Nevertheless, Alex still took the time out to watch the All-Ireland football final between Armagh and Galway, posting Armagh Abú on social media this afternoon ahead of the game. The Nordies are sticking together on this one!
He had been looking a well air conditioned bar to watch it in and was considering the Celt's Well. I have happy memories of getting juiced in that pub with big Sav from the Murph. We went out for one and, as it happens, stayed the day.
The weather here throughout the day was nothing comparable to that being experienced by Alex, but like him I don't do the heat very well so can't complain. In Santa Ponsa back in 2000 I spent most of the remaining four days of a two week holiday in the apartment, reading and watching television with my wife who was about four months into her pregnancy. The sun at the end of August was simply too sweltering for me.
Still, today wasn't a bad day, dry and comfortably warm. So after I walked the dog for about two hours I plonked myself down on the settee to watch the game. My constant companion on the couch for sporting events, my son, was off in Blanchardstown doing some last minute shopping ahead of his trip in a party of nineteen to Greece tomorrow. Go easy on the Ouzo and stay in the shade is about as much advice as he got from me. He has been abroad before, at school on one occasion in Arizona for five months, so travelling is no great challenge to him. And he did follow the match . . . on his phone. It is where teenagers live their lives in this age, prompting the old adage that youth is wasted on the young!!
Today's final was a to and fro battle for supremacy which Armagh won by the narrowest of margins - a single point. A few weeks ago Dublin brimmed on Euro final day with Galway supporters who had just won a semi final against Tipperary, guaranteeing their place in today's Croker clash. Noisy and in jubilant form their colours bedecked the capital. The mood in the city this evening as the same fans depart for home will be a much more subdued affair, drinks, mournful rather than celebratory. A friend who lives in the county and and was in the stands today will be the recipient of a commiseration call from me tomorrow morning.
For the Armagh fans, whose journey home is much shorter, they will not experience the glumness that comes with cup final defeat. When the champions return to their native city it will be one of those rare occasions where Armagh nationalists will welcome a tsunami of Orange.
While an avid soccer fan, and not very knowledgeable about GAA sports, I make a point of watching All Ireland finals. There is a frenetic pace to the football that is so often lacking in soccer. The Armagh hand passing was exquisite, the interchange as they moved through the zones strategic. It left me confident from an early stage that they would win. Yet Galway ran them close, hitting the post in the dying seconds.
For part of the play a wounded seagull scampered around the pitch. For the superstitious, an omen that one of the contesting sides was not going to soar. The bird was grounded in the Galway half. A close fought contest with the sides level on at least five occasions, it was never going to be a high scoring encounter. An Armagh goal really made the difference to the final tally with Galway up against it from that point on. But they nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and would certainly have won the game had it not been for the wayward frees from both feet of Shane Walsh. Twice he failed to put the ball over the bar, under hitting it, allowing it to drop harmlessly into the gathering arms of Armagh. Other frees he put wide. One such wasted effort would prove even more of a pivotal moment than the Armagh goal. The Orange County once in possession from the squandered free, never relinquished the ball until they bagged a point of their own just off the inside of the upright. That's sport and its vagaries. A torrid time for Walsh but off days come to the best of players. Galway, with an estimated twelve shots more than their opponents, simply failed to convert.
It was only the second time in their history that the Orchard County won the Sam Maguire. And on the day that was in it my thoughts drifted to my old jail buddy big Sid McManus, an Armagh man to the core. Probably because the last time I met him he had boarded a bus in Armagh . . . en route to Galway. Life and its quirks.
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