I managed to miss that live, doing my Leaving cert. Saw the first half hour on my lunch break, had to walk back to school then, good times
Jesus, that is sad. Just goes to show no matter who you are or what you have, mental health and addiction can affect anyone. He was living the dream of so many lads. Kind of hard not to be frustrated with the guy, say he threw it away, he fcuked it up. But what it should really show is just how strong addiction can take hold, no matter who you are, and how destructive it is.
He played for the guts of a season with Drogheda about 6 years ago. He was quite overweight and clearly unfit. He was also the best player on the park for most games. Terrific footballer and a pleasure to watch. Went on to pats for a while after but I expect he was distracted elsewhere. At 32, if he's clean & fit, he would be the best player in the LoI by a country mile.
I know it's an easy way to think about these things but from his own point of view I'd say breaking that cycle of constantly berating yourself for what could have been must be one of the hardest things to do. Replaying your whole career as if you didn't drink and seeing yourself scoring goals and maybe winning trophies and then beating yourself up for missing out on all of that. You have to forget about it, nothing you do now can change it and making peace with what happened must be so hard particularly for people who have a genuine talent as he appears to have. Be great for him now if he could get settled into the LOI and maybe live out a few years playing good football with a better outlook on life.
I saw Dwight Yorke playing over in Sydney years ago and he was one of these old boys that was clearly too good for everyone else, he used to be over leaning against the advertising hoardings and stuff during the games. He was playing in the middle of the park at the time too so hardly a position where you can just go wandering. All of that being said it was unreal seeing him on the ball against these lads, even as a striker playing in the middle he was different class to the rest when he was actually interested in playing. Fans loved him too, was kind of surreal.
not sure if I mentioned on here before but I knew a lad who was a seriously talented footballer and was meant to go away to man u on trials but it fell through cos they found out he was dabbling in class A's. he stopped playing completely for a long time but eventually played local junior football with his local team that a lot of his mate's played for. it haunted him and he was a very heavy gargler for years, poor fucker is dead now. I was actually at that Argentina game in 2010 but can't say I've any memory of that lad treacy.
if bohs manage to get through to the play off for the EC it'd be great if they could put that amount of tickets on sale for it.
Clear red for Ronaldo. Can't believe more that wasn't made of it. We all know what would've happened if it was Connolly throwing the punch at one of their players.