I played in, and lost, a county final this year. The Dublin Junior 1 all-county championship final, Clontarf 0-9, Templeogue Synge Street 0-6. Winter football, winter scoreline.
Regardless of the result of the final, both teams were promoted to the Intermediate Football Championship for 2022, and we had both acquitted ourselves very nicely in Division 4 – which is the lower half of the intermediate league in Dublin – already. Clontarf ended the year as league champions as well, so the level of football was pretty good and there was a bit of consolation to be had.
And there were a few pints to be had that night too, and laughs, as the usual rituals were attended to. This came 14 years after my last county final, an altogether more pressure-filled affair in the Galway senior football championship, which I also lost.
That’s two finals in over 20 years of adult football, and there’s little escaping the fact that, at 39, the chances are slim that I’ll be back in another one. Two or three years ago, when I told people I was still playing a bit of football, this minor biographical tidbit seemed to impress a few people.
Now the neutral observer appears to be more concerned as to my general mental health. Why are you still doing this? What are you rebelling against? Is everything all right at home?
After the season was over, the questions about next year were couched with a degree of respect (befitting the vast age differences now emerging between my teammates and I), but they were nevertheless asked with a worryingly high degree of regularity – will you give it another go?
I don't know how many 21-year-olds I'd have had a drink with this year if I wasn't playing football with six or seven of them
People have lives to live, children to mind, houses to build, dogs to walk, holidays to enjoy . . . but the idea of saying goodbye to it all is still a big question to wrestle with. The idea that there’s still a chance you could be of benefit to some team, any team, is a hard idea to get rid of.
There’s a tyranny in feeling like you’re still useful to someone. ‘I’d love to meet that fella for a pint, but . . . I better not. The team needs me.’ As I enter my 40s next July, there will be precisely zero fellas on our team needing too much from me, but my ego still can’t quite grasp it.
There are, of course, plenty of people in this very situation this Christmas. Sitting at home, wondering if 2020 and 2021 weren’t crappy years to finish out on, with no dressingrooms, shortened seasons, restrictions everywhere, Zoom quizzes, Covid questionnaires, the whole crummy gamut. Maybe if we got one full, uninterrupted year, you could walk away then, head held high.
And there’s something quite sweet about being the elder statesman. I don’t know how many 21-year-olds I’d have had a drink with this year if I wasn’t playing football with six or seven of them, but their lives, romances, college struggles, and general optimism towards life is a constant source of hilarity to me.
If you're lucky, you'll avoid getting your ribs smashed to smithereens by some young fella annoyed he's not on his club senior team
On any night where training starts being a bit of a slog, there’s a game to be played where we ask a new member of the squad, perhaps fresh from the minor ranks, what year they were born in, and then without fail someone will ask me what I was doing that year – I finished my college degree in the same year one young team-mate of mine was born, which was a fairly sobering discovery to make.
There’s no mystery about how this ends. If you’re lucky, you’ll avoid getting your ribs smashed to smithereens by some young fella annoyed he’s not on his club senior team and out to prove a point against a man old enough to remember seeing the original Jurassic Park in the cinema.
The far more likely outcome is that that same young fella will just blow you away with his football, will brand you as obsolete, and will send you spinning off into retirement.
Everyone in my situation is ready for that to happen, and in ways that’s a large part of the motivation in keeping going. ‘It’s going to happen, for sure . . . but it’s not going to happen today.’
It’s about fighting against that, winning that little personal battle. You’re not going to get that sort of feeling in business, or in a gym session, or in running a marathon. That feeling that for a few minutes at least, you have a guy right where you want him.
Plenty of times this year I’ve asked myself what the hell am I doing. Plenty of mornings spent getting out of bed in instalments, and nights after training in the bath with your epsom salts.
And then there’s a county quarter-final on the line, you’re a point down with three minutes to go, the ball comes into your corner, and you remind yourself – the game is the thing. Just the sheer thrill of it. There are no crowds, no external motivations, nothing beyond what you put into it. Just the game. You’ll be long enough retired, as the old saying goes.
Roll on 2022.
