|
Post by glengael on Oct 5, 2017 9:42:34 GMT
Interesting thoughts thebluepanther. The GAA already has it's class structure firmly in place. Both of our counties are in the 'good room' at the moment, there are many counties who are already in 2nd or 3rd class or steerage.
|
|
|
Post by thirdson on Oct 5, 2017 22:59:24 GMT
What is professionalism re the gaa ? Has gooch being paid for playing with crokes or Kerry ? No I imagine. The dinner is an earner no more than the books or the pub with the players name above it. Brolly earns his contract with rte on the basis of being brolly all Ireland winner with Derry not as brolly the barrister. As regards the volunteers who coached gooch at crokes well has nt he repaid that with the county medals and the all Ireland club title. Did nt the hours he put in count as much as the hours the volunteers put in. And I m sure he ll be coaching at crokes in the years to come in a voluntary capacity.
|
|
mandad
Senior Member
Posts: 448
|
Post by mandad on Oct 6, 2017 8:47:09 GMT
For sure there has been an insidious dilution of the amateur ethos of the GAA. We have seen radical changes associated with sponsorship, endorsement and even the naming of stadia etc. Recent years have generated new kinds of entrepreneurs – notably player agents, who will strike deals for their man, often in highly undesirable and unscrupulous circumstances i.e. medal presentation to young- lads. Managers/coaches – even at club level, are being paid mind-boggling under the table sums of money. If the seemingly unfathomable amounts we hear sometimes are even close to reality, then even Mike Quirke might be staggered.
Little wonder then that more money-oriented individuals are tempted. Of course, nobody is immune from the world of economic imperatives that must be dealt with outside the sporting arena.
But the GAA has always been an amateur association and of this immutable principle, we ought to be louder and prouder. Social norms are better and more effective constraints on behaviors than rules or regulations could ever be.
The GAA is still a great Association, one which provides an enormous amount of joy, especially at underage level. Anything which threatens to damage it is to be avoided.
|
|
|
Post by Attacking Wing Back on Oct 6, 2017 10:31:24 GMT
Gooch on the late late tonight to plug is book
|
|
|
Post by yourholiness on Oct 6, 2017 11:08:58 GMT
What is professionalism re the gaa ? Has gooch being paid for playing with crokes or Kerry ? No I imagine. The dinner is an earner no more than the books or the pub with the players name above it. Brolly earns his contract with rte on the basis of being brolly all Ireland winner with Derry not as brolly the barrister. As regards the volunteers who coached gooch at crokes well has nt he repaid that with the county medals and the all Ireland club title. Did nt the hours he put in count as much as the hours the volunteers put in. And I m sure he ll be coaching at crokes in the years to come in a voluntary capacity. What the Gooch is doing cannot be equated with media work . Rightly or wrongly Ryle Nugent and Denis O Brien believe that in employing Joe Brolly they will attract more viewers and arising from that more advertising revenue. There are many who played alongside Brolly who don't enjoy the level of media exposure he does so he obvioulsly has marketable qualities beyond that All-Ireland medal . That the Gooch will volunteer in the future is not relevant . I'm uneasy about this and clearly the organisers are also or we wouldnt have the tokenistic and undefined donations to charity .
|
|
|
Post by Annascaultilidie on Oct 6, 2017 11:51:04 GMT
What is professionalism re the gaa ? Has gooch being paid for playing with crokes or Kerry ? No I imagine. The dinner is an earner no more than the books or the pub with the players name above it. Brolly earns his contract with rte on the basis of being brolly all Ireland winner with Derry not as brolly the barrister. As regards the volunteers who coached gooch at crokes well has nt he repaid that with the county medals and the all Ireland club title. Did nt the hours he put in count as much as the hours the volunteers put in. And I m sure he ll be coaching at crokes in the years to come in a voluntary capacity. What the Gooch is doing cannot be equated with media work . Neither can it be equated with pay for play.
|
|
|
Post by thirdson on Oct 6, 2017 12:56:00 GMT
What is professionalism re the gaa ? Has gooch being paid for playing with crokes or Kerry ? No I imagine. The dinner is an earner no more than the books or the pub with the players name above it. Brolly earns his contract with rte on the basis of being brolly all Ireland winner with Derry not as brolly the barrister. As regards the volunteers who coached gooch at crokes well has nt he repaid that with the county medals and the all Ireland club title. Did nt the hours he put in count as much as the hours the volunteers put in. And I m sure he ll be coaching at crokes in the years to come in a voluntary capacity. What the Gooch is doing cannot be equated with media work . Rightly or wrongly Ryle Nugent and Denis O Brien believe that in employing Joe Brolly they will attract more viewers and arising from that more advertising revenue. There are many who played alongside Brolly who don't enjoy the level of media exposure he does so he obvioulsly has marketable qualities beyond that All-Ireland medal . That the Gooch will volunteer in the future is not relevant . I'm uneasy about this and clearly the organisers are also or we wouldnt have the tokenistic and undefined donations to charity .
|
|
|
Post by thirdson on Oct 6, 2017 13:01:55 GMT
What the Gooch is doing cannot be equated with media work . Rightly or wrongly Ryle Nugent and Denis O Brien believe that in employing Joe Brolly they will attract more viewers and arising from that more advertising revenue. There are many who played alongside Brolly who don't enjoy the level of media exposure he does so he obvioulsly has marketable qualities beyond that All-Ireland medal . That the Gooch will volunteer in the future is not relevant . I'm uneasy about this and clearly the organisers are also or we wouldnt have the tokenistic and undefined donations to charity . Brolly s marketable selling points I.e his rent a quote style are still tied in to his gaa career. He simply would not be on tsg without having had an inter county career. If we want the gaa to draw a rule on this that no gaa member benefits from gaa related activity including media work , testimonial dinners well we could be entering muddy waters. Where does the difference between the gaa member and the private citizen begin and end.
|
|
|
Post by himself on Oct 6, 2017 15:18:11 GMT
There seems to be some confusion here. I don't think anyone wants a rule that no GAA member can ever benefit from having played GAA, that would be an illegal rule as well as bat* crazy. No-one has suggested that Colm Cooper needs any kind of 'sanction' from the GAA for a personal undertaking, even if his GAA career is the basis for that undertaking. Joe Brolly never required the GAA's permission to work as a journalist. My own club are holding a fundraiser to help an injured juvenile member as much as we can; I don't know if the club asked for formal permission, but it would most definitely being going ahead in the absence of it. No-one is suggesting that the GAA themselves should, or even could, shut this testimonial down. Where the issue with professionalism arises is in the fact that a top player from a high profile county can make lucrative earnings, where most players can't. Should that become a realistically attainable goal for top players, it creates an even greater balance between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' of the GAA world. A simple example is the much-mooted suggestion that we should be setting up programmes to provide for young players who might be lured to Australia - a car, phone, paid accommodation......like it or not, that is saying that we should provide financial assets directly to our best young talent, i.e. pay them. We are already in very muddy waters in regards to professionalism in the GAA - or most managers, especially at inter-county level, are unbelievably (cough!) altruistic. Initiatives like this one bring us ever closer to the latter days of amateur rugby in the late 1980s, when both rugby clubs and politicians tended to buy their brown envelopes in bulk. I don't like where the association is going (I think it is far too economically focussed now anyway), and to me, this is another big step along a very slippery slope that will hinder rather than help the Association in the long-term.
|
|
|
Post by yourholiness on Oct 6, 2017 16:07:29 GMT
What the Gooch is doing cannot be equated with media work . Neither can it be equated with pay for play. I'd agree with you there too .
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 16:13:54 GMT
There seems to be some confusion here. I don't think anyone wants a rule that no GAA member can ever benefit from having played GAA, that would be an illegal rule as well as bat* crazy. No-one has suggested that Colm Cooper needs any kind of 'sanction' from the GAA for a personal undertaking, even if his GAA career is the basis for that undertaking. Joe Brolly never required the GAA's permission to work as a journalist. My own club are holding a fundraiser to help an injured juvenile member as much as we can; I don't know if the club asked for formal permission, but it would most definitely being going ahead in the absence of it. No-one is suggesting that the GAA themselves should, or even could, shut this testimonial down. Where the issue with professionalism arises is in the fact that a top player from a high profile county can make lucrative earnings, where most players can't. Should that become a realistically attainable goal for top players, it creates an even greater balance between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' of the GAA world. A simple example is the much-mooted suggestion that we should be setting up programmes to provide for young players who might be lured to Australia - a car, phone, paid accommodation......like it or not, that is saying that we should provide financial assets directly to our best young talent, i.e. pay them. We are already in very muddy waters in regards to professionalism in the GAA - or most managers, especially at inter-county level, are unbelievably (cough!) altruistic. Initiatives like this one bring us ever closer to the latter days of amateur rugby in the late 1980s, when both rugby clubs and politicians tended to buy their brown envelopes in bulk. I don't like where the association is going (I think it is far too economically focussed now anyway), and to me, this is another big step along a very slippery slope that will hinder rather than help the Association in the long-term. Do you see a way of reversing this slide down the slippery slope or is it simply evolution of time?
|
|
|
Post by himself on Oct 6, 2017 16:35:18 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Oct 6, 2017 16:46:40 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic. I had a bad feeling way back thirty years ago with the bendix business. For me the GAA crossed a line by selling exclusive rights to Sky and spinning it as helping the diaspora. I too remember the dying embers of amateur rugby. Hopefully we will still have a vibrant club scene and TG4 when the intercounty scene cannibalises itself as it surely will. In the meantime, Colm might as well secure his future...
|
|
|
Post by ballynamona on Oct 6, 2017 17:40:28 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic. I think the genie is out of the bottle regarding the elitism, I agree on that. One practical thing the GAA could do is to rule that club players should be made available to play in club fixtures (County League and Co. Champ at all grades). The worry would be that inter-county managers would tell players to say they are injured. Young players could be pressured. Even if players didn't train with the clubs they could play County League. Surely games in the County League with all the best players available would be hugely beneficial to young players.
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 18:05:01 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic. It is driven from the top down. All-Ireland semi final moved out of Croker to accommodate a commercial venture..................money money money has taken hold in the GAA. Pay per view and SKY is only tickling the underbelly of more money money money. Money makes the GAA go around.
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 18:06:54 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic. I had a bad feeling way back thirty years ago with the bendix business. For me the GAA crossed a line by selling exclusive rights to Sky and spinning it as helping the diaspora. I too remember the dying embers of amateur rugby. Hopefully we will still have a vibrant club scene and TG4 when the intercounty scene cannibalises itself as it surely will. In the meantime, Colm might as well secure his future... Classic, Micko is to blame for pending professionalism. Lol......................
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 18:10:19 GMT
It's only an opinion from an amateur in these matters (pardon the intentional pun!), but to be honest when I look at the development of every sport in the world, from athletics to golf to boxing to soccer to darts to whatever-you-are-having-yourself, I have never seen a reversal of this trend. Once the money starts to appear, I have never heard of any mainstream sport, in any culture anywhere, that reversed the trend. The decline in the likes of bear-baiting (always fun!), cock-fighting (avoiding any jokes with that one!) or christian burning (meh, I can live with it) were due to legal changes, not financial factors. The GAA is already one of the biggest economic influencers in this country (much richer than soccer, although the money congeals obscenely at the top in a way that keeps Irish soccer smaller than it should be in terms of audiences, coaching, and facilities). I'm sorry to say, kerrygold, that over time I don't see any way to reverse this trend. I think the total concentration on the big inter-county games that generate the big revenue will continue, but the consequent decline in the game at club level will have a long-term impact at local level. Rugby, which at least has an overseas market, seems to bear this out. More and more of the players at the top teams (In Ireland, you have 'divisional' teams such as Munster and Leinster but they are not 'clubs' in the traditional sense) are brought in by contract negotiations, not formative coaching. We are years away from an inter-county transfer scene in the GAA, but cases such as Seanie Johnston's tranfer to Kildare make me cask how many loopholes will be opened in the next decade. None of this, of course, is Colm Cooper's fault in any way and I don't mean to suggest that it is; sorry for taking the thread so off-topic. I think the genie is out of the bottle regarding the elitism, I agree on that. One practical thing the GAA could do is to rule that club players should be made available to play in club fixtures (County League and Co. Champ at all grades). The worry would be that inter-county managers would tell players to say they are injured. Young players could be pressured. Even if players didn't train with the clubs they could play County League. Surely games in the County League with all the best players available would be hugely beneficial to young players. Seems idealistic in an environment where a 19 year is pulled from a county u21 final to sit on a Croke Park bench! A new low.
|
|
|
Post by ballynamona on Oct 6, 2017 18:51:43 GMT
It is idealistic. But I would love to see it going to Congress.
|
|
|
Post by himself on Oct 6, 2017 19:25:11 GMT
Sadly, my point was that so would I, but the powers that be have already refuted the primacy of any club or domestic schedule in favour of the income-generating inter-county scene. That debate was quite a while back. A 'super 8' that will bring in money? Jaysus, but Trump would be embarrassed at the path the GAA executive have taken. Kill off the small fries and bring in the big bucks. Inter-County players released to play such trivia as club league games? It'll be interesting - and I'm sorry, but completely predictable - to see how many inter-county players dedicate themselves to club football in April next year. I won't be holding my breath.
|
|
|
Post by ddtinexile on Oct 6, 2017 21:14:08 GMT
Gooch was as brilliant tonight on the late late show as he was on the football field.
Brilliant interview.
Fair play to him, he should be supported on this and f the begrudgers
|
|
falveyb2k
Fanatical Member
"The way this man played today, if there was a flood he'd walk on water. Jack O Shea"
Posts: 1,920
|
Post by falveyb2k on Oct 6, 2017 21:54:29 GMT
A nation of begrudgers springs to mind. If the corporate world wants to pay for his time then good luck to him. It's only a big hoopla because he's the first Gaa player to do it. Same as there was a hoopla with the Bendix deal, same when kerry were sponsored by adidas, same when players started appearing for product placement. Crumlin gain as do kerry cancer, kerry Gaa, crokes and the gooch himself. Best wishes to him
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 22:17:26 GMT
It will be interesting to see what the Gooch does post game. This feels like the beginning for him. He is likely to be as exceptional off the pitch as he was on it. He could become a ground breaker in many ways. I'd say the world is his oyster to be honest.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2017 22:28:31 GMT
Maybe I am too cynical but the mention of the crokes and Kerry gaa getting their cut tonight jarred a bit. It felt like the pr guys are trying to change the narrative
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 6, 2017 22:45:21 GMT
Your not, but he also has a huge platform and the skill to go with it off the pitch.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Oct 6, 2017 23:13:02 GMT
Great to see the light in Colm's eye tonight, very relaxed and articulate.
He has the X Factor that few have .... Joe Canning has it in hurling.
On a purely selfish level, I hope someone in Kerry has the cop to bring him on board at some level.
There is an element of "making it up as we go along" about the testimonial and adding Crokes and Kerry GAA is part of that. But new ground is being broken here and others that follow will learn from his mistakes.
He said Brolly texted him to apologise for his article.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 4:46:34 GMT
Colm stitched brolly up big time there. Brolly on twitter is stating that he stands over everything he said.
|
|
|
Post by kerrygold on Oct 7, 2017 8:40:45 GMT
He'll probably become an even greater footballer off the field. His footballing legacy and stature will grow and grow post game. He'll probably become as iconic as Micko Connell for example. There is no bigger prize.
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Oct 7, 2017 8:47:16 GMT
Complex Colm Cooper relieved to finally pass on the Kerry mantle Autobiography reveals skilful Kingdom hero was also a contrary, raging competitor
about 2 hours ago Keith Duggan In his early Kerry days, Colm Cooper became used to brawny and unsmiling man-markers quietly promising to inflict grievous bodily harm on him, in one way or another.
He can easily summon the vows, if not the accents, 15 years on. “I’ll bring you down to size ya scrawny bollocks.” “I’ll get you with the next ball, ya –––– .” Fill in whatever oath or insult you want. They came at him in torrents. There would be pinching too and the odd dig in the ribs. Famously, Cooper weighed ten stone when he started playing senior football with Kerry and veteran defenders interpreted his skinny frame as an act of insolence in itself; what business did this child have out here, in the dark daylight of the men’s game?
And, in truth, the treatment was just an extension of what he had been hearing all the way up, from the estate in Ardshanavooly and all through school. He was the youngest of five and the smallest and he was told all about it. “Useless.” “Too weak.” “Go home to your mam now.” “Too light.” “You’ll get broken.”
He didn’t listen. If he had allowed any of it to infiltrate his thinking, it would have been over before it began. He believes Mikey Sheehy and Charlie Nelligan may have known his name on the day he showed up for Kerry minor trials but it’s just as likely that they knew him only as the Crokes lad, until he scored 1-5 in the trial game and forced them to look beyond the lightness.
When Páidí Ó Sé called him up to the senior squad, he was auditioning alongside quality forwards like Johnny Crowley and Dara Ó Cinnéide, both of whom were as solidly composed as Peterbilt freight trucks. Maurice Fitzgerald had shimmered off stage the very year Cooper arrived and Mike Frank Russell was the resident artist and was in his prime.
Fellows were friendly enough but didn’t make a fuss of him and Cooper could all but hear their scepticism. “I’d say privately, lads were saying: ‘* it, where are they going with this fella? He’ll be killed.’ But I won them very quickly I think. You can say that it is cheeky or arrogant to say that. But I won them quickly.” There’s a tidy legend about Colm Cooper that Ireland knows well; the flame-haired mascot for Dr Crokes imbued with towny cockiness and an endless bag of football tricks who was destined to someday exhibit genius in a Kerry shirt – and then grew up to do just that.
“See, the story has worked out now. But I worked my bollocks off,” he says on a quiet midweek morning in Killarney. The Kingdom is drenched with rainfall – yellow warnings abound – but there are still a few tourists mooching about who have no idea that this slender man in a suit is the closest thing to royalty as you can get in the county. Cooper is at the beginning of what will be a hectic few weeks of talking about himself. Last night, he sat on the most famous couch in RTÉ.
Gooch, his autobiography with Vincent Hogan, dominates the window displays of book shops around the country. Controversy wheels around a planned testimonial dinner. Within the pages of his biography there is, indeed, that fantastical story of a football savant to whom the game came laughably easy. But that figure has also been a convenient front; a mask behind which a spiky and funny and instinctively local individual had to get on with the trickier business of living. He had to learn on the hoof, beginning with those games with Kerry when he was a bit unnerved by how enraged those defenders seemed to be by his presence. And the Kerry squad was a no-frills apprenticeship. You figured it out or you didn’t. “It was strange to me,” he remembers. “I was only 18. And it is not really done in Kerry, that talking. So for a couple of years, I was saying, * it . . . did I do something wrong here to this fella? Like, I had been playing minor league games six months earlier. Two 17-year-olds: you both jump for a ball and one of you gets it. Play away! So to go from that forced me to learn to deal with it. And initially, I wasn’t good enough. It took me a while to learn that I hadn’t upset this fella but that he was upsetting me and had me talking to him, telling him to . . . * off or whatever. And if a corner back can crack you, he has you.” Cooper endured, of course; five All-Irelands, 15 years with the Kingdom, a cinematic highlights reel, eight All Stars and the perfect bookend of a club All-Ireland with Crokes in March of this year, after which he confirmed that he was retiring as a Kerry footballer. His last All-Ireland, a soaked final which ended in defeat against Dublin in 2015, was an endurance test alongside Philly McMahon, one of the most obdurate and sticky defenders in the game. McMahon is unapologetic about an up-close and personal style of marking which would have made Cooper’s early antagonists seem like kindergarten teachers in comparison. There was a memorable exchange after the final whistle in which McMahon appeared to try and engage Cooper in conversation while the Kerry man clearly just wanted to get away. Hugely frustrating “I’ve never wanted to be friends with my opponents,” he admits in the book. “Never. Maybe I’m just cold like that. But it holds no interest for me.”
He describes that last final as hugely frustrating but says that the moment with McMahon just reflected how he always felt after games. “There are things in the game that might have gone on. Without wanting to dig stuff up, by and large, win or lose, not that I’m overjoyed but you shake hands and bite your tongue. But there are occasions when you might not be happy with something – spoken or physical. And it happens. “I can’t even remember what was said there but it was like: ‘Well done. Enjoy your celebrations.’ I don’t want an excuse for what went on or what was said. Just: well done. Go enjoy it with your team. I didn’t want a hard luck story or ‘this is why I did that’. I move on. I park things as quickly as I can because if you carry that baggage you become a bitter person for the rest of your life.”
Cooper is 34 now. Since he was a teenager, he has been the public face of Kerry football: a preternaturally creative forward with a demonic streak in front of goal, soft spoken, a purist and a polite if distanced personality in his dealings with media.
The great insight contained within his book is that while his sporting life was played out on a grand scale, his day-to-day living was almost wilfully narrow. His world revolved around the local: his parent’s house in Ardshan’, the bank where he started working after school and Fitzgerald Stadium. He has been known as “the Gooch” since he was eight but his parents and siblings always called him Colm. He doesn’t mind the nickname but agrees it quickly became larger than he understood.
“It almost became a brand,” he acknowledges. “I mean, it’s on the cover of the book. And I think there is something in the GAA that loves to give someone a nickname. But yeah, ‘Gooch’ became this poster boy of Kerry football and at times that was difficult. Because maybe I wasn’t that person. And all of a sudden I was this person on billboards and launching this or that. Because my profile was high and Kerry were on the crest of a wave, I was sought after. And that quickly elevated the ‘Gooch’ thing.
“But there is still Colm Cooper the person who has friends and gets up and goes to work each morning. So the difficulty was that ‘Gooch’ was public property while Colm Cooper was his own person and that was the hardest thing. “Like, to give an example. My niece plays Kerry minors now. And I went to see her play an All-Ireland match at U-16. I just wanted to go and see her play with my sisters and my Mam. I was a supporter. But you end up taking pictures and signing autographs in the stand and I felt like I was taking from her day on the field.
Schools event “And another time, I was due to appear at a schools event as a guest but they ended up asking me not to appear because they worried that my being there might distract from the event. And I could fully understand where they were coming from. But I just wanted to turn up to the thing like anyone else. Maybe I contributed to all that because I have been in the media for so long. But at other times, there is nothing I can do about it.”
It meant that like many other Kerry football lifers, Cooper all but led a covert daily existence. They learned to move beneath the radar and knew the right nooks for an escape or an occasional blow-out. The notorious 2009 episode in which Cooper and Tomás Ó Sé were dropped for a championship game for drinking (in separate towns, it turned out) is eye-opening for its timidity. Cooper’s sin was to head down the town and watch a US golf tournament on television while he downed a few pints. That was it. He took three months to try and escape from himself in 2007 but it wasn’t until 2014 that he was finally forced to sit still and think about who he was. The first blow was physical: an awkward tackle in the club All-Ireland semi-final against Castlebar Mitchels blew his knee out. Lying on the grass, his immediate thought was that his sequence of unbroken championship appearances for Kerry was in jeopardy.
A series of visits to Santry confirmed that his entire future as a footballer was on the line. The isolation of those weeks and the sudden sundering of the collegiality – and the cult – of Kerry football hit him hard. Then, much more profoundly, his mother Maureen was diagnosed with cancer that March. The family had already lost their father, Mike, in 2006 to a heart attack after which Maureen began to take on both roles. “She was the glue for us all,” he says. “The house was still busy because of her. In for tea and a chat before a match in Killarney, the kids running in the garden. That is all we knew.”
Maureen died at home that August and in the book, Cooper is both exceptionally open about those days within his family and equally honest about how little he disclosed to his team-mates at the time.
“People knew my mom wasn’t well. But I didn’t . . . particularly the Kerry lads, even Darran [O’Sullivan, one of his closest friends], I never opened up to say how serious it was. Maybe they were hearing it second hand.
“It was the Thursday after the Galway game she died. And your world is thrown upside down. The funeral was Friday and Saturday. Kerry trained on Sunday so I went up there. I needed to clear my head because I felt lifeless and I had no energy. Darran called into me and we watched Armagh playing. And I asked him when training was on and he told me Sunday. I said I might go up. And he was there, ‘are you sure man?’ It was just a really *ty time and it was tough on all the family. Sometimes the family are as guarded as I am. It might be a family trait.”
Backwards glance There is a section early in the book in which Éamonn Fitzmaurice, the Kerry manager, calls around to Cooper to coax him into staying on for the 2017 season, reminding him that a Crokes man would be captain. But Cooper wasn’t for persuading and halted the entreaties by saying: “Listen Éamonn, I didn’t give a * about you when you retired.” Fitzmaurice burst out laughing. But he took the point. At heart, Cooper was a mercenary. Kerry football kept moving and no matter who bailed out – Ó Sé, O’Mahony, any of them – he didn’t so much as give them a backwards glance.
“No sentimental bull* from me” he insists in the book. They couldn’t help him win All-Irelands. Now, he holds himself to the same account. He was half surprised to find himself with the other once-were-warrior names on the Sunday Game, suited and opining. Analysing. Starring in the show he’d spent summer after summer avoiding. But he was surprised, too, by how light it felt not to have to worry about Kerry’s All-Ireland fortunes for the first time in his adult life.
“Yeah,” he says brightly. “And that can be wearing at times. That expectancy. It can drain you. It can age you. Because of the pressure you put yourself under. Probably still do with Crokes. Like, I am still pretty close with some of the Kerry fellas but as the years go on, I will have less of a connection with the team. And the day will come when I don’t even know these people and maybe that is when the mask will come off a bit more.”
But it is already slipping. The sweet legend – the smiley mascot, the darling – served to disguise the truth of the contrary, raging competitor underneath. Cooper is old fashioned; no time for sports psychologists, sceptical about sports science fads (“the boys would laugh at me for showing up with a Curly-Wurly. Fat tests. You wouldn’t have wanted to have tried those on our boys”) and sounding, he knows, like a crank when he scolds about the seriousness of contemporary dressing room culture.
He goes on a wonderful comical rant that would have probably left the original Colm Cooper, the lightweight with game to burn, puzzled. “You know, I am probably one of the few old school left. The young guys have a different mentality . . . It has moved on. Everything is orchestrated. There is like a template you follow each week. That can be charted. You hear these stories of boys signing contracts. *ing hell! It’s a hobby like. Particularly at club level. They are different . . . There was probably a little bit of boldness in us.
“There was more opportunity to maybe have a few pints on the way home from a league match. Maybe in Adare on the way back from Donegal. But there’d be no sign of that now. And sometimes, the game can be over complicated. There is still a place for what I would call the agricultural. A bit of hardness. Toughness. We see cones and arrows everywhere now. And analysis. Goals can come from someone kicking the ball in the air and two fellas jumping and it breaks and some fella buries a goal. So I think the analysis gets overplayed.
“How many are on back room squads now? You are turning into the NFL when you look at the sideline. The young guys now have a different mentality. They are different. Maybe some people – like the younger guys with Crokes now have two All-Irelands with the Kerry minors and two All-Irelands with the Sem’ in the colleges. And they come into this environment. And they look at me and are probably saying: who is this *ing lunatic?” Colm Cooper On . . . That Testimonial. “Any time there is a first thing done in the GAA, there are always questions. I knew it would create debate and opinion. That is part of it. Anything that is new can be slow and there will be questions as to where it is going and whether it will become the new norm. there has been a lot written and said and I will probably have my say in coming weeks. But am I surprised it got as much air play? Yes and no. I knew it would create debate but maybe not as much. Maybe I needed to realise that this was the GAA." His generation of Kerry/Dublin players meeting up in the future. “I don’t think that is going to happen with any teams because if you go back to the socialising: it just didn’t happen. Those boys [the 1970s teams) are down at the Listowel races each year. Look, if I was in Dublin at an event I would happily have a pint with any of ‘em. I am in no way bitter. I may be pissed off about things but you move on. Things happen on the pitch the whole time. You mighn’t be happy and you might exchange words. And you probably will remember these things. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to blank someone. He will never be my best friend, like.” Whether toughness is the least-mentioned quality needed to play for Kerry.
“Absolutely. And ballsy and . . . excuse my language but if you are not a tough bastard you won’t survive in that environment. Even me coming in and experiencing tough meetings after defeats. Always after a defeat to Cork there was an inquest. We had to call each other out at times. And the first time I sat in I was thinking, * it, fellas won’t talk to each other ever after this. But within a night or two it was grand and we were back helter-skelter training and all is put to one side. And the intensity and honesty at training is back and there is a bit of clipping, which is good.”
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Oct 7, 2017 8:49:57 GMT
Joe Brolly @joebrolly1993 10h10 hours ago More This is a serious principled debate. I said face to face to Colm he was wrong in doing this. I stand by that absolutely 61 replies 23 retweets 220 likes Reply 61 Retweet 23 Like 220
|
|
|
Post by Mickmack on Oct 7, 2017 8:50:08 GMT
Joe Brolly @joebrolly1993 10h10 hours ago More I didn't apologise to Colm for anything I said. I stand by every word. I said I didn't intend him to be demonised as a result. 28 replies 47 retweets 214 likes Reply 28 Retweet 47 Like 214
|
|