January 1st 1900: The sports department welcomes the new century with its memorable headline: "No injury worries for Hermes." 1914: During the Great War many Irish Times staffers leave to fight in the trenches. The sports department begins its highly successful Fantasy Great War (The Great Game to end all Great Games!) competition, a diversion which not only boosts circulation but enables many to see the lighter side of the conflict.
Week 118: The loss of half a million lives and three inches of territory at the western front was good news for Dr G H Ricketbelly of Whettingstone, Co Limerick, this week. Dr Ricketbelly, who gambled heavily having selected ArchDuke Ferdinand on his team at the start of our game, has made a startling comeback in recent weeks and now looks fair set to win our monthly case of claret . . . .
The department makes journalistic history by having a reporter present at the soccer game played on no man's land when soldiers from both sides of the conflict emerge from the trenches on New Year's Day to make an extraordinary gesture of humanity.
The report, just three paragraphs long, makes no mention of the circumstances other than an oblique reference to the "disgraceful" state of the pitch. The last two pars deal with "best for" either side.
1922: One of the department's proudest days. All the newspaper's top Protestant reporters are covering the funerals of cherished readers. The sports department gets to cover the nation's struggle for freedom. "Ref's report awaited on furious local derby", "Marathon cliffhanger" and "Due to pressure of space war news has been held over" are the headlines which a nation will remember.
1923: A correction and clarification issued regarding outcome of Civil War.
1929: Sports editor observes that a recently viewed game of association football was a series of two segments of equal duration yet curiously differing character. Is hailed as the father of the modern soccer cliche.
1932: Groundbreaking new technique of previewing international rugby games is developed in The Irish Times. All previews take the form of a pep talk or a crie de coeur to the team. The form becomes universally popular.
1934: Dark period for the sports department. Three killed during drink related fisticuffs at the annual Christmas party.
1939-1945: The Emergency. Late night drink becomes hard to find due to events which have little or nothing to do with the sports department. With resourcefulness that will become a characteristic of the sports department community, the practice of sports journalists placing a bottle of hard spirits in a brown paper bag in the drawer beside them develops.
1950: New era! With the help of the company doctor, Dept of Sport alcoholic rate cut to one in two. Management disputes these union produced figures, however.
1954: The old Irish Times club: Sinatra is crooning in a corner. The air is thick with the smell of pipe tobacco.
Everywhere there is the murmur of intense debate. The great minds (ni bheidh a leitheid aris ann) are volubly expounding a new philosophy of media structure dynamics which daringly compare the internal cell system of a newspaper to that of a major retail outlet. "The sports department shall be the toy department" declaims a night sub-editor brilliantly. This name sticks long after it is forgotten that News was to be Hosiery and Arts was to be Fruit and Veg.
1960's: Catching the spirit of the era the sports department experiments wantonly. The results are crazy and groundbreaking and are often compared favourably to the free spirited developments in Oz magazine and elsewhere. Gaelic games reports become a common sight. Camogie is tried though not inhaled. Later still the Mahareshi will deign that Gaelic games reports may be carried without even an explanation of what they are doing there.
In the euphoria of the times, however, the sports department misses out on the key development in sports journalism that decade. A crack team of subs working in secret somewhere in London develop the technique of rendering the word "golden" as "goal-den" when describing certain key fetes in soccer games.
Years later the paper recovers somewhat with it's own dazzling "Murphy points the way" headline which cleverly alerts sharp-eyed readers to the fact of Murphy having scored the winning point.
1969: Paper heavily criticised when photograph of schoolgirls' hockey match relegates news of moon landing from front page. 1972: Department takes decision not to report Munich Olympic Massacre so as not to puncture mood of national euphoria surrounding progress of Irish boxers at Games.
1980: In the mid-eighties the country is in some turmoil and not surprisingly events in The Irish Times sports department mirror events nationwide. The department becomes a cipher through which events might be interpreted. (Ironically it will be years however before the world cipher can be used in the department.)
1980's: Late in the decade a new sports editor, a nephew of Wyatt Earp, is appointed to clean up the department which has become a red-light area frequented by sailors on leave and deperadoes.
Few in the department are frank enough to describe the gloomy new interloper as a negatively inclined soul but the little sign over his desk seems to "point that way." "If you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem", it says.
1992: In a conservative backlash seen as being inspired by trends in the Arts department the sports editor bans all favourable comment on each other's work between staffers.
1996: Forty-two years after that moment of long forgotten Wildean brilliance bestowed the name toy department on a proud unit of the paper there is civil unrest on the fourth floor. The newspaper hails an Irish swimmer as the very Buzz Lightyear of our times.
Her improvements have been to Infinity and Beyond. The sports department dubs her just another Mrs Potato Head. For many it will be the defining conflict of the 20th century. In the late 1990's tragedy is to strike The Little Sports Department That Could (But Wouldn't) yet again when a mild form of M.E. descends on the entire staff and nobody notices.
