"You know, the best way of seeing a city is by getting lost," said Peter Caulfield, father of Linda, a member of the Irish hockey team, as he drove over the same bridge in Cologne for the third time in five minutes. "Mmm," said the doubting passengers in his car, who by now (and no disrespect to Peter's navigational skills) feared they'd end up in Gdansk.
When we finally found the spot we were looking for Peter set off for the Cathedral to light a candle for the team, ahead of their match today against Belgium. Mind you, he'd been lighting candles since the day he arrived in Cologne and there was no sign of any divine inspiration to help Ireland avoid slipping out of the top eight at the European Nations' Cup Finals for the first time since the inaugural tournament in 1984.
And on the evidence of the past fortnight Irish hockey will need to do a lot more than light candles if it is ever to become a serious contender at international level again.
It's been a sobering, at times depressing, experience for all those involved in the women's game, proof, if it were needed, that a combination of raw talent and sheer heart just isn't enough any more to keep Ireland in the hunt in this kind of international company.
They've fallen so far behind on the pitch simply because they've fallen even further behind off it. Of course more funding (primarily to enable the team to travel and play top level opposition more often) is needed and a major sponsor would be a huge boost (despite relatively little media coverage for hockey in Germany and Holland both countries have secured major sponsors, Opel and Shell respectively).
But apart from the funding issue, perhaps the greatest barrier to the progress of not just hockey but every other amateur sport in Ireland is the lack of co-operation from employers (or, where that is not possible, financial support for the employers to enable them to be more co-operative) with sportsmen and women chosen to represent their country.
Many of the 18-player Irish squad in Cologne will return home on Monday and go back to work on Tuesday, their employers counting their fortnight at the European finals (and earlier time taken off for build-up matches) as their holidays, while others have had to take unpaid leave from their jobs.
It is simply appalling that the achievement of being selected to represent your country should be valued so lowly and that sportsmen and women, who already give up so much for no financial reward, should be expected to fit in their international careers in their spare time. Is it any wonder, then, that we've fallen so far behind?
A few years back a sportswoman, who worked for a major company in Dublin, was picked for the Irish team for the first time to compete at the European Championships in her chosen sport. She was presented with a bouquet of flowers by her boss when her selection was announced and he asked her to try and give the company a `plug' when she spoke to the press before the tournament. Just days before she left for the championships he told her that her two-week absence would count as her summer holidays, so after arriving back late on a Sunday night she had to be at work for 8.30 the following morning.
Such a situation is unheard of in German, Dutch and English hockey, where players command respect for being good enough to represent their nation. If necessary companies are compensated for their employees' absence. Even the Ukraine, who beat Ireland to their targeted fourth place finish in their pool, one of the poorer hockey nations at this tournament in terms of resources, free their senior squad to train five to six times a week. In the case of students in Holland, for example, they are allowed to defer exams or take a break from their courses while they are in the international squad so that they can effectively train and play full-time. From the beginning of January the British squad, preparing for the Olympic Qualifier in March, will go full-time, with their employers compensated by the English Hockey Association (who have received £4 million in lottery money, making them the best funded hockey association in the world).
Ireland play in the same tournament but their players will receive no such co-operation so will only train a fraction of the time and some might even miss out on build-up games or training weekends because of work commitments. They will, therefore, be under-prepared once again. If they didn't have the potential or the talent to do better then we'd have no complaints, but they do. After a wonderful performance against Germany in their third pool match the German coach, Bertie Rauth, offered to arrange contracts for every member of the Irish team with a German club. German clubs aren't charities, they are only interested in foreign players with special talent and Rauth knew just what this group of Irish players could achieve if they were given the time to work on their game.
If they were German, Dutch, English or Australian, to name but four nations, they would be given the support they needed to fulfil that potential but for now lighting candles is the extent of the assistance they receive. It's hardly a level playing field.
