Thankfully I know I am not alone in this one; just ask any second level teacher who teaches lads.
Every single night there is a champion’s league game on this year, and you can include last Tuesday and Wednesday night in this, you may forget about the vast majority of young males in this country doing much, if any, homework at all.
Despite the fact that they are only five weeks from the start of their Leaving and Junior Cert exams the morning after a champions league game, you get the same sheepish and daft excuses for zero homework from the same cohort of sport nuts who think that the recession is a figment of George Lee’s imagination. The conversation usually runs along these lines; Teacher: “Where is last night’s home-work/revision?” Adolescent male student replies dolefully; “I’ve nothing done Sir. I was watching the game - (weren’t you? ) - and then I had to watch the analysis by Johnny and Dumphs and Ronnie. Then I fell asleep on the couch so I went straight to bed when Mammy woke me for my hot chocolate and Liga. Sorry Sir. It won’t happen again.” Until next week.
These young men ,and they are allowed to do so by their whimpering parents, lie into the couch two evenings a week from 7.30ish until about 10.30pm and do nothing but kneel at the altar of the Champions League. Quality family time it is called. It does not occur to them to skip the first hour or so and do a bit of study or revision and just catch the highlights. Nope.
No Sireeee, are you mad? They must ingest the full 90 minutes of the game and the other 90 minutes of chat from the well paid pundits in case they might miss some vital piece of trivia or nugget of useless information. Even when the game is a scoreless draw such as Barcelona and Chelsea last Tuesday evening, these dimwits who are allowed to vote next year still feel that they have to hang on to every word uttered by “Okey-Dokey” and his merry men. When you mention the need to get a blast of points in order to get to college and maybe collect a good degree that might lead them to some reasonable employment, and a good quality of life in the future, they just try to nutmeg you with talk of the likes of Magic Messi or Ronnie Ronaldo.
The fact that over an academic year from September to May a male student might spend around 200 hours, or the equivalent to seven full school weeks, in front of the TV watching soccer does not faze them in the least. “Relax Sir. Don’t sweat the small stuff;” is their hackneyed answer. While mammy and daddy at home will scratch their heads in August and wonder why little Johnny or Mikey or Colm has to repeat next year, whereas Mary down the road or even their own smart Sally or ambitious Annie who did not sacrifice hours/days/weeks of their life to the beautiful game on the box in the corner got 450/500 points and is off doing engineering at college. All credit to her.
Well at least the lads have the satisfaction of knowing that the three English teams and one Spanish team left in the competition know that the male youth of Ireland did their bit for the cause.
And for that, they can feel proud!
Galway football board hosts a gala night for All-Ireland winners
The Galway football board is hosting a massive celebration of past successes and a reunion of many former players tomorrow night in the Clayton Hotel. More than 400 people will attend the event which is being held to honour and acknowledge all All-Ireland winning players or their representatives in that county since the county’s first senior football success back in 1925 when Galway beat Cavan in front of a crowd of just 17,800, right up to the 2001 success over Meath when 70,482 looked on in Croke Park.
Also in attendance will be all the captains of minor, junior, and u-21 all-Ireland winning teams along with the 1981 national football league winning team and all All-Stars who won statuettes in addition to those who won All-Stars on the same year as they collected Celtic crosses. Treasurer of the Galway football board Milo Costello said the evening was an occasion to “honour and acknowledge those men and their families who wore the county jersey with distinction over the past 90 years.”
There will be a host of former stars in attendance and when one considers some of the talent from the 1956 team who are still alive, the legendary three-in-a-row team, men who won all-stars in the 1970s and 1980s like Liam O’Neill, Liam Sammon, Tommie Joe Gilmore, Johnny Hughes, Seamus McHugh, Barry Brennan, and Val Daly — right up to the players who won both All-Stars and major medals in 1998 and 2001 like Kevin Walsh, Michael Donnellan, Padraic Joyce, Sean Óg De Paor, Derek Savage, and company and you begin to appreciate some of the talented players who will be in attendance. Hopefully these players will be as nimble on the dance floor as they were on the field of play, and if so there will be some more quality action to be viewed on YouTube from early next week.
