphere non pareil.

4.Koln Kolsch Brauerei
Kölsch, the local brew found in Köln, Germany, is served in small glasses and best quaffed in many of the brewery establishments around the city. This one I visited during the World Cup is near the Domplatz. Therein the gruffest of waiters bring you Kölsch – and only Kölsch; do not, like a friend of mine did, ask for some preposterous Weissbier or other, lest ye face the most withering of stares, before being given what you actually wanted - which was, of course, Kölsch. Sausage is served by the meter here, and the World Cup group games could be viewed on a huge screen as you washed the schweinfleisch down until stomach acid ran out your nostrils. Vier Kölsch?

5.Doheny & Nesbitt’s, Baggot St.
A Dublin institution, the main bar has a television located conveniently above the barman’s shoulder, so that you may not miss a kick as you shout your order. At most, taking your eyes off the game for the duration of a throw-in stoppage should be time enough to make the all-important eye contact with the stout yeoman of the bar and communicate your poison. I foresee this being a popular spot among southside Croker-boycotters aiming to maintain the spiritual heartland when the rugby internationals head to the odd-numbered postcodes next year.

6.The Lotts, Lotts, Dublin 1
This pub is split into two parts: the café-bar-urban-lounge-jazz-funk-chicken-teriyaki ‘lounge’, and a nice, traditional-feeling bar. Treats its footy with respect, which means Match of the Day on even amidst the madness of a Dublin Saturday night. Gets in also because of those occasions on which you are dragged into town shopping of a Saturday afternoon, and can contrive to walk past The Lotts, into which you can peer and catch the latest scores off Gillette Soccer Saturday.

7.McGrath’s, Drumcondra
A popular option for Croker match day drinking, it does not immediately present itself for its sport-watching qualities. But, of a quiet evening, sitting in the raised area towards the back which houses several comfy sofas feels like being in your own living room, just with a bar and a better telly.

8. O’Neill’s, Suffolk St.
Never mind the quality, feel the girth. Wade your way through bus-loads of American pensioners carrying trays of soup, blathering “What is this, Saccer? Is this Saccer? Is this Irish Saccer?”, and make your way to a stool at the upstairs bar, to enjoy a holy trinity of convenient bar access, a short hop to the toilet and, for a select few stools, excellent sight-lines. Once they turn the sound up, the Literary Pub Crawl crowd will clear. Of a bleary Sunday afternoon, a faceful of steaming carvery will centre you for the game.

9.Chaplin’s, Hawkins St.
This venue gets in because of convenience on two fronts. Located near O’Connell Bridge, it seems always to be the easiest place to meet people when in town. Also, being a charming, cosy affair, and rarely busy, one’s access to the bar is generally lethally swift. Find yourself a stool at the bar; turn to your right to view the game on one of the shimmering, plasmic fellows on the wall, and a mere raising of an eyebrow refills your glass.

10.Fitzsimon’s, Temple Bar.
A horrendous pub. Really, really bad – I would not recommend going for a pint here in a million years. But what it lacks for in charm, affordability, taste, clientele, it makes up for by having a staggeringly big screen – like, the size of the wall, and a sort of raised area at the back which acts as a good viewing platform when busy. I watched France v Spain in the 2000 European Championships here, and, surrounded by partisans from either nation, it felt a little like being there, or somewhere that is not normally a tiresome Temple Bar fleshpot.

Paidi's Way Or The Highway

Paidi O’Se will be back prowling the touchlines of inter-county football fields after a year’s hiatus, having been appointed as the new Clare senior football manager. With O’Se and Ger Loughnane both donning Bainisteoir bibs anew for next year, we will perhaps look back on 2005 in twelve months time as an gentle, prelapsarian era, when kindly souls like Mickey Moran and John Morrison and perfect gentlemen like John Allen and Jack O’Connor dominated the GAA landscape, and the worst vibes going were the odd scowl from Billy Morgan or patrician glare from Brian Cody.

Paidi was on the news last night, intercepted on his way to Clare for his coronation by the intrepid Marty Morrissey. Bottled up in a smart-cut suit, he still bubbled with that spiky charisma that generally spills into offence or upset of some sort before too long.

Seeing his cheeky, feline features, my dear lady-friend recoiled: “Oooh, I hate him! Look at him!” she spat forth. I was surprised at the strength of this opinion, given her well-articulated lack of interest in any pursuits of the field. “He looks like he’s been drinking,” quoth she, pointing at his admittedly reddened visage.

“He’s just…wild!”, she added, and I understood that this was not the quality of wildness which she might once have ascribed to a River Phoenix or an Ethan Hawke in her frisky, bobby-soxing past, but rather a disapproving distaste for one who was, quite clearly, an enemy of decorum.

I don’t have such a strong opinion on O’Sé myself. Positive, I’d say, in the sense that for one who writes about things, the presence in the field of a character like Paidi is a useful one. Positive too, in the sense that for one who watches such things, the presence in the vista of a character like Paidi is an entertaining one. But I understand, too, why he is not universally loved.

Two Paidi stories.

I quote the following from the Newry Democrat of Tuesday March 9, 2004:

The Newry and Mourne Annual Sports Awards were held last Thursday night, but events did not go to plan when the guest speaker, Paidi O Se, chose to talk about political rather than sporting issues.

The awards were hosted by Newry and Mourne District Council and sponsored by the Newry Democrat and the First Trust Bank. The Chief Executive of the Newry Democrat, commenting after the ceremony said: “As part of our contribution to the evening we agreed to engage a guest speaker. We were delighted when we engaged Paidi O'Se, a Kerry ‘great’ and their former football manager, to speak at the awards.

"We looked forward to being regaled with stories of the glory years of Kerry football and perhaps some stories about the rivalry between the Munster and Ulster Counties on the football field.

"This was not to be the case and Mr O’Se started his speech by saying that while in New York a number of weeks ago he was asked if soccer and rugby should be played at Croke Park, he replied: “Fine, under one condition, that it is under a 32 county All Ireland.”

Both nationalist and unionist politicians and local business leaders attended the awards ceremony. Mr O’Se proceeded to say that he was delighted there were no more “foreigner people”, referring to the British army, checking at the border any more. A DUP councillor from the Banbridge area left the ceremony at this point.

“We were disappointed that Mr O'Se strayed from the subject of sport and into the area of politics. We had no advance notice of what was to be said by Mr O'Se and we deeply regret the politicalisation of the sports stars awards,” said Mr Brennan (the Chief Executive of the Newry Democrat".

Speaking from his pub in Ventry, Co Kerry, Mr O’Se said he regretted if his remarks had caused any difficulties for anyone.'

I recall my only close-up experience of Paidi. It was about a year ago, in the upstairs bar of Kehoes on South Anne St. in Dublin. It must have been shortly after the end of his Westmeath reign, a Saturday night, the pub packed. I glanced across the bar and saw Paidi.

Sitting on a stool, facing the bar, arms folded, red face screwed up in that expression that lurks somewhere on the flipside of amusement and pain; Tomas O’Flahartha (his erstwhile Westmeath assistant and successor in the position) standing at his shoulder, leaning down to speak into his ear; Paidi reacting only in nods or tilts of the head; the rest of his party behind him, momentarily cut-off from any contact – save through the intermediary of Factotum O’Flatharta) or even the courtesy of conventional social body language.

Paidi O’Sé sat in the upstairs bar of Kehoes in Dublin and had his pint, the way he wanted it, like he was sitting at his own counter down in Ventry. He was so convincing, that for a moment I thought I was too.

The good folk of the Newry and Mourne District Council know that Paidi does things his way.

The footballers of Clare will, I expect, be aware of that fact too, quite soon.