Considering his beloved Mayo last won an All Ireland 11 years before he was born, Kevin McStay (60) was giving short shrift to the notion that Kerry’s wait for their 38th title had felt similarly interminable. “They tried to describe it as a famine,” he said, “I’d say ‘peckish’, at the most.”
It had, after all, been just the eight years, but Kerry, of course, define a football “famine” in an entirely different manner to the rest of us, and judging by their post-match celebrations, they had indeed been ravenous.
“They’ve got the keys to the kingdom back,” said Darragh Maloney, as we watched the huggin’ and kissin’ and jiggin’ and reelin’ on the pitch, the players and staff way too jubilant to notice that the Croke Park DJ was, somewhat provocatively, playing a Cork tune to mark their achievement.
(Yes, yes, An Poc ar Buile is about a bonkers goat attending Killorglin’s Puck Fair, but was it not based on a poem by Dónal Ó Mulláin (born: Cork), arranged by Seán Ó Riada (born: Cork) and the original smash hit sung by Seán Ó Sé (born Cork)? The goat was most probably born in Cork, too. This, then, would have been akin to playing The Sash My Father Wore for Tyrone last year).
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On a similar provocative theme, before the game Pat Spillane was presented with a very special gift by the RTÉ panel to mark his last punditing day with the channel after a 30-year shift. A green and gold lawnmower? No. A signed and framed six-in-a-row Dubs shirt, Ciaran Whelan and Sean Cavanagh barely able to stifle the giggles, Joanne Cantwell half apologetic, but probably just relieved Ciaran and Sean hadn’t presented him with an autographed Séamus Darby photo.
Pat was chuffed, though, and very grateful. Emotional too, but not half as emotional as he left the rest of us post-match when he saluted his nephews Killian and Adrian for bringing the Spillane family tally of senior All Ireland medals to a bewildering 21.
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“It’s a lovely way to finish my time here,” he said, the tears flowing. “In 1964 my father was a selector for Kerry against Galway. The night before the game, he had a pain in his chest, wouldn’t go to the doctor, went to the game the following day and was dead on Tuesday. Kerry v Galway matches to me always brings back this memory.
“My father never saw us play. The three sons have 19 All-Ireland medals and his two grandsons today, Killian and Adrian, have two more. He would have been a proud man, 21 senior All-Ireland football medals brought in to his house. It’s just a special day. A special day.”
Having possibly wanted to strangle the fella for most of the last few years, Ciaran and Sean gave him a big loving slap on the back, not even mentioning that in his early years on RTÉ those glasses made him look like Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street.
“From the people of the north, thanks for all the motivation,” Sean had told Pat, reckoning the bulk of the Ulster counties’ success through the years was largely down to their ability to make Pat puke, but lest Sean thought his colleague would drift away quietly, Pat began citing Dame Vera Lynn, stopping just short of actually singing We’ll Meet Again, opting to recite it instead. Sean and Ciaran looked at each other in a fearful ‘He hasn’t gone away, you know’ kind of way.
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Pat, though, was especially pleased to sign off on the day that David Clifford won his first senior All Ireland, although he and his panel-mates agreed that in light of Shane Walsh’s supernatural performance, it bordered on a crime that he too wouldn’t leave Croke Park with Sam in his hold-all.
Before the game, Pat and Sean had argued who was the greater God, Clifford or Walsh. By full-time it was a score-draw.
Time for Pat to sign off. “We are reclaiming the game slowly but surely away from some of the bluffers and spoofers and the snake-oil salesmen that infiltrated some of the coaching of the top teams and ... ” Sean patted him on the knee. Time to move on, suggested his grin.
Outside. The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling had taken over from An Poc ar Buile, the least seamless musical switch in the history of time. But down in the Kingdom, you’d have had a feeling it was gonna be a very, very good night. Famine over.
Read all the news, analysis and comment on Kerry’s win, here.
