The Club by Christy O'Connor

Author:Christy O'Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141965215
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

10. Pain

Two nights after losing to Clarecastle, we went back training. It was a beautiful summer’s evening and the numbers were really good. So good that we were able to play an internal training match for the first time all season.

Davy Hoey was centre-back on my team and he was trying to mark his man by remote control – you just knew by his body language that he wasn’t interested and that it was the last place he wanted to be. At one stage, Patsy came down behind the goal with a water bottle and the look of a man with an itch to scratch.

‘Look at Hoey,’ he said to me. ‘He’s just standing up. What the hell is wrong with him?’

I tried to reason with Patsy. ‘You have to cut him some slack. Jeez, that man has been through some turmoil this season. You don’t know where his head is at.’

Patsy was having none of it. ‘No, I don’t agree with you. I know he’s been through hell, but he should be going through a wall this year for Ger’s sake. He should be doing everything in his power this year for Ger.’

‘In fairness, Patsy, I don’t think it’s that simple. It doesn’t work like that.’

Davy and Patsy are close friends and the only reason Davy came back this season was because of Patsy. Nobody else would have got him back hurling, especially after Ger passed away. At the beginning of the year, Patsy showed brilliant man-management skills with Davy. He’d regularly meet him for mid-morning coffee in the Brewery Bar or in McDonald’s. Nothing heavy, just light-hearted banter.

Lately, though, Patsy has lost patience with him. The breaking point probably came on the weekend we played Inagh-Kilnamona in a crucial Clare Cup league game last month. Davy, who’s a top golfer, was playing an inter-club game in the Jim Bruen competition for Ennis Golf Club – where he works as a green-keeper – and Patsy flipped when he announced his unavailability.

Davy was one of our best players against Sixmilebridge in last month’s championship and he’s a key figure for this team, especially at centre-back position. He has always been one of our best players: Man of the Match in the 1999 All-Ireland club final, Munster club player of the year the following season. He has massive experience as well – he was Clare’s best player in the 2002 All-Ireland final against Kilkenny.

It’s unreasonable to still expect that same level of consistency from him because he’s 33 now and, unlike most of us in the club, Davy hasn’t always prioritized hurling ahead of other activities. He’s run into trouble with management in the past through his annual trek to the Oxygen music festival in July, but he was always a free spirit, somebody more drawn to surfing in Lahinch than slogging his guts out on a hurling field during the summer. Especially on a beautiful evening like this. He likes his few pints and his cigarettes, which doesn’t exactly help to ease the pain on the training ground.

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