Dublin's defeat at Croke Park merely sets the tone for a sombre night for Vinnie in his favourite hostelry

THEIR BREATH rising in the chill air, the four middle-aged Dubs turned into Clonliffe Road on Saturday night with the expectancy of excited schoolboys. Ahead of them, shimmering like a spaceship was Croke Park, their Theatre of Dreams.

Of the four, none had a greater pep in his step than Vincent Finbarr Fitzpatrick, resplendent in his new Dublin shirt and tracksuit top, courtesy of Santa.

With four of Foley’s finest pints tucked away in his capacious stomach, Vinny was in tip-top form. “Mark the date lads, the sporting year of all sporting years starts tonight,” he said aloud.

Around him, Fran, Macker and Brennie nodded. 2012 was not only a Leap Year but a leap forward for sport like never before – the Euro finals, Olympics and Ryder Cup on top of all the annual goodies – and it was all kicking off with their beloved Dubs against the aul’ enemy, Kerry. Sure, it couldn’t get any better, could it?

Some two hours later, the lads were licking their wounds in Foley’s, less sober but more sombre than before. Dublin’s balloon had been punctured with ease by the canny Kerrymen who won by six points easing up.

That the Dublin midfield couldn’t jump and Bernard Brogan was held back in reserve, puzzled Vinny but he consoled himself that All-Irelands weren’t won, or lost, on freezing nights in February. Dublin still had the prized Sam Maguire in their pockets.

At one level, a National League defeat, even to Kerry, didn’t matter a jot, as Tommy Carr and Pillar Caffrey, two former Dublin managers who pushed the All-Ireland boulder up to Hill 16, only to see it roll down again, could have told you.

Vinny had seen both men at the game and had exchanged “howyas” walking past. He wondered what either would have given to have led Dublin in from the desert, like Pat Gilroy had done. Did they feel animosity to Giller? Would they have changed anything, looking back?

He was snapped out of his reverie by Brennie, the youngest member of Foley’s Wrecking Crew. “Did you see the words on the back of the Dublin jerseys?” he piped. “One had ‘Listen’, another had ‘Talk’ and I saw one with ‘Change’. What was the story there?”

Macker scratched his bony chin and thought for a moment. Of all the lads, he was the most widely read. As a taxi driver, he had a lot of time on his hands.

“Wasn’t that something to do with suicide awareness? Vodafone were in on it too as there were no sponsor’s logos on the Dublin shirts,” he said.

There was a silence before Fran chipped in: “Dublin were a bit suicidal tonight. Two points up at half-time and all over the place after it.” It was a weak joke, and Fran knew it. “I’ll get the order in. The usual, I take it?”

Macker headed out the back to smoke one of his hand-rolled concoctions, while Brennie nipped in to the toilet, leaving Vinny holding the fort by the telly, a strange, faraway look on his lugubrious features.

His mind drifted to a different time, to when he was still a relative rookie in Clontarf garage, more than 30 years ago, and he’d come under the influence of Colm ‘Collie’ Beardmore.

They were an unlikely two-ball, and were nicknamed Little Fauss and Big Halsy in the garage after a movie in the early 1970s starring Robert Redford and the less photogenic Michael J Pollard.

Collie was everything Vinny wasn’t. He was handsome, well-built, a natural sportsman and had a gift of the gab when it came to pulling a bird.

Vinny recalled their Saturday nights in ‘Saints’ disco in Howth, where Collie would arrive with his plain-looking bus driver mate and leave with a glamour doll under each oxter. More than once, he tried to shift his ‘spares’ on to Vinny’s lap but when the girls saw the Charles Laughton-ringer propping up the bar, they tossed their heads in the air and clung even closer to Collie.

Vinny reckoned if Collie had scored with even a quarter of the girls he pulled, he’d have broken the ton. As for Vinny, he was never in to double figures, and a couple of them were quick singles.

Vinny idolised Collie, so much so that he often covered for him at work. Once, when Collie missed a morning shift as a conductor on the 31, Vinny signed him in, and then swung by his house in Kilbarrack in the bus to pick him up. They loved working the 31 as lunch in the Summit Inn included the finest toasted sambo special; the venue was also a convenient haunt for Collie’s ‘recruits’ from Saints down the road.

Vinny recalled the time things began to splutter between him and Collie. It was the summer of 1982 and they had booked Ibiza for a fortnight’s holidays. For Collie, that meant senoritas by the score; for pinky Vinny, it meant sunburn and more snubs.

But Bridie, Vinny’s mam, fell ill with shingles. Vinny felt obliged to stay at home with his sisters in Causeway Avenue and cried off the trip. Collie hooked up with another pal, Shamie Malone, and when he returned, he was a different fellah. He appeared surly and he began to blank Vinny, who couldn’t understand why.

By the end of the year, Collie cashed in his chips as a clippie and went to work as a barman in a swanky southside hotel. Vinny felt relieved and his life moved on without Collie Beardmore, albeit at a duller pace. When Collie was found hanging from a rope in the hotel cellar a few months later, Vinny felt a strange detachment about it all. He hadn’t seen Collie for ages and they had parted on less than amicable terms.

He had felt a pang of sadness as he thought of the good times they had together but had moved on, in his head, until the note arrived.

It was there one morning in his cubby hole at the garage and, to this day, Vinny had no idea who put it there. It was handwritten by Collie, in surprisingly neat script, and included several paragraphs about Vinny.

It spoke of Vinny being his best friend, the only person who accepted Collie for what he really was, not for what he pretended to be. When he was in a dark place, Collie said it was Vinny who dragged him out to the sunlight.

Collie said he was sorry for treating Vinny so horribly after the Ibiza trip. “He was my best friend yet I hurt him, I pushed him away, like I pushed everyone else,” he wrote.

He said he hated himself for his attitude to Vinny and how he left “the best job in the world” to move to the southside. Collie had died alone and frightened. He was 24, his life was all ahead of him – he left behind grieving parents who worshipped their only son.

The note had crushed Vinny. If only he had known, if only he had listened more, if only he had talked to Collie, talked to him seriously, he might have spotted something. His friend might even be here today, enjoying a beer and still eyeing up the birds.

When Fran returned with a tray of creamy pints, he found his friend in tears. “Cheer up Vinny, It was only a football match. No one died.”

Vinny didn’t have it in him to reply.

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