The same people are now singing We Are The Champions.
I hate that song. I especially love how the football journalist Tim Vickery ridicules Queenâs performance at Live Aid.
"Itâs a fackin concert to raise money to stop people dying from famine and youâre shouting âNo Time For Losersâ?
Fack off."
Fuck off.
Went out of where? And went where? Couldnât you have just stood at the back, or smoked where you were?TNâŚH
Out to where the jacks are and sat at the wall after straining the spuds. Ah, I wouldnât feel comfortable smoking around people in the stand. I always head out for one at half time, but had one inside during the speeches as the Armagh contingent had left and the hill was largely empty. Staying in Ballymagorry tonight. Probably treat myself to the coveted Ulster fry to start the day tomorrow.
Good night buddy. Glad itâs all going well for youâŚif we run into other, in the coming weeks, i might bum a fag.
Play silly games, win silly prizes. Well deserved
Did the month it took place in take from the occasion?
It was a great occasion for what it was. But the month does take from it. The fact it was on a Saturday evening took from it. The format takes from it.
We got lucky with the weather, in that when you walked into the Diamond and then down Fermanagh Street yesterday you could have easily have fooled yourself into thinking that this was a July Sunday with it all on the line. But it wasnât.
You shouldnât have dew on a pitch at an Ulster final. The grass was cut rougher than it would be in July, it was a spring cut. The evening start and the extra-time meant the rush to get out of the place was like fall of Saigon. Thereâs always an element of that anyway, but 8pm with the dusk starting to fall and the dusk starting to fall as opposed to 5:15pm and the chance of watching the closing holes of the British Open in a pub heightens it.
That the Ulster final in Clones has endured like this is testament to what it means as an occasion, that you can mutilate it, you can reduce it to game of essentially pride only, and yet it still survives and even full fat thrives.
It still thrives because itâs an Irish ritual with the deepest of meanings for people. It defines Ulsterness. Itâs a gathering of humanity, one day in a year and one day only - although the GAA have now lost out on FOUR Ulster final replays in a row. People go because of how this day makes them feel. For older people itâs a ritual of constancy. For younger people itâs about making memories that will endure a lifetime. In younger peopleâs minds itâs a Shangri-La. As it is in the minds of people who attended this occasion many years ago and longed to go again. They all flock to it as an act of protection for this deeply cherished ritual. That if the people keep going, the GAA can never take it away.
The ideal date for an Ulster final is on or around July 19th.
It was nice to have that lovely little curtain raiser yesterday evening to the main event at HQ today.
It will be the biggest match of the career to date for each player today. Personally Iâd love to see Louth do it but overall Iâm really looking forward to it
On a side note, youâd wonder about the anger management of some of those Armagh players and backroom team. Always great to dish it out over time but canât take it. The end of regular time vs Galway in â22 they were quick to gloat away and gnaw at the Galway players instead of head into the dressing room for ET. Then yesterday they werenât able to take it at all.
The Woodstock of this century if you will.
A lovely video of a few Armagh toerags being bet out of a topaz in Monaghan by a crew of Donegal lads doing the rounds. The Armagh snipers have gone soft since the good old days
I was mightily impressed by how an Armagh fella of no more than 18 or 19 was being raised shoulder high outside the entrance to the Creighton Hotel beer garden like Noel Lane being chaired by a big crowd of Galway people after pulling a late winning goal in an All-Ireland hurling final, and was blowing a loud horn with his mouth and monotonely blowing the âtuneâ of âMeet Her At The Love Paradeâ by Da Hool, released in 1997, and that you could perfectly make out what âtuneâ he was trying to monotonely blow his horn to. He got the timing spot on.
Then he reverted to the more traditional Irish âeeehhh eeeehhhhhâŚeeh eeh eehâŚeeh eeh eeh eehhhâŚeeehh eeehhâ (âArmaghâ being roared to the final two eeehh eeehhs).
G stands for ghouls I suppose.
not a picture the lets scrap the provincals zealots will like to see
Ryan Burns to lead Louth to victory today, all the talk will be of Sam Mulroy but the former is having a good championship.
Just couldnât. This is like an All Ireland atmosphere.
One of the big things that makes Clones is the road to it @peddlerscross - you understand this sort of thing.
Traditionally when Iâve gone to Clones itâs been via Cavan. That way, the bit from Butlersbridge on is when it starts getting exciting, you start straddling the border, going in and out of Fermanagh two or three times.
The road via Carrickmacross, Castleblyney and Monaghan is a superior anticipation building exercise however. The N2 is just a superior road to the N3 in terms of your surroundings.
You go through Slane, the other Clones style Mecca that gives me butterflies. The road to Slane is very straight, almost uncomfortably straight. Then the long descent down to the narrow bridge over the Boyne before the long ascent back up. I did not go through Slane yesterday because the bus took the M1 to the Ardee link road before promptly breaking down.
Even that bit between Slane and Carrickmacross is enticing. Itâs very undulating, weirdly undulating like the bit above Cork City when you go onto the M8 back to Dublin. Then when you get past Carrickmacross it starts getting properly exciting.
You have entered DRUMLIN COUNTRY. The countryside is pimpled in these rolling, continuous little hills, but unlike pimples, theyâre beautiful. Itâs like they hide secrets. You donât know whatâs over the next drumlin. Another drumlin, usually. Possibly an old IRA arms dump. Possibly a genius poet or playwright, or boxer. They build houses on the sides of some drumlins, big mansions with big long driveways up to them.
The N2 between Carrickmacross and Monaghan gives an air of bigness and anticipation. Itâs a very smooth and modern looking road in undulating countryside, but itâs deceptively dangerous. A lot of it is a 2 plus 1. It lends itself to speed. Youâre speeding towards Mecca.
Castleblayney has its own mini-Clones with its own mini-Hill, scene of manyâs an Ulster semi-final. That builds anticipation. The turn left into the classic main street in Blayney builds anticipation.
The drumlin pimpled countryside is very Protestant looking. You see Protestant churches. You see little headquarters for Protestant religious sects. This gives an air of otherworldliness. The presence of Protestantism in Ulster, the nearby presence of Orangeism, itâs so much more interesting than then the monotone bog standard Catholicism of the south. Youâre in the south officially but youâre near to themmuns and you feel them being near you. In some ways it feels like being in West Virginia or western Pennsylvania. The properness.
The names of the hotels in Monaghan town build anticipation. The big three hotels, the Westenra, the Hillgrove, the Four Seasons, venues Iâm somewhat familiar with through family occasions or being the Monaghan shirt sponsor or reading in Jerome Quinnâs Ye Olde Ulster Football books of the 1990s about them being the pre-match venues of choice for Derry or Down or Tyrone.
The road from Monaghan over to Clones is twisty and windy. How many more twists and turns until that very long straight stretch where you see Clones on the horizon, on the horizon like that beloved tree that was cut down by vandals for the laugh in Northumbria. Sycamore Gap. Clones is Drumlin Gap. It itself is built on a drumlin, two drumlins, when you walk down Fermanagh Street youâre walking down a drumlin, and then you have to walk up another drumlin to get to Mecca, St. Tiernachâs Park, which is built into the far side of that second drumlin. At the top of the first drumlin, the Diamond, stands the magnificent old Protestant church. At the top of the second drumlin stands an actual cathedral, they probably call it a church but itâs a cathedral, and that is incredibly impressive, and Mecca is on the far side of it.
You donât get this countryside anywhere else in Ireland but Monaghan.
The great GAA venues are inseparable from their surroundings and how you get to them. Thurles is inseparable from the Devilâs Bit and from the square and from the bridge over the rail line, then you see the stadium in front of you.
Cork is inseparable from the long walk and that slanty industrial slide yoke that goes over the long walk, and the mouth of the Lee, you imagining a ship sailing up it and blowing itâs horn as Christy Ring goals a 21 yard free, and inseparable from the posh people of Montenotte looking down on it.
Killarney is inseparable from the mountains, the Irish Himalayas, inseparable from the very impressive looking old convent or is it an old mental home that overlooks the main terrace. Ennis is inseparable from sheds, the good kind of sheds. Newbridge is inseparable from the air of warm winter town centreness.
The BOX-IT Athletic Grounds is inseparable from the cathedrals and the big rock off to the left, and passing cars getting a glimpse of Crossmaglen v Kilcoo in the November dusk in the way the DART used to get a passing glimpse of an otherwise sold out Lansdowne Road.
Pearse Stadium is inseparable from traffic jams, not good traffic jams like at Clones but the crap kind, and inseperable from wind. Dr. Hyde Park is inseparable from stone walls, graveyards and a bang of famine. Limerick is inseparable from big electricity pylons and about nothing else. It has no selling point. Nowlan Park is perfectly pleasant but doesnât grab you. Portlaoise has nothing.
Clones has murals. Clones has âGiants Will Clashâ banners hung over the street. Clones has narrow streets. Clones has the greatest terrace in Ireland and one of the worst stands, with seats designed for people under five feet tall. It used to have the greatest commentary backdrop (up to 1993). Now it has the greatest commentary box, presiding over everything like a king, master of all its surrounds, but it should be left unused and the commentary position should return to the proper side. Clones has the remnants of the old Hill, like the remnants of an old, defunct road or railway line, where people used to climb up to on an expedition, now only trees and ghosts stand there. In Clones the pre-match air is heavier than elsewhere. The only major fault is that once the final whistle sounds that heavy air is suddenly popped like a balloon, but that too is part of the experience, the sudden end and the rush to leave.
Some venues just have a unique selling points or selling points, and some have none. Clones has the most.
The ignorant looking lad from Thurles is here doing security. Tis an occasion.
Christ lad, you need to get out more.
Itâs a town in Monaghan, not Vegas.
