DARRAGH Ó SÉ WEEKLY COLUMN:For the first time in 17 years, Darragh Ó Séwon't be running out on to the summer sod in Fitzgerald Stadium as the craic and the graft for yet another championship begin

WE WERE to train last week in Killarney with West Kerry. Somebody got the wires crossed along the way and we ended up training in Fitzgerald Stadium with Kerry.

That was bad enough but earlier I had got nostalgic making the drive across from Tralee on my own, thinking about all the summers and all the championships we worked through from that perfect spot.

That’s the beauty of the championship for a Kerry player. The championship brings you the beauty of Killarney. Kerry always train for the winter in Tralee and for the summer the team moves to Killarney.

It’s special in Fitzgerald Stadium.

In Tralee in the winter you are going out with your tracksuit over your top and the collar pulled up to your ears and your woolly cap down to your eyebrows. In Killarney the sun is shining, you have your sleeveless top and there is always a buzz to the place. You’d look forward to it always.

I loved Killarney. I loved the sounds and smells of the dressingroom and the feel of the pitch, the scent of fresh-mown grass, knowing every inch of that pitch. I loved the craic and the slagging and how when we’d get out on to the pitch the craic stopped. Everybody got down to business.

In Killarney the football gets faster, the games get more competitive, till finally it winds out and if you are lucky, you are into September and the sessions are winding down.

If management have judged it right the energy is in your legs. With your own body you are suddenly like a jockey in a race trying to hold a horse back.

Sixteen years of going to Killarney to train for championship football is hard to leave behind. So much craic. Little stories pop into my head this week.

Like the night with Bernie O’Connor and the car. Bernie was a great groundsman for years and years. He was very involved with us and Bernie would go to the games with his Kerry jersey on. Sometimes, though, Bernie would get cross with us and this one evening he came bursting into the dressingroom and said, “Lads, there’s a car parked outside the main gate.”

I think it was Maurice Fitz that asked the question. “What kind of a car is it, Bernie?”

“A MOTOR CAR,” roared Bernie. Only in Kerry!

Every team that has ever left the county to win an All-Ireland has left from there. In the week of an All-Ireland you think to yourself about all the players who came and went from here.

How many of the absolute greats who went before you left their blood, sweat and tears on the grass there. You think of all the games and the drills and all the rows and the laughs they had and you feel lucky to be part of that great line.

You tap into that history in Killarney and it gives you an edge.

Very few teams have the honour and privilege to train in such a place. In the last couple of years they put in a new sprinkler system for the grass and new dressingrooms which has made it even better.

It’s the thought of the John Egans, the Mikey Sheehys back through the Mick O’Connells and the Mick O’Dwyers and further, the thought of them all being here that makes Killarney special.

And today on a Tuesday or a Thursday you can just walk in off the street, like the great Johnny Culloty does, and see the Gooch and Donaghy and other amazing footballers do their stuff.

Kerry people are so proud of that tradition and so interested in football that when management closes a session or two to try the odd thing out there is uproar.

I miss it. Obviously.

I was talking to David Moran on the street the other day and he said casually Fitzgerald Stadium had never looked better.

I came away envying him. That sort of stuff happens a lot.

I loved the training itself. I loved going over for training. There was great enjoyment in when lads would be going well, say, they’d be getting put out to midfield where I was.

I loved measuring myself against them. Séamus Scanlon and Mike Quirke and those fellas, trying to make or break it with those lads was incredible. You’d have nights where it didn’t go well and then you were bursting for road for the next night. If it was a Tuesday you were getting everything right for Thursday night because you wanted to get back in there and measure yourself off against those boys again.

They push you on and you push them on. Great enjoyment in that. Always trying to get it right. It’s like playing actual games. It is all-consuming.

I even miss the travel. I would love driving over and back, usually with Paul Galvin. People wouldn’t realise how witty Paul is. Even in his bad days when the world is at him he has a way of laughing at himself which always makes him good company.

We’d be travelling and he’d be talking about a game at the weekend and we’d be imagining Jack’s (O’Connor) face if Paul just decked his marker at the throw-in and then sidled up to Jack and said loudly, “Jesus Jack we got that one right didn’t we? He won’t try anything today.”

Kieran Donaghy would be with us sometimes. Great craic too. We’d hit the dressingroom in good form and check our egos at the door. You can’t be a sensitive soul going into a dressingroom.

It’s funny how one minute you are a footballer and the next minute you are ex-footballer. Marc is out in Dingle. Tomás is in Cork. I wouldn’t see the lads as much as I would now I’m not training so I’m not in touch with things as I used to be.

Last year if I saw something happening in training I always discussed it with the lads and vice versa. But I’m not seeing anything now so I am out of it in that sense. My interest hasn’t diminished but my knowledge and input has.

Go to any corner in Kerry whether you are a footballer or not and the game is being discussed. Often in the past you would be avoiding all that. Now you are more consulted as an equal than as a player. That’s no harm either!

There is still the odd fella stopping me on the street talking to me about the shape I’m in. Half of me is saying “yerra, no not at all leave me be” and the half of me is saying “come on, let’s keep the old rumour going a bit longer!”

Talk of coming back is just fooling myself, though. I made the decision and I have to stick by it. That horse has bolted. It is a huge gap to fill. You develop habits to maintain your fitness. Watching food, watching how much water you are taking on board and you have to say to yourself sometimes “why don’t you cop on and enjoy yourself. It’s over!’

It will be unusual this Sunday. The lads will take off early in the morning, driving by bus, getting in ahead of the traffic. I’ll be in a car somewhere on the road behind knowing what they are thinking, knowing the atmosphere on the bus and the dressingroom. And then watching when the ball is thrown out and the first few minutes of it. I know I’m in for desperate times at that stage!

Thurles has always been a gorgeous spot to play on. Not sure how it would suit me at my age but you count the times you play there too. This will be a hard weekend but if Kerry win going to Killarney to see Kerry playing Cork will be tougher again.

Hopefully we will have to go to Croke Park this year as well. That will be torture but I’m a glutton for punishment.

The time had come to walk away but this week it doesn’t lessen the blow or the sense of loss and the sense of emptiness.

There is a big void there. I have the club but nothing compares to the green and gold. Never will.