April 6, 2011

Jawbone

Posted by Brendano under Photography, Sport | Tags: , , , , |
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Sean took this photo a few years ago.

He would have been very interested in the Champions League QFs, and would have enjoyed Real’s demolition of Spurs last night. He would have been flabbergasted at the fact of Inter conceding five goals to Schalke at home … he’d have shaken his head in a ‘what’s the world coming to?’ sort of way and said that it could never have happened in Mourinho’s time.

He would have been looking forward to the Heineken and Amlin Cup QFs at the weekend. I would probably have picked him up in Virginia tomorrow and said to him, ‘The Leinster team’s been announced’; he would have said ‘Go on …’; I would have told him and we’d have discussed it on the way home. Very often there was some aspect of a team selection with which Sean and I disagreed strongly … Simon Easterby picked regularly ahead of Alan Quinlan for Ireland a few years ago, for example …

And so it would have gone on. We miss you, Sean. We love you.

 

February 2, 2011

Sean and soccer 2

Posted by Brendano under Death, Sport | Tags: , , , |
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The photo shows Sean’s school soccer squad, 2007/2008 season. Sean is second from the right, front row. The boy immediately to his right (with the football in front of him) is Christopher Shiels, who was born on the same day as Sean and died, in a road accident, a year and a week before him.

RIP Christopher and Sean. Always remembered.

 

November 3, 2010

Sean and soccer

Posted by Brendano under Memories, Sport | Tags: , , |
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[In Ireland we tend to use the term ‘soccer’ to distinguish that sport from Gaelic football.]

We used to kick a ball around with Sean from the time he could walk. When he was about six we took him to a local club in Dublin (Leicester Celtic, where Damien Duff started) to play in a seven-a-side league on all-weather pitches. I remember that Sean played for a team called Albion.

At the time of the 1998 World Cup Sean was approaching his seventh birthday, and we were in the process of moving from Dublin to Cavan. Sean became infatuated with Brazil (encouraged by me), and sobbed bitterly for the last 20 minutes of the final as it became clear that they would lose to France.

He took an interest in the English club scene and, not surprisingly, began to follow Man Utd. He was thrilled with their late come-back against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final, and ran around our rented house whooping with joy (which I didn’t share). Later he switched to supporting Arsenal (like me) simply because they played such attractive football. His footballing heroes were people like Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Zinedine Zidane and Roberto Carlos. (more…)

 

June 7, 2010

England’s dreaming (again)

Posted by Brendano under Sport | Tags: , , , , |
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I wrote this piece ten years ago, before the Euro 2000 football tournament.

In 1970, when I was nine years old and living in a small town in Ireland, I started to fill an album with football cards featuring players in that year’s World Cup. Pictured on the cover was the smiling Bobby Moore of 1966, being chaired by his team-mates and holding the Jules Rimet trophy aloft. The England players wore jerseys of a glorious cherry red that reminded me of the taste of some rich cordial, with the ‘three lions’ crest that the FA shares, for some reason, with the O’Briens.

The small trophy had an understated beauty, and the players had a sort of grandeur: I was disappointed to find that they usually wore white. But when England played Brazil and West Germany that summer, somehow I already knew instinctively who to cheer for. And when I watch England’s matches in Euro 2000, nothing much will have changed. I’ve often felt somewhat furtive and guilty about hoping that England will lose, especially since I’ve known many very fine English people. But it’s not to do with them: it’s to do with St George and the dragon. I’ll now try to explain why I always cheer for the dragon. (more…)

 

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