Frank Hogan, Christian and GAA fan, talks to Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Call to mind the last of September's Sundays and a reel of familiar stills flickers past. Pretenders may come, stadiums may go, but the repertoire stays the same. Tomorrow afternoon at Croke Park, then, the boys from Artane will draw breath. Eighty thousand squinting others will do the same. And for 70 minutes they'll be lifted by variations on a ritual, lifted by a sublime intervention here, the quiver of a net there, the gentle arcs of cleanly hit scores and Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh's offbeat lyrics. It will be raw and it will be refined. In the end grown men will fall to their knees and there will be dejection, there will be delirium. And there will be John 3:7.
It has been nearly 20 years since the evangelist Frank Hogan first hoisted his two-metre yellow banner and began to spread his message (John 3:7 reads: "Ye must be born again") to the sporting masses. Now 67, the retired shopkeeper from Limerick devotes much of his year to traipsing the country in search of a captive audience. Rugby and soccer matches, concerts, festivals and fleadhanna; he's been to them all. But it's at Croke Park that they make men into icons - and where Hogan's heart resides. The man affectionately known as "John" has become as much a staple of the Irish summer as damp sand.
"I was always a big sportsman," he says. "I was always a hurling fan. As Con Houlihan says, football is for strong men, but hurling is for heroes. And I agree." Hogan might be a cherished fixture on Hill 16, but in the early days conversion was resisted. "I used to get a lot of abuse initially. You'd have no idea. But the reaction is very good now. The last time Dublin were playing I got the wrong train up to Dublin, and when I got to Croke Park it was half-time. And I remember coming on to the Hill. All the Dubs made way for me to go down to the front. It was really great. Maybe they think I'll be a talisman for Dublin. You know, the Dubs always sing to the others: 'Get off the Hill, get off the Hill.' And I say: 'What about me?' But it's always [ in mock Dublin accent]: 'Ah, John, you're OK.' "
A vignette from the All-Ireland club finals this year says something of his status. When Hogan reached the gate at Croke Park, ticket in hand, a garda stood in his path. He could enter, said the garda, but the banner would go no further. It was like telling Seán Kelly, the GAA president, to relinquish his beard at the turnstile. The story made noise. Briskly, the GAA issued a statement affirming that Frank and John would always be welcome; Hogan, it said, was a part of the GAA's "fabric".
The idea for a banner struck him while watching Pat Cash take his Wimbledon title, in 1987. As Cash climbed into the stands to greet his family, Hogan noticed a pair of hands in the crowd wielding a small, registration-plate-sized sign scrawled with John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.") Could he do the same at GAA matches?
Years before, there had been an epiphany forged from despair. "When I got married I had two children, and my wife left when they were four and five years of age. And I was in real trouble. I went to a friend of mine and said, 'Look, this is my situation.' The friend pointed Hogan to a Christian bookshop, where some reading brought him to the realisation "that salvation was a gift of God". It was September 28th, 1976. "About two weeks later I discovered I had become a Christian."
Hogan is a keen observer of counties' traits and their people's ticks. Kerry ("the masters") and some of the northern teams have his respect, but Cork people have his admiration. "The best in the whole country are Cork; they're tremendous people, and gracious in defeat."
His own allegiance is bestowed both on Tipperary, where he was born, and his adoptive Limerick. "When Limerick were playing Offaly in the '94 final I couldn't get into the Hill. I was at the Canal End. And I looked up toward the Hill during the match and I saw a big sign on the wall of the Hill, and it said: 'John 3:7, Offaly 4:8'.
"And it's just incredible the number of people who want to have their photograph taken with me after matches - seven or eight at a time. It's just unreal. And even fellas I went to school with call me John."