‘Burden It Brogan is his new hero. Five years ago, it was The Monk. As a parent, I suppose I should be relieved. Although there’ll always be that little port of me that wishes it was Drico’
I’M TURNING THE beast into a little side street in Ballybough and I’m already remembering why I hate Croke Pork – even when we had to play our games there? There’s a dude and I’m presuming his daughter, both wearing fluorescent yellow bibs, and they’re – get this – directing me into a porking space that I was perfectly capable of finding myself.
And I immediately know why, of course. By the time I get the door open, they’re practically on top of me. “Be a tough ould game today,” the dude goes. He’s built like a focking petrol truck – he looks like the kind of bouncer who would have thrown me out of Renards head-first back in the day.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I go. “I’ve no even interest in this game. I’m only here because my son – for whatever reason – is into it. And I’m not giving you a focking cent, by the way.”
He’s like, “Soddy?”
I’m there, “Soddy, nothing. This is a public street. I don’t have to pay you or anyone else protection money for the privilege of sticking the jammer here. End of message.”
She gets in on the act then – as in the daughter? “It mightn’t be here when you come back,” she goes. Then she calls me one or two names as well – most of which I’ve heard before. She has a mouth on her like a sewage pipe.
I whip out the old iPhone and – you’ll love this – I take a photograph of the two of them, standing there with their mouths slung open like dolphins at feeding time. “There ends up being a mork on that cor,” I go, “and I’m giving your mugshots to the Feds.”
Ronan is waiting for me outside the Clonliffe House. “People in bibs demanding extortion money for letting you pork,” I go, just shaking my head. “Doesn’t happen at the Aviva, can I just say.”
Ronan laughs. “Mon in here,” he goes. “We’ll get a pint and a short – couple of looseners for the day that’s in it, wha?”
I’m like, “Er, we won’t, Ro.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re 13 years old.”
He laughs again. “Always woort a try,” he goes. “You’ll be distracted one day and you’ll say, ‘Fear enough’.”
“I doubt it, Ro. Come on, let’s just go in and find our seats.”
That’s when he says it. “Seats?”
Thus sudden feeling of basic dread comes over me. “Ro, please don’t tell me the tickets are for Hill 16, 17 – whatever it is.
He rolls his eyes and tells me – his father, remember – not to be a “fooken oul one”, then he heads off in the direction of the ground, with me trotting after him.
The Hill – as they call it – turns out to be every bit the horror show I expected. Why does everyone from that side of the city want to be a character? It’s like they’re all auditioning to be the next Brendan Grace. They end up having great fun with me, of course. “Look at this fedda,” I hear one goy go. “He’s arthur taking a wrong turden on he’s way up to the corporate boxes.”
Which, of course, everyone finds hilarious. Then another goy cops my Henri Lloyd, and possibly my Dubes, and goes, “Hee-er – where’d ye park the yacht?” Except obviously the T is silent on this side of the city. The point is, I’ve never actually sailed – which means the joke is technically on them.
“Just take your fooken medicine,” Ro tells me out of the corner of his mouth. “Steer straight ahead, Rosser, and don’t make eye contact with anyone, reet?”
I’m like, “I’ve no intention of it, Ro.”
The teams run out. It turns out that Dublin are playing against Kerry. The place basically erupts. Ro storts giving it loads. “Go on, Burden It. Today’s the day, Burden It.”
Burden It Brogan is his new hero. Five years ago, it was The Monk. As a parent, I suppose I should be relieved. Although there’ll always be that little port of me that wishes it was Drico or Dorce or even Rob Kearney that he idolised. Of course, I can’t resist bringing up yesterday’s events.
“They should have sent Cian Healy and Paul O’Connell in to talk to the IMF,” I go. “They’d have gone, ‘Here’s, like, 300 billion – give it back to us whenever. Or even never.’ God, Ireland were awesome yesterday.”
“Will you shut the fook up about the rubby,” a voice behind me goes. “He’s talking about the rubby, lads. You’re not at the fooken rubby now.”
Ro shoots me a disappointed look. I just hold my hands up to say, “Okay, I’ve made my point. I happen to think we’re in with a very good chance of reaching the World Cup final. But I’ll say no more about it.”
The game storts. I have to admit, roysh, I only end up half watching it? Mostly, I’m watching Ro. The confident way he holds himself. He’s becoming a young man. He must have shot up 12 inches in the last year. And a couple of weeks ago, his voice broke. Happened overnight. And all I could think about was how it seemed like only yesterday that we were going to see my old man in Mountjoy and Ronan’s little squeaky voice was echoing around the visiting room: “Doorty screw bastards.”
Now look at him. Like I said, he’s not a kid any more. He even has a girlfriend, called Shadden Shute and it seems to be going well – certainly if the hickeys on his neck are anything to go by. He looks like he’s been shot with rubber bullets.
The point I’m trying to make is that I’m really, really proud of myself. As a father, I’d have my definite critics, but I don’t think I did too badly.
The match? I’m going to shock you now by telling you that it ends up being not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The halves are actually shorter than they are in rugby, which is a bonus. And of course the entire thing – like the famous Leinster Schools Senior Cup final of 1999 – ended up being decided by an injury time kick from distance. Fr Fehily used to say that Gaelic football would eventually become rugby – it just happened to be going through a particularly ugly stage of its evolution.
“Three steps backwards,” I go, “four to the left. That’s how I’d take it if I was . . . ”
“Stephen Cluxton,” Ronan goes. “Here, Rosser, you were a kicker – Is he gonna put it over?”
It feels amazing to have my son ask me that. I check out the dude’s body language. “Nothing surer,” I just go.
And obviously I’m right.
When it’s over, we wander back to the cor, which of course ends up being up on blocks. I mean literally up on blocks – wheels, gone. I spot the dude from earlier and his daughter, leaning against the gable wall of a house, both sniggering away at me. “You better get the wheels back on that thing,” I go, “with the speed of a focking F1 pit crew.”
And you could knock me over with an actual feather when Ronan turns around and goes, “Rosser, this is Shadden – me girlfriend.”
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock