Trophies, Langers and Sickees

21st Sep 2004

Trophies, Langers and Sickees!
Jack Lyons

All-Ireland's bring the best out of Nodger!

It's time for that old chestnut again. Corkmen, Derrymen, Claremen, Kerrymen - we all suffer from it. THE SICKEE! Post dramatic stress how are ye!

This mother is the post-All Ireland victory blockage from turning up in the morning for a day's work. He's bollixed from the excesses of drink and for some strange reason the hangover of hangovers has suddenly turned into the Monday morning flu.

The poor old boss is at the other end of the phone closing his eyes to the staggered speech and the incredulity of it all. The boss is after watching the match at home on tv and later had a few drinks on South Mall where a lot of equally work-conscious supermarket bosses drink. But at some stage of the evening he realised he had work the next morning and All Ireland celebrations would have to be curtailed.

Meanwhile after the match here we are in a well known Dublin watering hole and there he is bhoy.. the wan and only Nodger - everyone knows some fella called Nodger. He's resplendent in his o2 strip, slightly unbalanced and bursting his vocal chords with De Banks. His father sang it the night Nodger was born, his grandfather sang it during the Thunder and Lightning final, and his auntie Maisie sang it in Lourdes.

Half bollixed and walking very unsteadily towards Heuston station mingling with the red sea of jerseys all going in the same direction Nodger stumbles into a compartment and immediately falls over a card table of serious don players from Blackpool. Managing to hold back the vomit he lurches down the compartment to say hello to a fella from the 'Hane who will be covering him stocking the shelves tomorrow morning. The big handshake, the secret finger grip that only the likes of Eminem and Dr Dre would use in a rap studio and many 'Dowcha bhoy's are exchanged.

Is there anything more welcoming than that sign that tells you you're home, like? The red crucifix over the Church of the Ascencion, like. Below that the sad visual of the burnt out Sunbeam. On the left Delaney Park where you're auntie Maisie sold candy apples and then the inevitable long tunnel. As the train pulls in Nodger ignores the warning signs everywhere and hops out of the carriage propelling him across the platform at alarming speed, Along with seven hundred red-shirted singing Corkmen he goes in search of a cab. Seven hundred Corkmen looking for a taxi is a mathematical equasion that neither Max Planck or Einstein could equate - but Coirkmen can do the impossible. We ARE the impossible!

It takes Nodger twenty five minutes to get down Patrick street where he's heddin' off clubbin'; after sixteen verses of The Langer with a group of shams from Donnybrook and a Romanian flower seller, he's on his way. Bouncers come and go but many have to have the patience of Jobe when faced with someone like Nodger. After mentally breaking the bouncer down with wild fictitious claims to know every member of the Cork team what do you do with Nodger? You let him in.

In the morning, with his system expelling the excesses of back bones and bodice and a brewery of drink comes the phone call.THE SICKEE is alive and well. He has an unexplainable flu that by some miracle will be cured by tomorrow. Naturally, he has forgotten of course that he told half the job he got a ticket for the match. Up the rebels!