AT this stage you’re sure to be aware that Euro 2016 kicks off in Paris this weekend. While we’re not the wet-between-the-ears, tournament virgins we were in Germany in 1988, there is something incomparable about your country performing on the international stage. Whether it be rugby, boxing or even cricket, the Irish public have continued to rally behind their sports teams in droves during their successes throughout the last decade. While the enthusiasm of Italia 90 will never be matched due to its cultural significance at a time where the only international attention the country received was for an IRA bomb, football tournaments transform the country and its image like no other time.
At this year’s European Championships, Waterford will be represented by two of its sons. Sport is the truest form of a meritocracy; often when you look at national politics and the world of business it can look like it is the only form. If you’re a passenger on the pitch you are less likely to return to it.
Daryl Murphy has extracted every ounce of effort from his body to get to the stage he is at today. While his chances of leading the line this summer have diminished in recent months, less than 0.0000001% (I’m drastically downplaying this figure, there are only so many 0’s you can type) of those who play football earn the right to play at an international tournament, never mind the fact he plays in the unforgiving centre-forward position.
Ferrybank’s John O’Shea is the more likely of the two to earn a starter’s berth against Sweden in Saint Denis on Monday evening. Even if Martin O’Neill erroneously leaves the 35-year-old on the bench, it will only be a tiny dent on the career of Waterford’s greatest ever sportsperson. A biased person (which I am) would argue he’s our greatest person ever. Edmund Rice and John Roberts did their share for Waterford but would they have popped up with the goods and delivered in Gelsenkirchen during qualification like the big friendly giant from across the bridge.
15 years ago in a friend’s back garden I remember taking a few tame shots past (or directly at) a six-foot tall, broad goalkeeper who made the already small goal seem like a post-it. John O’Shea was 20 and home for a few weeks during the summer. Within two months he would receive his first cap for Ireland and a year later he had carved his place into Manchester United’s first team. While the world was hardly his oyster his home city was, yet here he stood playing football with two awe-struck 10-year-olds in The Orchard, Ferrybank.
The most remarkable think about the man is that he would selflessly do the same today.
Some people have understandably fallen out of love with the beautiful game. Money has corrupted those at the helm of clubs and it can be difficult to relate to the figures you see on television shamelessly rolling around the pristine green grass having received the slightest knock from the opposition. There’s so much nonsense spoken on 24-hour sports news channels that you could be forgiven for wanting to chew on some glass rather than following the coverage surrounding sport.
But there is romance in sport and it lies with individuals. The Leicester City fairytale you had forced down your throat last month probably came without a mention of the full-back who was convicted of assaulting the mother of his child or the star striker who was filmed racially abusing a Japanese man in a casino. Like any profession there are more good people in football than bad people however and you can barely imagine John O’Shea even swatting a fly never mind mirroring the behaviour of some of his peers.
It’s impossible not to be romantic about sport when you look at where John O’Shea is today.
Famously, the Liverpool fan’s parents Jim and Mary received a phone call from Alex Ferguson in his youth and from there his star soared. Not until after his Leaving Cert however - his choice to sit the exams are an early example of his sanity and the normalness that he continues to exude today. His modest family home sits snuggly in a cul-de-sac at the back of the old estate of Rockenham with no signs Ireland’s third most-capped player ever grew up there. Contrastingly, the walls in the corridors of St. Mary’s BNS are decorated with various newspaper cuttings and even a signed jersey from his days as a key part of Ireland’s success in the Under-16 European Championships in 1998.
Ferguson, a ruthless egoist at the helm of the world’s biggest club for a quarter of a century, wouldn’t have a bad word said about O’Shea. While you could humorously say that nothing highlights the trust he had in the Ferrybank man more than the afternoon his side were reduced to 10-men and O’Shea strapped on the goalkeeping gloves at White Hart Lane, a truer reflection of his belief in the defender is the fact he played against the greatest club side ever, Barcelona, in a Champions League final.
At 35 this is likely to be his final international tournament. Regardless of how successful Ireland’s campaign is, he will still return to Waterford during the short summer break. He will duck into Flynn’s Bar for a pint like he did on Christmas Eve four years ago. He will catch up with his school friends for a night out. He will sign autographs and pose for photographs with children. He will visit the local football club. If the dates fall right he will take in a Waterford game in Thurles. He might walk down past the Grotto for a bottle of Lucozade in the shop and chat with anybody who stops him. He will act like one of us because he is one of us. He won’t big himself up.
(The night Portugal defeated Croatia after extra time in the last 16 he passed me at the Grotto [he politely greeted me with a “well”] on his way to Flynn’s after he had been at the graveyard mass. Place was very quiet but he was there with about 10 of his friends. Bought everyone there a drink. Friend of mine was mad to get a picture so went up and said ‘well done on the Euros, ye did great, was over for the Sweden and Italy games’. Naturally, his friends piped up “ah yeah Jos, that’s the game you were dropped for wasn’t it? What was that?” Before standing in for the picture, he laughed it off like any friend getting a slagging, despite the barb coming from a lad who probably couldn’t run box to box anymore.)
Earlier this year, Jos or Sheasy as he is affectionately known by friends and teammates put in a man-of-the-match performance on the BBC’s A Question of Sport. During one round, his captain Phil Tufnell tried to coax the word ‘vault’ from his team-mates by asking where your money in the bank is placed.
“A piggybank”, a puzzled O’Shea responded.
Matt Dawson joked “A Premiership footballer keeps his money in a piggybank, I love the thought of that”.
“I still have my communion money”, he replied, although the joke went over the head of the British crowd.
You can take the boy from Waterford but you can’t take Waterford from the boy.
