Sunday 19 May 2013
For the Antrim fans that made it down through the heart of Ireland last Sunday, the Championship did not begin with a crash, bang and wallop spectacular of high drama, but it was one of the most satisfying days they have enjoyed in recent years.
So, the race for the All-Ireland football Championship began once again in that most mystical of GAA venues; The Bronx.
On Sunday, Eoin Bradley was called off the field by Derry manager Brian McIver after 58 minutes of the Division Two final.
One of the greatest pleasures of this time of year for the Gaelic football follower, as April turns into May and the sun gives us the merest glimpse of what it must be like to live in a balmy climate, is the innocence of early summer.
You may not realise it, but the All-Ireland football Championship begins in 10 days, with Leitrim's pilgrimage to the Big Apple to take on New York.
There is a school of comedy that somehow dictates that repetition is a powerful trigger for laughter. Phrases such as 'computer says no', 'loadsamoney' and 'brilliant' are instantly forgettable in their own right, but when you have David Walliams, Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield bludgeoning you with them over and over and over every week, they encourage behaviour patterns last spotted among Pavlov's Dogs.
Well over a decade ago, Tyrone manager Art McRory stood on the Dungannon pitch after a league win, answering questions about Ger Cavlan's superlative point-kicking from acute angles.
Those in Down and possibly Derry may feel differently but, in general, the affection for the Antrim hurling team is on a par with that of the rooting for an Ulster team in the later stages of the All-Ireland football Championship from other counties.
Ten days after the shameful episode of Ballybofey is too long to be waiting on further information on the alleged biting of Patrick McBrearty.
It depends on who you listen to. Note the remarks of Jim McGuinness in the wake of Donegal's draw with Dublin and subsequent relegation, when he said: "Relegation does not mean that much to us. We don't really like the league and Division Two will be a bit easier to rebuild in.
One of the finest demonstrations of how the GAA works can be found when Tyrone play their final league game at home each year.
Even allowing for how reaction-driven sports reporting has become, the comments of Armagh's Ciaran McKeever on the introduction of the black card were baffling.
Some time in the late spring of 2010, the Leitrim team assembled at Pairc Sean MacDiarmada to have their photograph taken as the Championship squad.
For many of us, it was our first time in the presence of Irish President Michael D. Higgins.
The most popular remark in Brewster Park on Sunday was "raw", used as a description for the weather. The wind-chill factor had left it an incredibly inhospitable place to watch football.
When we were young, there was no 'manager' of a team. We wouldn't have known what a manager was. We had a 'trainer'; men who 'took' the under-12 or the parish league teams.
After the game had been won, St Brigid's goalkeeper Shane Curran grabbed his old friend Frankie Dolan and kissed him. Full on the lips.
The difficulty in framing the story of Tony McEntee's life in football is the jump-off point. There is no real beginning and even in stepping down from the Crossmaglen manager's job, his work is far from done.
There is an old spring tradition on the sports desk of some Dublin newspapers, of fielding calls midweek from men with far too much sense of entitlement, demanding to know the Irish rugby team before it is printed in the paper.
In the matchday programme for the 1987 Munster final between Cork and Kerry, a page is given over to the thoughts of Jack Mahon, then Chairman of the Galway football board.
It hasn't always been a bed of roses
Roger Federer admitted he had no answer to Rafael Nadal's masterclass after the Spaniard put him to the sword to win the Internazionali d'Italia in Rome.
True Verdict built on her promising comeback run to gain a deserved opening success in the Come Racing On June 8th Maiden at Navan.
Voleuse De Coeurs got back on the winning trail in the Coolmore Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan.
Tarla readily justified odds-on favouritism on her return to fences at Limerick.
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