Columnists

May 2022

Declan Bogue Opinion Declan Bogue: Barry O’Hagan has realised that Down can use the Tailteann Cup to their advantage

Who among us has never changed their mind or opinion on something?

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Declan Bogue Opinion Derry are back in the Ulster final, but GAA is a whole different place since they last lifted the title in 1998

Last week, the BBC NI cameras captured excitement in primary schools around the Derry senior football team as they prepared for their first Ulster semi-final since 2015.

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John Laverty Opinion The first thing Pep Guardiola will try to do with Erling Haaland is to make him more than a goalscorer - but will it work?

Ronnie McFall was puce with rage after a game his Portadown side should have won easily but didn’t.

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John Laverty Opinion Don’t mention the war... it was Rangers, not Russia, who got Celtic into Champions League

Glasgow is a deeply divided city, riven in religious bigotry. That’s hardly breaking news, but every so often the deeply entrenched, fitba-mad citizens lay down their arms and their metaphorical poison pens.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Declan Bogue: Tyrone need a major response, but Derry win has blown Ulster race wide open

Are we all at the stage of writing Tyrone off yet? Maybe we should heed the words of Derry manager Rory Gallagher in the wake of his side’s 11-point victory at the weekend.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Brian Cody and Henry Shefflin incident raises the question… should bosses be loyal to their native county?

There are few photographs in sport quite as famous as that of the handshake shared between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy after the Republic of Ireland’s 2002 World Cup qualifier win over the Netherlands at Lansdowne Road.

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John Laverty Opinion Shhh... whisper it, but Trent Alexander-Arnold’s pass was even better than Luka Modric’s

It has been described as the ‘pass of the decade’.

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John Laverty Opinion Football’s taking the mic... so brace yourselves for all the effing and blinding

In 2012, the ‘f word’ appeared 808 times in the Guardian newspaper, with the ‘c word’ popping up on 69 occasions.

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April 2022

Declan Bogue Opinion Armagh have shown that league form remains an unreliable indicator for the Championship

One of the most impressive sights in Gaelic Games is just how rapidly Donegal manager Declan Bonner can dispose of a pesky question.

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John Laverty Opinion Ban on live Saturday afternoon football is outdated and pointless

It’s the final frontier... for the broadcasters. Saturday, 3pm kick-off, live Premier League football on the likes of Sky, BT Sport, Amazon and BBC.

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Declan Bogue: Teams like Fermanagh must view the Tailteann Cup as a springboard

Forget the sound of the cuckoo, it is the theme tune of The Sunday Game that ushers in the summer for many.

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John Laverty Opinion Liverpool v City is more of a cosy love-in than a genuine football rivalry

In the final minutes of the game, the imperious Kevin de Bruyne, bearing down on goal, was blatantly tripped by Virgil van Dijk.

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Gareth McAuley Opinion Post-match interviews can be a real minefield as emotions and heart rates are high and things you say in the ‘heat of battle’ can be taken out of context

Post-match interviews can often be akin to walking a tightrope for professional footballers and managers.

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Expect fireworks when Joe Brolly and Kieran McGeeney meet at fundraising chat night

One trend in the GAA that has survived and thrived over the last 20 years originated in Ulster — the pre-Championship chat night.

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Declan Bogue Opinion With no time for warm-weather training camps, pre-Championship mind games are on the rise again

Farewell, then, to the Celtic Tiger boom of the warm-weather training camp. A victim, perhaps, of unintended consequences after GAA Congress decided to vote overwhelmingly in favour of a split county-club season.

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John Laverty Opinion Welcome to the J. Bloggs & Sons Plumbing Solutions Stadium at Windsor Park

It made for a good headline at the time: “Revamped Windsor Park could become the Tayto Stadium”.

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March 2022

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John Laverty Opinion Revamping ‘Theatre of Dreams’ has become a nightmare for Man United

It’s not known as the Theatre of Dreams for nothing.

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John Laverty Opinion How Michael Owen must wish he was an Anfield legend... like Divock Origi

Testimonials are normally awarded to players with long distinguished service to a football club. Ten years is a typical rule of thumb, but there are exceptions, as exemplified by two Norn Iron men.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Antrim ace Neil McManus is right, GAA is failing hurling by cutting out the Ulster Championship

A few weeks ago, Antrim hurler Neil McManus was invited onto BBC NI’s The GAA Social podcast.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Down need a major overhaul to halt the slide after relegation to Division Three

It has often been said that when James McCartan accepted an approach in mid-November to become the Down senior football manager for a second spell, he was digging the county board out of a hole.

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John Laverty Opinion Only one man left at Manchester United was signed by David Moyes... and it's the bloke entrusted with rebooting them

Back in the day, I took a friend along to see a Derry City match I was reporting on.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Declan Bogue: Trying to move Antrim’s clash with Cavan out of Corrigan Park a bad call from Ulster chiefs

The meeting of the Ulster Council’s Competition Controls Committee tonight will bring a swift resolution to an odd bit of business that erupted a week ago.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Gaelic Players’ Association needs to listen to what members want – a less demanding itinerary

Any negotiations made by unions on behalf of employees will always boil down to the following: time spent working against money paid. Conditions and fringe benefits are all nice and pleasant, but it’s essentially fluffy stuff after asking: “What’s my bottom line, and how long does that take me?”

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John Laverty Opinion Don’t fret, Newcastle... UK will keep turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia

It has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Mickey Moran may be leaving Kilcoo, but he has a lot left to offer the GAA in a mentor role

When all eyes were elsewhere following Kilcoo’s All-Ireland Club final victory, manager Mickey Moran did something that few noticed at the time, save for spectator Stephen Annett who had the presence of mind to take a short video that has been viewed almost 150,000 times on Twitter.

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John Laverty Opinion Penalty shootouts bring drama and suspense, but they’re every bit as random as tossing a coin

Here’s one for you: who was the first player to score in a penalty shootout? Tough one, isn’t it?

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Declan Bogue Opinion GAA must do more to tackle sectarian abuse faced by Ulster players

Hours spent scrolling through Twitter like a zombie are seldom wasted, trust me.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Tyrone and Dublin’s meeting will be an unexpected relegation battle… what has happened to the big beasts of Gaelic football?

What has happened to Tyrone? What has happened to the Limerick hurlers? Indeed, what’s going on in Dublin football right now?

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February 2022

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John Laverty Opinion Even Manchester United’s unloved midfielder Fred is showing up Premier League’s three most expensive players… it’s a funny old game

Around 100 years ago, when I was a football correspondent, rookie managers would turn to elder statesman Ronnie McFall for advice.

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Declan Bogue Opinion Ulster clubs’ chances of shifting GAA’s underage grades are slim but rejecting their motion would be an enormous mistake

Another motion at Congress has been brought by a number of Ulster clubs, concerning the regrading of under-age competitions.