Cat Power

Heartiest congrats to Kilkenny and Donegal, richly deserved All-Ireland champions both. You may recall that last September, Foul Play — gobsmacked to see the wild Cats listed as second-favourites for the 2012 crown, behind Tipp in all markets at a frankly insulting 7/4 – advised you all to hop on board. Tragically, I didn’t get around to it myself, and have had cause to repent at leisure. Sure enough, there they stand on top of the pile for the ninth time in 13 seasons, though in truth those who took the plunge would certainly have missed a few heartbeats during the drawn Final and the Leinster decider.

By comparison with those two breathless days’ viewing, the third instalment of Kilkenny-Galway was a strangely unsatisfying spectacle. After a furious 20-minute opening spell, with three goals flying in in the space of as many minutes, you had the sense we were in for an absolute rip-snorter; a notion steadily and ruthlessly exterminated over the course of the next hour as the feral Cats fired over points thick and fast from all angles. The death knell didn’t entirely sound for Galway until Cyril Donnellan’s dismissal with 20 minutes left, after which the show fell apart. An 11-point margin at the final whistle was undeniably harsh on Galway, but perfectly illustrated the merciless quality that makes the champions such a monumentally inspiring force and an absolute pain in the rear for every other hurling county. Back them again next year, and the year after that, and so forth.
The football final wasn’t exactly a masterpiece either, especially when set against the preposterous magnificence of last year’s. Not that anyone in Donegal will give a toss, and it must be conceded that the manner of their achievement was not quite as grim as many had feared, with predictions of an 0-3 to 0-2 final scoreline circulating before it all kicked off. Mayo should know by this point never to reach All-Ireland finals if they can humanly avoid it: it does them no good at all. Having haemorrhaged 2-1 in the first ten minutes, they can at least cling on to the fact that they proceeded to play impressive football for the rest of the match when it would have been perfectly understandable to just lie down and die; but the summit looks as far away as ever.
Normal sporting life has increasingly begun to play second fiddle over the last few weeks to the return of the NFL, which is keeping me up until 5am three nights a week against my better judgment. I am well aware that not too many people on this side of the pond give a flying fuck about it, so for the time being I will spare you all from discourse about the minutiae of the season’s ebb and flow thus far, and shift focus instead to the joys of the English Premier League, which has yet to fully explode into life, with both Mancunian superpowers looking significantly short of their best, while Chelsea – reigning European champions, lest we forget – look in healthier shape than at any time in the last two years. Spurs served notice of their title aspirations with a mightily impressive raid on Old Trafford, prompting the ever-sportsmanlike Sir Alex Ferguson to fulminate furiously about referee Chris Foy’s temerity in adding only four minutes of stoppage time (I’m not making this up).
The depth of talent in Spurs’ ranks is considerable, and if you had to identify a fourth-placed finisher at this stage, themselves or even Everton might well be the ones to watch, with Arsenal looking every bit as flaky and insubstantial as they have done for years. Liverpool finally registered a League win, but it took them until September 29 to do so and it was at Norwich, which would suggest the Anfield title drought is set to continue for at least a little while longer. Already, Brendan Rodgers has them playing extremely watchable football, and there can be no doubts at all that he has an ego more than big enough for the job, as evidenced by his tendency to observe out loud after every match that ‘tactically we were very good’ (translation: ‘I am a genius’). Whether he (or, for that matter, any manager) has it within his power to redress the structural shortcomings which have rendered Liverpool a club of no serious relevance to the title race has to be in doubt.
Within the last few minutes, news has reached my ears of Roy Keane’s imminent appointment as manager of a Turkish club (Kasimpasa) who I confess I’ve never heard of in my life. A nouveau-riche outfit with no history at all worth speaking of but seriously deep-pocketed investors, they are apparently one point off the lead with six games played, having been promoted only last year, a feat which still wasn’t enough to save their previous manager from the axe. Roy follows in the footsteps of another undeniably great footballer with an equally short fuse, a notoriously belligerent streak and a somewhat mixed managerial record: the venerable Graeme Souness, still revered by Galatasaray fans after his memorable flag-planting antics almost caused Istanbul to erupt into open civil warfare way back in ‘96.
I can’t imagine I will ever be able to forgive Roy for his actions ten years ago, but it’s certainly good to have him back, his press-conferences at Sunderland and Ipswich having often provided comic gold. You can find fault with the man on any number of counts, but you could never, ever accuse him of being bland, and the football universe is a much livelier place when he’s in it. All we need now is for Mick McCarthy, currently enjoying a rest from the rigours of management, to take the Fenerbahce job. Certainly, the Turkish league’s profile in the Irish media is about to hit unprecedented heights, and we can probably expect legions of ‘People’s Republic’ Corkonian loyalists to suddenly become rabid Kasimpasa fans on a more or less instinctive basis, mirroring the astonishing ‘Sund-ireland’ phenomenon of six years ago whereby countless Irish fans actually adopted a mid-ranking cross-channel football team as their own overnight in mid-adulthood with no apparent sense of embarrassment, in many cases announcing that they were now fans of ‘Man U and Sunderland’, which begged the question of where exactly their loyalties were supposed to lie when the pair came up against one another.
Anything could happen here, but it won’t be dull. With Roy around, things never are.