Sports Bitch

Words fail us here at SB Towers over this one – this is the front page of The Sun from December 4 – check out the headline on the copy of the paper Terry is holding. You couldn’t make this shit up!!

John Terry’s exploits off the pitch have been well documented. While conservative papers remain torn between condemning the precarious holder of the English captaincy, a real ordeal is going on behind the scenes.

Whether a paper has backed or condemned Terry, one thing remains constant; the pun.

In an unprecedented effort to come up with the greatest pun, journalists are literally killing their peers and even close friends. The Daily Mail broke perhaps the most heart wrenching story of betrayal.

Will John Terry lose his England shirt?

A young but rising Times correspondent came up with the greatest pun yet. He then passed it on to his older, higher ranking editor, to hopefully garner praise and attention.

In a thoroughly underhanded move, the editor stole the headline, claiming it as his own. When the writer found out he was swiftly transferred to the Guardian (although there was no obvious cover for the position he was vacating).

After the Daily Mail broke the story, other journalists were quick to speak out. Some staunchly defended the young writer, berating the older editor as exploitive and selfish.

Sports Editor for the The Howling Fan remarked: “If he is supposed to be a role model for other journalists then god help us. What’s next? Journalists taking drugs and fabricating sources?”

Others, however, stated that what goes on inside the news factory is nobody’s business but their own. The pun quest has quietened down, but seven are dead and four remain missing.

So it appears that the big freeze has ended. While this means that we in the culchie world are no longer snowed in fantasising about the movie Alive, it also means that underage teams are about to commence a level of training that would rival the intensity of Kilkenny senior hurling training sessions.

However, this temporary loss of sanity by hurling and football trainers the length and breadth of the country does have its upsides. For example, young lads are kept off village corners, where they might indulge in an illicit game or two of pitch-and-toss or a quick pull of a jazz Woodbine, and organised in groups to have the shit run out of them.

"That's my pitchfork. It'll be getting overly familiar with your hole if you're not careful, sunshine."

Another fantastic upside to the re-commencing of training is the emergence of the GAA parent from a winter of mutterings of discontent at having to watch soccer. The GAA parent takes many forms but most will be recognised by their constant screaming and berating of their own child that causes their eyes to appear as if they are on stalks and the wearing of an anorak of some kind.

The most fascinating behaviour pattern of the GAA parent is that utter disbelief that their child may just simply not be interested in the sport they are taking part in. Now, one may think that this is simply an embittered hack carrying out an exorcism of childhood demons, however, my long history of quitting all sports at the drop of a hat should put paid to this theory.

Where the GAA parent really comes into his/her own is upon involvement in the coaching of an underage team. All fans of hurling and football throughout the country get great amusement out of these clearly clueless people trying to manage a team of young people who are only there in the first place because of their GAA parents. Ya have to love January.

FIFA decided earlier this week not to punish Thierry Henry for his cheating in Paris in November. Fortunately, as I sunk into a deeper spiral of frustation and self-pity, America’s greatest living writer Cormac McCarthy texted on a few bits and pieces, in an effort to make sense of this dystopian, achromatic football world.

Nice one, Cormac! LOLZ xxxx

“People were always getting ready for tomorrow.
I didnt believe in that.
Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.
It didnt even know they were there.”
— The Road

Essentially, what the Pulitzer Prize winner is saying here was actually best paraphrased by one Roy M Keane: Fail to prepare; prepare to fail.

"Where the fuck is that Robert Frost cunt when we need him, eh?"

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”
— The Crossing

This one is clear: we need goal-line technology and/or a video referee.

“Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you’re happy again, then you’ll have given up. Do you understand? And you can’t give up, I won’t let you.”
— The Road

A note of optimism. Trap has a good squad with some lovely young players coming through – James McCarthy, Seamus Coleman et al. The skies grow greyer by the day. But come July, some sunshine may crease the sky again and Euro 2012 will tilt into the horizon.

“If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
— The Road

Translation: why didn’t the Duffer just stick away that one-on-one with Lloris? Henry could’ve thrown the ball into the net afterwards and we wouldn’t have cared.

“The rain falls upon the just
And also on the unjust fellas
But mostly it falls upon the just
Cause the unjust have the just’s umbrellas”
— The Stonemason

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini protect the bigger nations, according to McCarthy (no relation to Mick, incidentally). The seeding system is endemic of a flawed process. We have no umbrella and John Delaney, we now know, needs an umbrella.

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
— No Country for Old Men

This book was written during the Staunton era and so the sentiment is understandable: we could’ve been mullered in South Africa.

This column originally appeared on Adrian Russell’s superb blog, The Deadline, and is re-published here with the author’s permission.

As the token female Sports Bitch I’ve decided to help out my all my bitches out there with a new ‘How to…’ guide! This week (I say week as if this will be weekly, it’ll be whenever I’m holed really!) I’ll be giving tips about scoring the greatest sports stars of all time. First up: the local GAA player, that God among men! Follow a few easy steps and you’ll soon be mauling the face off the corner forward.

Tip 1: As Harry Enfield said: women, know your limits. I’m sorry, but regardless how he looks (usually as inbred as sin) you’re not going to score the midfielder unless you’re Grainne Seoige, but even if you look like Síle Seoige you can score the corner back. Midfielders, centre backs and corner forwards (and in some cultures the goalie) are the most sought after of shifts, so focus your attention elsewhere (the subs bench is a great place to start, if you can bear the shame) and you’ll soon be a WAG! But the exception to the rule, as always, regardless of how you look – no knickers mean a definite fingering from the half forward.

Watch your mouth and be the scoring queen down the local Gahh, says Langerford Bitch

Tip 2: Be lady-like at all times. Go to their matches, but don’t make a fool of yourself; know when to shout at the ref that he’s a dirty cunt, and when to yell at the opposing trainer that his daughter gives shite head.

Tip 3: On nights out, if you’re not wasted, the night is! The drunker you are, the more likely you are one of the lads will score you – remember, there’s no shame in getting picked up during the Ten To Two Rush.

Tip 4: Be flexible. You basically have to act like his mother, his psychiatrist and sex object in one – you’ll have to foot the turf so he won’t miss any trainings, wash and stuff his boots for him, listen to how that dirty bastard selector won’t play him because “that cunt O’Connor’s scoring his daughter and sure she’s fuckin in love with him, and sure the fucker can’t play for shite”, all while lying back and acting like a man’s never pleasured you so thoroughly before.

And the Golden Rule? Holy Christ, remember his mother’s a fucking saint and NEVER bad mouth her. She pisses parafin oil and spent 78 hours in labour with him. You have been warned.