Damien Duff reminded the RTÉ panel on Friday evening that he could have been a barista after his playing days, having started a course in the coffee-magicking art a few years ago. “But instead I’m here managing Dublin’s finest,” he said, the champagne dripping from his hair having been doused by his newly-crowned league champions.
But watching Duff watching Shelbourne’s game against Derry City, while he paced up and down the Brandywell touchline like a man possessed, made you doubt his life choices. He could have been back in his now home place of Wicklow serving double espressos and flat whites and shooting the breeze with his customers instead of experiencing the excruciating closing stages of his team’s quest for the title.
Six minutes to go and that title belonged to Shamrock Rovers. Five minutes and 59 seconds to go and it belonged to Duffer after Harry Wood’s goal. And then the board went up signalling seven minutes added time and the Shels faithful in the crowd commenced praying to the gods. And back in Tallaght, after the final whistle went, the Rovers players and their devotees prayed to the very same gods for a divine Derry intervention. Spare a thought for the bombarded gods here.
Sport should, really, be fun, but at times like this it’s no fun at all. Granted, if it all works out in the end, as it did for Duffer and Shels, it generates euphoria like nothing you’ll experience in your entire life – and, yes, somewhat controversially, we’re ruling out marriage and the birth of babies in the elation stakes here. But god almighty you don’t half go through it en route to said euphoria.
“This is Hollywood, for me, this is the greatest ever story,” said Duffer, who had promised his wife he wouldn’t drink on the night but was slurping the flow of champagne that was trickling down his face. Stuey Byrne, on duty for RTÉ beside him, was so emotional he was probably tempted to have a slurp himself.
Stuey saluted what was an epic season in the league. But. “We don’t sell ourselves in this country like we should do when it comes to football, there’s a big behemoth of a thing across the water that stops us from doing that – hopefully this will be the start of something special.”
Speaking of the behemoth, it produced a game on Sunday between two teams that have spent more than the average GDP of a whole heap of nations, that … wotsit the Dunph and Gilesie used to say? … you wouldn’t see the like in the Phoenix Park.
“It was like a pub game at times,” said Jamie Redknapp when Manchester United v Chelsea concluded, thereby defaming every Dog and Duck XI out there. “I was glad when the referee blew the final whistle, I wasn’t getting too excited about it,” said our Roy. “Boring seems a bit strong, but…”
Boring wasn’t strong enough. Really, you could only marvel at how two such extravagantly assembled teams could produce such unadulterated muck. If Rúben Amorim tuned in, which you’d imagine he did, perhaps on a dodgy box, you’d guess he was thinking, “não, obrigado”.
Perhaps only City of Troy had a more rubbishy weekend. He was among the favourites to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic over in California, the American coverage of which Virgin Media kindly brought us.
“City of Troy is to this Breeders’ Cup what Messi was to the last World Cup – he’s that big of a superstar,” Randy Moss told us, so that was a heckuva billing. And our host Britney Eurton had even travelled to Ireland to have a chat with Aidan O’Brien’s four-legged charge, and was left blown away. “Waking up at Ballydoyle feels like what you might imagine Alice felt when she wound up in Wonderland,” she said.
Incidentally if America’s unemployment rate is impressively low going into the election that’s thanks largely due to the number of people hired to cover this meeting, most of them starting every sentence with “if you will”, which seems to be a very American thing.
Among them was Donna Brothers who was VERY excited about it all. “Picasso once said, ‘asking me which is my favourite painting is like asking me which is my favourite finger – I prefer all of them’. I feel the same way about the Breeders’ Cup championships.”
What was worrying, though, was when our commentator Larry Collmus showed us the runners and riders for the big race all of them looking steely-eyed in their determination but City of Troy was just merrily munching on a feed of straw, like he was just California dreaming after his flight from Ballydoyle.
And in the end he was as close to winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic as Manchester United and Chelsea are to winning the Premier League. He’ll end up as a Wicklow barista yet.
