IrishMacca
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 5 Feb 2009
- Messages
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Just because the derby is coming up on us as quick as anything..This below is an article writen about a hurling game a few years ago and when a team totally written off, hated in most parts for many different reasons, went on and beat one of the favs for the title..I was told ye might appreciate this..
Just imagine reading this after the final whistle on the weekend.
LOCKERROOMWinger and talisman Craig Bellamy dismissed . . . United's Wayne Rooney running amok . . . and yet the men in blue triumphed. They did it for themselves and all they had stood for, all they had meant to one another. Teams, if they are lucky, have defining days like this one
MENTORS. DRESSINGROOMS. Tradition. Newspapers. Vince Lombardi. Liars all. They tell you you have to care because, well because you have to. Because you wear this colour jersey, because this is your chance, because this is BIG, because everyone else cares.
YOU HAVE TO CARE. YOU GOTTA. Capisce?
The footballers of City will grow old. Not football old, as some of them are already, but old. They will have troubles that will make them forget they were ever footballers. money worries, sick children, bereavements, illnesses, all those trespasses of the real world that turn the boys of summer into the men of winter. They will grow old and separate from each other.
They won't meet a few times a week on a field somewhere and shed the best of themselves for a jersey, a place, a sport, whatever it is that drives them. When they remember though, when sentiment grips them and they beg to dandle grandchildren on their laps and fend off melancholy by telling them something wondrous they will tell them about the derby game in 2010.
Sport at its most moving and most visceral doesn't have to involve cups or medals or bragging rights. It has to do with a group coming together and sharing experiences until such time as those shared experiences turn them into something else.
....(it goes on to discuss the match.. I don't have the energy to make it all up, but take it City win)
City found some ember in their hearts in the almost cold fireplace of their souls and got it roaring. They did it for themselves and all they had stood for, all they had meant to one another. Teams, if they are lucky. have great and defining days like that.
Afterwards in the dressingrooms tears flowed freely. Shay Given leapt around the tunnel like a cartoon figure. Older men with decades done with City teams said it was the day, the greatest day of all.
The City was born again.
Maybe Saturday night will turn out to be the one great deed of the team born that day but Mancini knew of what he spoke when he placed the win as among the greatest he had ever been involved in, one of the sweetest ever. Those who were there were blessed. Those who stayed away will curse forever their muddled priorities. It was a privilege to see great men, be a great team again and to rage, rage and rage once more against the dying of the light.
The derby's around the corner and as always the divide, the hate, the rivalry is still there and while we mightn't have been on their radar for the last few years, we're on it now. People go on about it just being a game, but the times were in now, it's more than a game, and if ye're economy is anything like ours, something is needed badly to rip us out of the circle of gloom. City finishing 4th would do that if I'm not wrong.
But I was told by an old friend, a lad from ye're house, that ye'd appreciate this, I don't know whether it'll give ye the goosebumps it gave me when I read it at the time, but sure..we'll see.
I just changed a few words and picked a few paragraphs that I thought ye might appreciate.
If City means anything like hurling means to me then it should hit the right note.
Just imagine reading this after the final whistle on the weekend.
LOCKERROOMWinger and talisman Craig Bellamy dismissed . . . United's Wayne Rooney running amok . . . and yet the men in blue triumphed. They did it for themselves and all they had stood for, all they had meant to one another. Teams, if they are lucky, have defining days like this one
MENTORS. DRESSINGROOMS. Tradition. Newspapers. Vince Lombardi. Liars all. They tell you you have to care because, well because you have to. Because you wear this colour jersey, because this is your chance, because this is BIG, because everyone else cares.
YOU HAVE TO CARE. YOU GOTTA. Capisce?
The footballers of City will grow old. Not football old, as some of them are already, but old. They will have troubles that will make them forget they were ever footballers. money worries, sick children, bereavements, illnesses, all those trespasses of the real world that turn the boys of summer into the men of winter. They will grow old and separate from each other.
They won't meet a few times a week on a field somewhere and shed the best of themselves for a jersey, a place, a sport, whatever it is that drives them. When they remember though, when sentiment grips them and they beg to dandle grandchildren on their laps and fend off melancholy by telling them something wondrous they will tell them about the derby game in 2010.
Sport at its most moving and most visceral doesn't have to involve cups or medals or bragging rights. It has to do with a group coming together and sharing experiences until such time as those shared experiences turn them into something else.
....(it goes on to discuss the match.. I don't have the energy to make it all up, but take it City win)
City found some ember in their hearts in the almost cold fireplace of their souls and got it roaring. They did it for themselves and all they had stood for, all they had meant to one another. Teams, if they are lucky. have great and defining days like that.
Afterwards in the dressingrooms tears flowed freely. Shay Given leapt around the tunnel like a cartoon figure. Older men with decades done with City teams said it was the day, the greatest day of all.
The City was born again.
Maybe Saturday night will turn out to be the one great deed of the team born that day but Mancini knew of what he spoke when he placed the win as among the greatest he had ever been involved in, one of the sweetest ever. Those who were there were blessed. Those who stayed away will curse forever their muddled priorities. It was a privilege to see great men, be a great team again and to rage, rage and rage once more against the dying of the light.
The derby's around the corner and as always the divide, the hate, the rivalry is still there and while we mightn't have been on their radar for the last few years, we're on it now. People go on about it just being a game, but the times were in now, it's more than a game, and if ye're economy is anything like ours, something is needed badly to rip us out of the circle of gloom. City finishing 4th would do that if I'm not wrong.
But I was told by an old friend, a lad from ye're house, that ye'd appreciate this, I don't know whether it'll give ye the goosebumps it gave me when I read it at the time, but sure..we'll see.
I just changed a few words and picked a few paragraphs that I thought ye might appreciate.
If City means anything like hurling means to me then it should hit the right note.