They gave us the songs – McSherry’s Musings

I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday… there we were in Croke Park in April 1973, Tyrone had won a National League Division 2 semi-final and Derry was playing Kerry in the ‘big game’. Come back Mrs! It’s not a football column!..

The referee Paul Kelly from Dublin didn’t seem to like those darned Nordies. At the interval, young men with red and white paper hats (Derry and Tyrone) were throwing bottles, oranges and apples at him from the upper Hogan Stand, including a few lads from Eglish who shall remain nameless. It was the old stadium so you could throw something onto field from the upper deck.

Kelly went on to line two Derry players and I recall he gave Kerry a free on the sideline and somehow contrived to carry it to 14 yards in front of the posts. Oak Leaf lads gathered pitchside. It was a draw and Kelly blew the final whistle as he ran like thunder down the tunnel, the Derry supporters chasing him. Moments later he was trailed back onto the field as Gardaí jumped to his rescue. The Guards and supporters in denims, boots and shoulder length hair mowed other. It was crazy! Ask my brother am I a liar. Years later I met a man from Dungiven who spent that night in a cell in Store Street.

Padraig Puirseal in The Irish Press, reported, “Referee Paul Kelly was lucky to escape relatively unscathed from a concerted attack by a mob of spectators… for several minutes thereafter, Gardaí, stewards, a linesman and even Director-General Seán Ó Siochain were set upon with bottles, sticks and fists in the most violent scenes I have ever witnessed at GAA Headquarters”. Of course, the Gardaí weren’t shy with the batons either!

My RE teacher in Dungannon Academy was Tyrone midfielder Aidan McMahon. The next day in class he asked me, “What did yer Dad say about it?” I ses, “He said they should have kicked the ref around the Hogan Stand!” (So he did!) Master McMahon couldn’t really agree as it was RE class!

It is unlikely Derry’s big game on Saturday witnessed similar scenes. Can you imagine the social media meltdown? “Think of the children…”

The 70’s was a wild and violent time. Police were dishing out beatings, paramilitaries were tackling ‘anti-social behaviour’ with baseball bats, the priests and Christian Brothers were beating kids with straps, parents said ‘you didn’t get it for nothing’ while administering another slap while teenagers fought the length and breadth of the dance halls. But there were the songs! Wow! The songs… it was as if God gave us the music to soothe the bruises. To quote Meat Loaf, “Someone must have blessed us when they gave us those songs” (Rock n’roll dreams come through).

I go past my daughter’s room and hits of the 70’s and 80’s pump the walls. Timeless. For goodness sake Kate Bush (63) just hit Number 1 in the charts.

I recall her first hit ’Wuthering Heights’ on the jootbox in Toal’s shop in Carrickmore waaay back in 1978. Paul McCartney (80) headlined Glastonbury, Elton John (75) is rocking his tour and Bruce Springsteen (72) sold out three shows in Croke Park in an hour. ‘The Who’ sang “I hope I die before I get old…” (My Generation). Five decades later they are still performing!

In recent months I’ve been to The Undertones and Showaddywaddy gigs.

The venues were packed with blue rinses, pot bellies and shiny domes. Some of the artists have hung up their microphones. Feargal Sharkey no longer belts out ‘Teenage Kicks’ and 49 years on the road, the black dude on the drums is the only remaining member of Showaddywaddy… ‘Come a-little darlin take my hand’ (Moon of Love). The songs are the stars.

“It was long ago, it was far away, it was so much better than it is today” sang Meat Loaf on the ‘Bat out of Hell’album (Paradise by the Dashboard Light). When Meat, or Mr Loaf, died, a friend of similar vintage proclaimed he knows every word of that album. I hadn’t the heart to say, “We all do!”

In June 2005, we headed to Ravenhill, to a Meat Loaf gig at the home of Ulster rugby. It was a huge disappointment. Maybe it was the sound system but one tune warm-up act Status Quo actually stole the show as we swayed under the weight of air guitars. ‘Dead Ringer for Love’ was like karaoke.

Last week I ventured to ‘Meat Loaf by Candlelight’ at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast. Performed by a cast of West End singers, it was mighty! They can sing! So good, in fact, that I was tempted to go the following night again. But life is not what it was in Gortin in the late ‘70s… One night out a week, at this stage, is probably enough.

The hits were belted out, ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’, ‘You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth’, ‘Heaven Can Wait’… And their encore was the anthem ‘Bat out of Hell’ – iconic in the setting of a cathedral. Artists die, but the songs live on. The Bat out of Hell album was released 45 years ago!

“Objects in the rear view mirror appear closer than they really are” … Meat Loaf.