Deserving of respect… – McSherry’s Musings

Oh dear! If you follow current affairs and have the misfortune to be connected to Twitter you are definitely in need of a hug. Put down that phone for goodness sake!

There has been a deluge of effigies on bonfires, Jamie Bryson contradictions, usuns and themmuns and the ongoing self-promotion in the Tory nest that calls for a David Attenborough voiceover rather than political analysis.

Life-enhancing, it isn’t.

Eamonn Dunphy suggested that sport is a gift from the Gods that takes us away from all that rancour and charlatans. A sanctuary. Indeed, a more open mind can lead to treasures in what formerly seemed the most unlikely places.

Now read on…

Our Derry neighbours believed they were going to win the Sam Maguire Cup because… get this… if Tyrone can do it..!

With a horrible brand of football they slumped through Ulster to inevitably be found out and put to sleep by Galway. To put it like this, watching two old men playing chess on a bench in a park in the Bronx was more exciting than a Derry game.

As RTE and Sky viewers were rendered numb during the Derry-Galway All Ireland semi-final, I deftly thumbed the TG4 button on the remote control to view a fabulous Ladies’ quarter-final between Kerry and Armagh. It was end-to-end exhilarating fare playing with abandon rather than tactical paralysis. And as the cliché goes, Aimee Mackin is worth the admission fee alone.

It was followed by another great game that saw champions Meath beat Galway with a last-gasp point fired into the air from out near the sideline. Why Galway men and women were involved in major games in Dublin and Offaly on the same evening is a whole other disrespectful story.

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often,” said 19th century Cardinal John Henry Newman, a man ahead of his time.

I went to the old school when a girl who played football with the gasúns was considered to be a ‘tomboy’. There was one such girl on our street who gave us our fill of it in the soccer games in the back field. We’re talking ten-year-olds. One wonders did she look on with great envy as we made our way to the Fianna field to play Gaelic football in the following years, the idea of female games more mooted for a fun day at the local carnival rather than serious competition.

There was the Harry Enfield sketch of Edwardian gentry: ‘Women know your limits’ – men exchanged stories as the commentator relays, “Look at the women, look at the way they laugh, aren’t they pretty.”

The conversation turns to politics when to the gentlemen’s dismay a lady pipes up, “I think the government should stay off the Gold Standard so as to keep our exports competitive…”

The commentator wistfully says, “The woman has foolishly attempted to join the conversation with a wild and dangerous opinion of her own… see how the men look at her with utter contempt.”

The other women bow their heads in shame and the lady, realising her mistake weeps, dabs the tears from her eyes with a serviette and in the next clip cooes, “I don’t know anything about the Gold Standard I’m afraid but I do love little kittens…” and all was well with the world again.

That’s not to say there weren’t female sport legends back in the day, including Olympic heroines, pentathlon winner Mary Peters (1972), gymnast Olga Korbut (‘72 and ‘76) and a host of tennis stars – among them Billy Jean King and Chris Evert. However, the vast majority of sports were the domain of men. It was a lot of decades before women of the calibre of Katie Taylor, Fallon Sherock and Rachael Blackmore became household names in the world of boxing, darts and horse racing.

I had been to loads of my daughter’s games through the ranks and indeed to the 2010 All-Ireland final our Ladies lost to Dublin. However, I have Coalisland and Kildress ladies teams to thank for smashing down the door of ignorance. It was a Junior championship semi-final in the Rock that went to extra-time, finishing with a win for our girls on a score of something like 2-17 to 3-16.

It was more like a hurling game!

Non-stop action, courage, tension, great scores and a good old fashion dust-up as two young women went toe-to-toe, the exuberance getting the better of them.

There were men who complained about the £5 admission, but then threw another fiver on the table on the way out as they sang, “Now I’m a believer…”

The county season is not over next Sunday after the Galway-Kerry final. The Ladies All-Ireland finals are the following week. One of the best games of last year was Meath’s terrific win over Dublin in the All-Ireland Ladies final.

There is also the Women’s European soccer finals that will throw up some fascinating duels. And if you thought cheering for England’s opponents in the man’s game is fun, the demise of the Lionesses will be hilarious!

Herbert Spenser, a 19th century philosopher, was right: “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”