Gooch Retires

Started by Gold, April 04, 2017, 08:48:07 AM

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Jinxy

Quote from: Il Bomber Destro on April 04, 2017, 06:03:53 PM
Good player but overrated. Brolly is right in a lot he says about him, he never really did it when the chips were down.

If he was a Tyrone man...
If you were any use you'd be playing.

Hardy

Quote from: From the Bunker on April 04, 2017, 07:46:44 PM
Look at the finals Kerry won and lost over that period. All close games were lost!

:D :D
Wind-up of the week.

Well played Colm Cooper - one of the best I've seen.

thebuzz

Quote from: The Stallion on April 04, 2017, 06:46:41 PM
I'm not trying to suppress anyone's view. I just believe your view is wide of the mark.

Cooper was a great footballer.

If The Stallion says he was great footballer then he was definitely a great footballer. He doesn't give praise lightly.

seafoid

Quote from: BallyroanAbu on April 04, 2017, 07:51:05 PM
Brolly 1 Final
Gooch 4-34 Nine Finals Winning 4 and every major honor in GAA.
Every Great of Kerry Football lining up to say he was the one of the Greats (pretty sure they don't hand out plaudits easily)
Man is a Living Legend

We live an age where he was been double marked and given rough treatment and he still shined
Brolly played on teams that could beat Tyrone, however

Down in Kerry the inability to beat either Tyrone or now the Dubs sickens them
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

omagh_gael

Quote from: Hardy on April 04, 2017, 08:20:17 PM
Quote from: From the Bunker on April 04, 2017, 07:46:44 PM
Look at the finals Kerry won and lost over that period. All close games were lost!

:D :D
Wind-up of the week.

Well played Colm Cooper - one of the best I've seen.

Don't believe that Gooch hid in big games, however, this statement is pretty close to the truth. Outside of the 2014 final when Durkan handed the game to them Kerry haven't won a close final since the 90s.

seafoid

Irish Times from 2004

Locker Room: They used to say of the Native Americans that, critically, they failed to spot on the horizon those boats which would carry their doom because they had never seen such shapes and their eyes were accustomed to looking for other things. It was a mistake you wouldn't think you'd see made twice.  And yet. Coming down O'Connell Street yesterday, happy, blithe crowds of Mayo and Kerry people spilled merrily out from the footpaths and onto the tarmac. It was as if they'd never seen cars before in their lives I thought, as I ploughed through a couple of hundred of them, thus single-handedly easing the ticket crisis a little.  Croke Park. Late. Mayo are already out on the field with nearly half an hour left before the throw-in. Some of them are going to need reading material to kill the time.  Asking around, trying to borrow an opinion for myself. Nobody is too keen on Mayo. Flighty, is what they are. The consensus among the nabobs of hackery is that Kerry are Kerry and Mayo are Mayo. So it is and so it shall be.  Mind always wanders before the throw-in. Must be big-match nerves. Start composing little lists of likes and dislikes in case the GAA want to ask me. Like Mayo's red jerseys. Bit more flash, in keeping with their native self-confidence.  Don't like tubby tenors who "lead us" in singing the national anthem. Croke Park on All-Ireland final day is about the one place where we don't need leading in singing the thing. Adjust scope on my telescopic rifle but can't get a bead on the bugger.  Mayo have shuffled their forwards. Ingenious. Briefly Conor Mortimer establishes a bleachhead at full forward. Trevor goes to the right-half forward spot. Everyone else except Ciarán McDonald is somewhere other than the spot they were picked in.  It starts well for Mayo. A goal and a point up, scored after four minutes. Already they are in the position they best like: the final is theirs to throw away.

Two minutes later it begins to look ominous. The Gooch rises as if levitating and fields a ball on the 21. If I were related to The Gooch I'd get religion and pray hard every time he goes out on a field. And when he'd come home I'd feed him.  I was in Killarney recently, and in the outlet mall at the station there was a big car which Dr Crokes were offering in a draw. Ten euro a ticket. There was nobody around to give the €10 to, but I'm mailing it to the club with instructions that I'm not interested in the motor but I'd like to buy The Gooch a meal.  Anyway, the Gooch catches, feeds Willie Kirby for a point. If I were John Maughan I'd be shouting, "Do I not like that?" The Mayo forwards are playing in the Mayo tradition: subsisting through famine. Conor Mortimer and Ciarán McDonald provoke near hysteria every time they touch the ball, but you can close your eyes and tell Mayo are struggling. The outbreaks of hysteria are getter fewer and farther between.  I love the two lads. When did Gaelic footballers begin to get so flamboyant? I remember Noel Lynch of Meath had a pretty blinding blond Afro years ago, the sort of hairdo you'd need planning permission for in a built-up area, but Westmeath never gave him the platform with which to etch his barnet into the national psyche.

Mortimer reminds me of the story of Seán Thornton, the bleached midfielder who signed a couple of years ago from Tranmere to Sunderland. Arriving on the windswept training ground the first day with his earlobe bejewelled, his hair peroxided and his boots matching, he drew a sad shaking-of-the-head from Bobby Sax, an old coach. "You'd better be good, son, you'd better be good."  And Ciarán McDonald? What's left to say? He's struck two sublime points against the traffic in this first half and everyone in Mayo loves him. They'd swear, in fact, that they always have. I once had a long, rather bizarre and heated argument over the phone with a woman from Mayo. We were discussing the topic of Ciarán's hair, which he was then marshalling into a splendid ponytail. Being the ace wordsmith that I am, I had called him "the ponytailed Ciarán McDonald".
"Why did you call him that?" screamed the woman down the phone.  "Because he has a ponytail," I said back, devastating her with my wit. "You know what I mean," she hollered.  "No, I don't. If he had a beard I might have called him the bearded McDonald. If he had big feet I'd call him Flipper McDonald."  "What were you trying to tell people about him?"  "That he has a ponytail?" "And who has ponytails?"  "Ponies?"
"Don't be smart."
"People in advertising? Bicycle couriers? Artists? Who?" "You know who."  "Who?"  "Homosexuals. You were saying that he's a homosexual. You're a homophobe." This was news to me and, I'm sure, had it been brought to his attention, to Mr McDonald, who I'm sure isn't gay but has every right to be if he so desires.  Anyway, since then I've always been careful about the ponytail issue, and now I dither before describing his do de jour as cornrows lest I get a call accusing me of accusing Ciarán of being black, which I'm not, and which he has every right to be if he so desires.

Mind wandering badly now. Twenty-one minutes gone. Kerry have nine points on the board and the firm of Moynihan and Russell representing them on the bench. Every time I look back at the action Kerry are clipping over another point. Before half-time I'm playing a little game with myself, trying to spot the first Mayo person to get up and leave, shaking his head in conspicuous, mock sadness as if beating the traffic or getting an early pint wasn't what's on his mind.m  Before half-time - quite a way before half-time - Mayo bring David Brady on for Fergal Kelly. There's not much you can say to a man like Kelly at a time like that. Big day, everyone here and you get hauled off before you're warmed up properly.Anyway, Brady is on for 30 seconds when The Gooch leaps like a carrot-topped salmon and pulls down another high one. This time he skins the Mayo defence and puts it in the back of the net. Genius. Game over.  Early in the second half I go to unplug my laptop and accidentally unplug the TV monitor which four of us hacks are sharing. It won't come back to life. We only get monitors for big days in Croke Park and they're such a treat that what I've done is a crime for which I deserve to be flung from the upper deck of the Hogan. The lads just shrug. Nothing on worth watching anyway.  Mind rambling again. I remember being at one-sided basketball games in the US where they would have promotions to keep the crowd interested. If the Knicks, say, score 110 points everyone in the crowd gets free pizza. So in a game that's as dead as a Dana presidential bid the crowd would be apoplectic, urging the boys to pile on the scores. What would 80,000 slices of pizza cost? Kerry are on 1-19 and relaxed. Just say we all got pizza if they score 20. It would stop all those people leaving.
Mike Frank scores the last point for Kerry. An emphatic punctuation mark at the close of business. Strikes me that I'm not old, but I've been here to watch Kerry in 15 finals since 1972, seen them win 11 of them. Any wonder that, when it comes to these September pageants, Kerry are always Kerry and the rest of Ireland are always the supporting cast.


That was before 2005
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

Orior

#51
Always enjoyed watching the Gooch. Enjoy your retirement.

Did I hear the news right this evening? One of his fans is Andy Murray's mum Judy.
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

ashman

Quote from: seafoid on April 04, 2017, 08:54:44 PM
Quote from: BallyroanAbu on April 04, 2017, 07:51:05 PM
Brolly 1 Final
Gooch 4-34 Nine Finals Winning 4 and every major honor in GAA.
Every Great of Kerry Football lining up to say he was the one of the Greats (pretty sure they don't hand out plaudits easily)
Man is a Living Legend

We live an age where he was been double marked and given rough treatment and he still shined
Brolly played on teams that could beat Tyrone, however

Down in Kerry the inability to beat either Tyrone or now the Dubs sickens them

Of course it does .  No one likes to lose all Ireland finals or semis .  Are you saying losing should please them ??

lenny

Quote from: Ball Hopper on April 04, 2017, 03:47:38 PM
Colm Cooper...Simply the best...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41dSdsGnTMc

Tomas ose called him the greatest kerry player of all time which probably makes him the greatest player of all time. Fantastic player to watch it was always a joy to see him scoring and creat.

naka

Jeez great praise by Tomas
Still  think Maurice Fitz was the most graceful I ever saw but the gooch  was up there.

Il Bomber Destro

The greatest player of all time was a certain Peter Canavan, let's just get that out of the way.

Bord na Mona man

Great player. His speed of thought and movement was superb. His lack of size and physique meant he was always in dodging mode which made him the magician he was. A GAA version of Peter Stringer.

In Kerry terms I'd still rank Maurice Fitzgerald ahead of him. Maurice could kick the booming scores from further out and had real panache. His peak coincided with Kerry playing second fiddle to Cork for several years.

magpie seanie

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on April 04, 2017, 04:52:51 PM
That 35 minutes more or less retired Ger Brennan and was the start of Cian O'Sullivan dominating the centre back position.

The Dubs should thank him so!

southtyronegael

was always a pleasure to watch cooper play. sad to see the likes of him retire when we have nothing but garbage defensive systems and robots to replace him with.

regal

An absolutely outstanding footballer who played football the way it should be played. He even retired with a touch of class.

Compare his retirement to Sean cavanagh's retirement last year. Sent off, the tears, the complaining and the general cheating. Oh, that's right, he didn't retire after all.