To the victors from the spoiled

Jayzus boys,

You have us all destroyed and I’m asking – no, begging – you to please stop winning All Irelands. Obviously winning All Irelands is great and I don’t really want you to stop, but you’re killing me.

As I type, it’s three days since you hurled Dunloy out the gates of Croke Park to become the first team on the planet to win four Tommy Moore Cups and secure the title of Greatest Club Hurling Team Of All Time. The problem is that you’ve won them all during my adult life and since 1995 I’ve been tired, hungover, hoarse, in ribbons. And, don’t tell anyone this, but yesterday while fogbound and disheveled and waiting for a flight back to London in Dublin airport, I fleetingly entertained the notion that it might not be such a bad thing to hail from somewhere that doesn’t win County Finals, Leinster titles and All Irelands with such alarming frequency. Rathcabbin, perhaps. Or Venezuela.

I know many of you and I know you love your hurling. I love your hurling too, but it’s the side effects that are pissing me off: constant nausea, a throbbing skull, aches and pains and the endless hanging around in airport terminals.

Then there’s the lies. Oh God, the lies. I have told more lies to people I work for or care about as a result of your heroic endeavours than I care to remember. For example, only last Tuesday I lurched into my house at 7pm after an afternoon of carousing, and muttered something to my parents about only having “four glashes of Ballygowan and one pint of Guinnesh” before lurching straight back out to the pub again. “I’ll be back at half-pasht ten,” I slurred. “I have to be up to go to Dublin at 7am.” Oh, how they laughed at the horrific condition of their only son when he emerged from his pit the following morning after four hours’ sleep, still drunk after 10 hours of liquoring on a Tuesday in Birr. A fucking Tuesday, lads!

“How are you feeling? Do you want a fry?” the mother asked, shooting the auld fella a knowing look across the breakfast table. “I’m fine, but I’m not that hungry,” I replied, resisting the urge to bolt for the bathroom to feel the soothing caress of toilet porcelain on my cheek. (Obviously I wasn’t actually hungry, so that bit wasn’t a lie.)

On the day of the match itself, a car-load of adherents and I stopped off for a pint in Ballinagar on the way home. You know the place – that one-horse village just the far side of Tullamore in North Offaly. Just the one, we said. As soon as we walked in the door the locals spotted our Birr colours and nearly lifted the roof off the pub with a roar. Once they’d finished applauding us we explained that we hadn’t actually played that day; we were only supporters. They knew and they didn’t care. They were happy to see anyone with a Birr connection had deigned to pay them a visit and forced us to regale them with blow-by-blow accounts of the match. “Gary Cahill and Deccy Pilkington had the games of their lives,” we said. “Liam Power broke two hurls, one of them into three pieces. He wore timber.”

After a quick pint and a rendition of ‘The Offaly Rover’, we attempted to leave. Four of us made it, and as myself, Boydo, Dicey and Enner sat into the car outside wondering why the hell Loughers hadn’t emerged with us, a local character known to us only as The Blouse emerged from the pub, rapped on the window and said: “Lads, you may come back in for another one. We’re holding your friend prisoner.”

We walked back in laughing and the friendly locals lifted the roof off again. “Jayzus, we’ll be talking about this for 10 years,” mused one bar-stool philosopher, prompting us to surmise that not much goes on in Ballinagar. Put it this way - nobody in Café En Seine would have given a shite, or even noticed if you, the team itself, had ambled in for a post-match pint. Perhaps you could all move to Ballinagar and hurl for them for a while? Local sources say their team could do with an injection of fresh talent. God knows, your own townsfolk could certainly do with the rest.

In McDonalds in Tullamore I made the fatal mistake of being last into the car after dilly-dallying over my McChicken Sandwich and then going to the gents. The car was waiting with the engine running when I emerged, and when I sat into it I was informed that “from now on you’re The Blouse. It’s a great nickname and we need a Blouse.” Ever since it’s been ‘Blouse this’ and ‘Blouse that’. Yesterday I got four text messages enquiring after the welfare of ‘The Blouse’.

So that’s it now lads: tired, hungover, hoarse and in ribbons since 1995, and now while I’m being called The Blouse, you’re talking about going all-out next year for three-in-a-row. And while your hunger, dedication and commitment is to be lauded, I am imploring you to quit while you’re ahead. Hurlers of Birr, you have us all destroyed and I’m asking – no, begging – you to please stop winning All Irelands.

Of course alternatively, I suppose I could always try celebrating them less, but it’s hard, you know. After all, it’s not every day you become the greatest exponents of one of the greatest sports in the world. Sometimes you just have to throw too much beer at it.

Yours sincerely,

Barry Glendenning.