Anthony McIntyre ⚽ FAI Cup final day also serves as one of two customary yearly swall days.
Not obligatory but as good as. The other is when a few former prisoners, some of them blanketmen, come down from Belfast around Xmas for a swall session. Each December the company plants itself in the pub almost after it opens and spends the rest of the day on the swall while regaling each other with memories, some dubious, of the bad old days.
For cup final day, the reliability of memory is never an issue. We tend not to go back much further than the previous game. On Sunday, passersby in Talbot Street must have gazed on myself and Paddy, thinking we were two early house alcoholics, as we stood outside the Celt for the few minutes it took to open. Jay, being thirteen, took the bad look of us, denying any puritan the chance to describe us as a trio of hardened drinkers they came across as they made their way to pay homage to whatever imaginary god they grew up being told was the only real and right one, the rest just imposters. And if they had been born to a different family a different deity would then be the one true god. I would go the religious life tomorrow morning if water really could be turned into wine.
We had arrived in Dublin just before noon. Last year we arrived too early so, unable to pub crawl our way to the Aviva, we had to settle for the bar closest to the stadium. The only swall available was the hip flask I had brought for the match, which didn't last too long as we wandered the route to the stadium like lost thirsty souls.
Ronan and Olivia opted to join us at the ground. Both having college the following day, they felt it best to keep the booze to a minimum. Through the turnstiles, the five of us converged on our designated row only to find our seats taken. Stewards tried to assist but we declined their offer to move those already seated as they too ended up where they were because their own seats had been taken, the original error now replicating its way through. How she managed I don't know but the steward found us a cluster of five empty seats, for which she received a hug. I didn't offer her a swig of Jack Daniels in case she thought finding me a seat was not such a good idea after all.
The match itself is more important than who actually wins it, unless the Drogs are in the final. Although preferring a Rovers victory as that would be Bohemians pathway to Europe - and the Bohs have been strong on the Gaza question - I found my instinct wandering to the underdog. Cork, already relegated, did not turn up just to tick boxes. They made it through the first half without conceding a goal which which would have given them a confidence boost for the second half. Minutes short of the break disaster struck. Kamikaze Harry Nevin flew into a tackle with both feet raised and studs showing. A red card was not the only outcome, Shamrock Rovers completing the double for the first time in thirty eight years was now assured. Plucky Cork will rue the Nevin tackle because prior to it they were not some pesky fly that could be swept away by the Lords of Irish soccer. On occasion they posed a threat to the Rovers goal. A quick score in the second half followed by the formation of a shield wall might just have seen them leave the field victorious. A man down, a Rory Gaffney brace disabused them of any field of dreams hopes they might have nurtured.
We didn't hang around for the final whistle, opting to get out a few minutes short of the ninety so that we could make a Ringsend pub to catch the second half of the Liverpool game away to Manchester City. We shouldn't have bothered, having just watched more fight from Cork than there was in Mo's Millionaires. 
Ronan and Olivia headed off earlier than the rest of us, college in mind. Just before catching the train back to Drogheda we stopped in a bar across from Connolly Station for a drink with my daughter, who managed to catch the tail end of my disgruntlement at Liverpool. She rolled her eyes before rolling me to pay for the drink!
On the train journey back we met Molly and her beautiful dog, Appa. Both awesome and adorable the entire carriage seemed to fall in love with her. I even got to hold her on the lead while Molly used the restroom. The biggest regret of the day apart from Liverpool putting up a less spirited defence than Cork was not getting a photo of the dog.
Just short of midnight, this old dog for the hard road made it through the door to home, not quite drunk enough to end up in the doghouse.
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