Opinion: Free-wheeling football is the game's 'new normal'

This week's Cavanman's Diary

It's rare on this football beat that something stops you in your tracks. On Saturday evening, I was strolling out of Kingspan Breffni, trying to make sense of the match which had just played out before the privileged few of us who got to see it.

In the car park at the rear of the stand stood the footballers of Castlerahan and Lavey, who had just gone toe-to-toe for an hour and a half of frantic pinball wizardry. A thousand mad things, as Anthony Daly said, and someone came out on top.

At the end of this one, Castlerahan had won the match by a point, Ronan Flanagan, a decorated hero from battles past, won and lost, steering home the winning goal in the second half of extra time.

It was classic championship fare, a local derby, blood and thunder, elation and heartbreak. And in the end, it was the sort of win that can sustain a team for months; the sort of loss that can sap the life out of the losers. But if it was high drama, it was no tragedy.

The sun was going down by the time I threw the laptop bag over my shoulder and headed for home. And it was then I saw the players, still togged out – the dressing-rooms remain a no-go zone – standing around in twos and threes, mulling things over. Lavey men and Castlerahan men, chatting amicably.

The Castlerahan lads were holding little foil containers – of food, presumably – and the Lavey fellas, their rivals but also neighbours and friends, were supping from water bottles, their body language weary but strangely content.

In these GUBU times, it would do your heart good to see them.

These teams have met five times in championship football in the last four years. Three of those were draws; Saturday’s game was a draw at the end of normal time too before Castlerahan nicked it.

Yet, there was no rancour here, just young and not-so-young sportsmen savouring it for what it was. One side won, the other didn’t. Life goes on.

The championship itself has that feel about it this year. Without fans, there seems to be less pressure; it's a game and not a trial. Then again, it does not necessarily follow that because only the players are in physical attendance, that hundreds of others are not as invested in it as always.

With lockdown, teams were not training collectively a few times a week for months, training to be fit for more training. Managers – some missionaries, more mercenaries – did not have to justify their existence by following the latest trend.

Don’t get me wrong, some managers are very good but others inhabiting this cottage industry are not. Some of them are to blame for the toxic culture which tends to surround the football scene, where so much is asked of players for so little.

Proof, if it were needed, came in the survey of club footballers conducted by this newspaper last May; of 320 respondents, two thirds felt that the commitment levels are too high.

This year, that hasn't been the case. For the longest time, it seemed likely there would be no football at all played and so, when it suddenly became clear that the size fives could be pumped again before the summer was out, players approached the game refreshed and, moreso, relieved.

This season will always be recalled as an exceptional one. There was no inter-county championship, no All County League worth talking about; there will be no relegation. Clubs were not waiting for the county team’s involvement in the championship to end so that they could borrow their players back for a while, hopefully not injured or crushed with disappointment.

The new normal is abnormal. In these illogical times, supporters and volunteers who give so much of themselves to this community-based organisation are treated like intruders in their own homes, barred from attending matches but not from watching them in pubs or from grassy hills or, in one bizarre and hilarious situation I observed over the weekend, from on top of a silage pit.

So, by any measure, this is a football season like no other. And it has manifested itself on the field in how teams have played.

There has been no defensive football on show. The handbrake has been released and teams are just going at it, freewheeling their way through each round and seeing where the momentum takes them.

Unfortunately, that is likely to change in the coming weeks. It is only natural that players will tighten up a little as they get near the business end; suddenly, there is something to protect after all.

There is also now a three-week break before the Senior Championship semi-finals in which teams will surely spend time on video analysis and breaking down the opposition.

There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is a natural tendency, when you have achieved something, to become averse to taking risks. When you ain’t got nothing, as the song says, you got nothing to lose. Footballers got a reprieve this year and are playing like its their last match.

And it's worth savouring, sides going at it like football is something novel and wonderful again, not a chore to be completed.

Teams have been burning it up since this championship started; the focus has been on enjoyment, on starting blazes, not putting them out. It is ironic that in the year when so few have been able to see the games, they have been more attractive to watch than ever.

On Saturday evening, there were two matches at HQ. The first was a Junior Championship match between Redhills and Knockbride. It’s probably no surprise given that one of Cavan’s greatest forwards, Larry Reilly, is in charge of Knockbride but, still, that game was a glorious shoot-out, finishing 3-13 to 2-15.

And then came the senior matches; the scorelines in the four Senior Championship quarter-finals were as follows: 2-19 to 3-10, 0-22 to 2-15, 3-13 to 0-21 and 2-19 to 0-15.

Played like this, it's easy to see why, many decades ago, people in this rural county became so attached to this game and handed it down, like a family business, to the next generation.

The thought struck me driving home on Saturday night: those who lit that flame can rest easy, wherever they are.