Witness The Great

10th Sep 2013

A radio vox-pop with children from both counties before the match on Sunday was telling. The Clare kids were full of confidence that their Banner heroes would be walking up the steps of the Hogan Stand at 5pm. The Cork smallies however, couldn’t be drawn on the issue. They’d like Cork to win of course but couldn’t pick a winner. Time showed they had the better instinct. 

On reflection the kids' reticence looked like it might have mirrored the attitude of both sets of players. Clare were dogged, sharp and full of beans. Cork looked nervy, tentative and even casual at times. Even as this column sought opinions from those in the Cork enclave of the Gresham Hotel before the final walk to Croker, fans were unusually reluctant to be drawn on who they thought would win.

Clare fans, already convinced it was their day, were energised every time their players added to the margin. Time and time again their wonderful half back line mopped up the Cork puck outs yet at half time the feeling among those of us in red was that even if a few of those high balls stuck to Pa Cronin or Seamus Harnedy’s hands then the Rebels could do serious damage. And, astonishingly, it came to pass.

The Rebel raucous that followed the first goal by Conor Lehane showed the players that all they needed was to light a spark and the Cork crowd would explode. Up until that point the air around the tinder box was too damp.

Will we ever forget the loud wave of ecstasy that followed Pat Horgan’s final point? It was delightfully deafening. Clare fans put their heads in their hands. Christy Ring’s famous dressing-room words raced through our minds: ‘we don’t lose to this crowd’.

How Horgan managed to squeeze in the shot, not to mind making it deadly accurate was wrapped up in the chaotic maelstrom of sudden realisation that despite being out gunned for sixty minutes it looked like we were actually  going to nick it at the death.

Normally quiet country men of even council and furrowed brows leapt to their feet – wide eyed in disbelief – their arms involuntarily shooting into the air. The pre-match sweat that had dried into their palms in parallel with Cork’s failure to win possession now a flowing river.

Other fans stood like rabbits caught in a headlight – their hands wrapped around the top of their heads as the umpire waving the good news and, low and behold, the scoreboard confirming the unfathomable: Cork by one and more than 70 minutes on the clock.

Other Cork fans bounced up and down like crazed monkeys roaring goat-like noises and canine howls of joy that would be of interest to the Department of Zoology in UCC.

This is what it must be like at the moment lotto winners see their sixth number come up on the screen.  The unexpected slap in the face of good fortune that pumps adrenaline and dopamine into a body that is about to lose control of itself.  

Isn’t it funny, in those rare but terrifyingly brilliant slow-motion moments, the way we need to look at each other for reassurance that the seemingly impossible has just been proved possible - as if to check that we haven’t been transported to a dreamy self-made parallel universe?

It seems to take forever for the mind to gather all the evidence: the small white flag waving beside the goal; the bobbing sea of red behind the posts; the Rebel roar tingling your neck hairs; the score on the giant screen behind the Hill; someone’s Parish priest in front of you dancing like its 1999. Mother of God and Holy Joseph and all the saints above! I can’t believe we’re winning!

The poets and lyricists of Clare had been inking their pens of praise when Captain Cronin’s goal put the printers on pause. Had Pat Horgan’s final peach been the clincher for Cork then the instruments of the Banner’s bards would have been swapped for the hammer and chisel of a Leeside statue maker.

Clare’s exquisite equalising point might have been a party pooper but every rational Rebel knew Fitzy’s boys deserved it. They, like our own players, are exemplary exponents of the best game in the world and we, the fans, are just delighted to exist in the same space-time continuum as them.