If ever there was a man deserving of a GAABoard thread..
Keith Duggan and Cake. Great combo. Time to find a book store. If they still exist.
QuoteColourful nonconformist Shane Curran always ready to think outside the box
Veteran goalkeeper's story of life inside and outside the GAA in Roscommon makes for a fascinating autobiography
Keith Duggan
First published:
Sat, Oct 4, 2014, 01:00
1971 is celebrated as a year of rare vintages – the prized Petrus in Bordeaux, the Brora single malt from the Douglas Laing distillery and, in the outskirts of Castlerea, a ginger youngster named Shane "Cake" Curran was born – he became probably the most uninhibited and certainly the most talkative Gaelic footballer to emerge from the haze of Charles Haughey's Ireland.
This year he must be, at 43, the oldest man playing senior club football in Ireland. He will line out again for St Brigid's in the Roscommon senior final on Sunday week, his fourth final since turning 40. He says his place is under pressure now from Shane Mannion, a cousin of Dublin footballer Paul Mannion and the Roscommon minor goalkeeper for the past three seasons.
But he doesn't appear too worried about it either. Curran is an irrepressible bundle of contradictions. He is warm and easygoing but constantly buzzing, plotting, thinking. He is sharp as a tack but conspired to fail the Leaving Certificate and cheerfully admits that accidentally blowing up the science laboratory of Castlerea Vocational with misappropriated chemicals was his chief contribution to Irish education. He is ostensibly one of the victims of the building boom but never stopped smiling.
"It was cracked," he assures you of that period. "Jesus, it was cracked. It was cracked stuff, now. It wasn't a construction business as much as a destruction business. There was a 20-day working month. I can honestly say I didn't have to work more than four, five hours a week. It was a party. It was great crack, like.
Ruined lives
"The work was simple. I used to go around the small towns and villages and these estates going up left, right and centre. Cootehall! Tulsk! Frenchpark! Where were all the people going to come from? I remember saying to someone around 2004: 'this thing is going to f***ing blow up sometime. But hopefully not in the next 12 years and we will get a good touch out of it'.
"I was dabbling meself in property and you no more had a few pound made than you spent it on something else. And look, it did cause a lot of destruction. It has ruined lives. A lot of good people have . . . killed themselves on the back of pressure from banks and from having been high-fliers and not being able to cope with life on Mean Street. Money was too easy to get.
"I was two years in before I realised it. I remember this fella owed us a couple of hundred thousand . . . there was a better chance to get a 747 to come down O'Connell Street. He was gone: finished. It was like a tap that just dried up. People getting liquidated left, right and centre."
Everything about Curran is in there: the energy, the humour, the sharp eye, the implicit understanding and a refusal to be beaten down. Curran is resolutely optimistic and forward thinking and yet, in outlook and reference points, is rooted the Ireland of his childhood, when 1970s Roscommon was still populated by living, breathing figures from the 1943/44 All-Ireland winning Primrose teams.
Larry Cummins, corner back on those teams, worked with his father in the power house of the psychiatric hospital.
"Everyone deferred to him, not just the men in the engine room but the medical staff and patients too – doctors, administrators, everyone."
He was at the perfect age to be influenced by the aura which winning an All-Ireland medal can carry in counties where that feat is singularly rare. Stories of the county's golden age must have fuelled his own ambitions when he wore Roscommon colours through more prosaic years, which he captures vividly along with the writer Tommy Conlon in his richly entertaining autobiography, Cake.
If you are going to write your life story, it helps to have the patent on one of the all-time great GAA stories and Curran's first real brush with notoriety is just that. He made national headlines in the most unlikely theatre – the 1989 Connacht minor football final, in which Roscommon and Galway met in MacHale Park.
The Rossies were a point down in the last minute and were awarded a penalty. Jimmy Finnegan, the manager, indicated that Roscommon's free taker Peader Glennon should pop it over the bar. Curran was unhappy: a dashing and free-spirited forward in those days, he wanted to go for broke. Lorcan Dowd, Roscommon's best player, had been sent off and Curran doubted they would win the replay without him.
Divine inspiration
Glennon placed the ball and went through his free-taking routine. Galway's Seán Óg de Paor, standing beside Curran, said to nobody in particular that the ball was going over the bar. "It's not going over the f***ing bar," Cake advised him. "Watch this!" And overcome with divine inspiration, he dashed past Glennon and walloped a shot which flew past the stunned Galway goalkeeper for the most unexpected goal of the decade.
Only Seán Kilfeather, there to cover the senior match for The Irish Times, noticed what happened next. "The referee recovered the ball from the net, placed it on the penalty line and crossed his arms in a gesture which nobody understood. He then took the ball and ran from the field, hotly pursued by the several Galway players who believed he had awarded the score."
That belief was general. The ecstatic Roscommon teenagers were presented with the cup, watched the senior final – which ended in a draw – and made their way to the Travellers Friend for a victory banquet. Soup had hardly been served when two delegates from the Connacht Council materialised – "blazers and good bellies and red faces on them", Curran recalls in the book – and without any explanation took the cup and left the room.
It turned out the besieged referee had produced what Kilfeather described as "the fastest referee's report in the history of the game". He had decided, because free-taker Glennon had been standing within 13 metres of the ball when Curran hit it, the score must be disallowed. The team headed back to Castlerea, literally in the dark, where they were hailed as martyrs. They were in Fitzmaurice's pub when the nine o'clock news came on and Curran was shocked to see it was the lead story. "This was when the IRA was going fairly well. You wouldn't expect it."
The outrage – and fun – was only beginning. Roscommon was up in arms. Everyone wanted to solicit Curran's view on the matter. "I wanted to just hide at that stage. My mother was besieged at the house so we went to a disco on the Sunday night. Then there was a rally at the Hyde. The senior team were threatening to pull out of their replay in solidarity."
Galway offered a replay: Roscommon won it thanks to a last-minute goal from Eddie Ennis, a young player Curran has never met since." It was the 25th year anniversary of that episode this year," he marvels now. That story somehow contains the kaleidoscope of all the glories and perversities which are the life blood of the GAA – the passion, melodrama and sheer bedlam running concurrently with precise and obscure rules.
"I didn't think about it that way but yeah, the politics and the drama and the bullshit," Curran says, buttering toast on a damp morning in the Hodson Bay hotel. "I do think similar incidents could still happen. To a certain extent you don't understand it or want to understand it. And I suppose it has defined my career to a degree."
It certainly made him a household name around Connacht, as if the flame hair and flamboyant attacking style were not enough. The book is piercing on the pure brutality habitually meted out on Gaelic fields in the late 1980s. The atmosphere at club games is described as "toxic" and in one passage Curran describes a sickening incident in which a team-mate was so badly injured by a thump off the ball that he never played the game again.
But kids like Curran were fair game. Eamonn Sweeney of the Sunday Independent recently wrote a wonderful description of Curran's fondness for embellishing his attacks with off-the-cuff commentaries a la John Motson, even as he was on the ball. It may at least partly explain why so many leaden-footed, ageing defenders felt the urge to hit him a clip.
"It was thuggery," he says seriously. . . There is a parochial level of jealousies that it is a part of Irish life, be it sport, politics or business. If certain people don't measure up to skills or standards, they will find a way of trying to down you. . .
"I do think the GAA has changed – although when you see what happened to Paul Galvin you would wonder. In the late 1980s though, there was a lot of pure . . . thuggery is the only word. It was ugly. There were guys masquerading as footballers who just wanted to take guys out of it. I would have been one of the better players in Roscommon then and the level of dogging you got was unnatural – auld thumps around the back of the head, no manliness to it. . . . And in my mid-20s I lost my edge. I couldn't get up for a game. Referees seemed to take delight in seeing you bet around the place. And if you did retaliate then they would take greater delight in showing you a red card."
The constant attrition may have helped his move to goalkeeper, his first choice as a soccer player with Athlone Town. And it was from there he acquired the flair for eccentricity that culminated in the famous tribute by the comic actor (and former Roscommon minor goalkeeper) Chris O'Dowd: "He was gangbusters." He brought to keeping goal in wintry National League games the kind of manic energy which Robin Williams brought to big screen movies. On his day, Curran could tower over the occasion itself, with disguised kick-outs, alarming sallies upfield with the ball and spectacular saves .
His closing act in last year's Connacht club final was the quintessence of Cake-ness: a burst up to the 50-yard line with the ball where he is clattered by Richie Feeney and pulls a hamstring, a fast hobble back to goal where seconds later he executes a sensational diving save which does for his other hamstring and sees him collapse in agony and, after prolonged attention, is unceremoniously carted over the end line by a combination of players and officials with such lack of due care that those watching must have feared he had expired.
Dedicated goalkeeper
Curran accepts his approach is unusual but is earnest in his explanation that it was never for show. "See, anything that is different is seen to be off the wall or mad. I scored a 1-1 in the championship in 2004. I think I am still the only goalkeeper to score a goal in the All-Ireland championship. I saw an article afterwards in which the journalist was saying that this was just wrong, immoral: to have the temerity to kick scores. Six years later and Stephen Cluxton is doing it and it is applauded. Rightly so!
"The game will change and the goalkeeper's role will change. You will see far more goalkeepers doing what I was doing then. In 10 years' time you may not see a dedicated goalkeeper in Gaelic football – and you certainly won't see one in hurling. People say my style is mad and eccentric but analyse it or talk to managers and I have never really cost my teams scores."
He won a Connacht senior medal in 2001 when Gerry Lohan scored a last-minute goal for Roscommon. But Curran's book is a portrait of life with the underdog and is brilliant on the stink and security of the dressingrooms where he has served so long. There are times when the hurt of losing with Roscommon can be plainly heard on the page and Curran is terrific when describing his frustrations at seeing the talents of team-mates going unnoticed, particularly Frankie Dolan.
"He would be held in the same regard as the Gooch. Absolutely. The greatest players I ever played with were Pádraic Joyce and Frankie. I remember going back 30 years ago two great hurlers in Roscommon: Tommy Dolan and Frank Carthy. Brilliant stick men who made Railway Cup teams when Galway won All-Irelands. Had they been born in Kilkenny, everyone would know them. Had Henry Shefflin been born in Roscommon, who would know about him? He would still be an outstanding hurler but wouldn't have 10 All-Irelands. And I think the same argument can be made for Frankie and a couple of other players who are just genius with a football . ."
Anyone who knows the rough trajectory of Dolan's career will understand the sense of manifest destiny about his nerveless late score which secured the All-Ireland club championship for St Brigids in 2013. That long march included an unblinking semi-final collision with Crossmaglen, the standard-bearers of club football.
Curran's influence was immense in both a positive and negative sense: he followed a virtuoso moment of goalkeeping improvisation by goading Kyle Carragher until the young Crossmaglen forward snapped and punched him and was promptly dismissed.
Sporting lifetime
I could be argued that what Curran did was just as reprehensible in its own way as the kind of intimidation worked on him 20 years ago. He will argue it has to be set against the context of a sporting lifetime spent watching the other guys win.
"I don't care if he was 14," he says. "It doesn't matter. Okay, you are picking on a cub but not in a way that is going to destroy his life with a box in the jaw or something like that. Sometimes you say things in games you wish you didn't have to say. But it gives you that extra cut or edge.
"When you have been a loser for so long, that edge hardens. You can't condone it. But it is warrior stuff. I got a lot of criticism around the county here from ex-players saying I shouldn't have done what I did. When he did hit me – I may say not hard but enough to put me down – you are lying there with one eye open. Two minutes have passed, they are down to 14 and you are in the dying embers of the game . . . I would apologise to nobody for it because it may have been the difference between us winning and losing."
His only clear recollection of the aftermath of the match is of his wife Sharon approaching him in tears of joy and of Aaron Kernan facing a few irate Cross' men who wanted words – and possibly more. "The Crossmaglen boys were brilliant, so magnanimous," he says now.
That win – along with Kevin McStay – steeled them into believing they could be champions of Ireland. The rise of St Brigid's ran parallel with the end of Curran's property business and the advent of a new idea which literally dropped from the sky and now has a global potential. Through it all, his spirits never dipped. "You'd wonder at times how we got through it but I've a great wife and parents and if you are healthy, you can move forward and . . . I don't take life all too serious."
At lunch time, he moves on, to go for a swim, make calls and organise a book launch in the Hodson Bay – ideally on the night of the county final. "It should be a good night," he promises. You forget to ask Cake Curran if he's a maniac on the dance floor. But you can probably guess.
Cake by Shane Curran (with Tommy Conlon) is published by Penguin Ireland (€16.99) and is on sale now.
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/colourful-nonconformist-shane-curran-always-ready-to-think-outside-the-box-1.1951420?page=1
Should be a good one ... but some of these player biographies can be total crap.
I hope it will be in th'oul Christmas stocking.
Quote from: Rossfan on October 04, 2014, 03:56:14 PM
I hope it will be in th'oul Christmas stocking.
I might get one for Kyle Carragher.
QuoteHis closing act in last year's Connacht club final was the quintessence of Cake-ness: a burst up to the 50-yard line with the ball where he is clattered by Richie Feeney and pulls a hamstring, a fast hobble back to goal where seconds later he executes a sensational diving save which does for his other hamstring and sees him collapse in agony and, after prolonged attention, is unceremoniously carted over the end line by a combination of players and officials with such lack of due care that those watching must have feared he had expired.
That describes that scene to a tee (except it wasn't Richie I think it was Neil Douglas and he hardly touched him). He had pulled both hamstrings but refused to go off. Everyone was completely bewildered but thoroughly entertained.
Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IsbWFZPh0Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IsbWFZPh0Q)
A great character and a class act. I spent a few hours with him at the feile as our team was based in Kiltoom. He is full of stories and enjoys life, family and football
I will definitely buy. The book.
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
Great character. Ye gotta love him.
Hmmmm. Wonder does he mention the times he used to Vaseline other keepers' gloves before matches?
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
Some say Syfín is really the young cake.
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
You should be rowled into a bog :P
Quote from: moysider on October 04, 2014, 08:24:18 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
Some say Syfín is really the young cake.
The one thing Cakeen isn't is young.
Some of his kick-outs even last week were incredible. What gets lost in the mist of his personality is that he is and was an exceptionally talented keeper.
He's half baked.
Had trials with United in his younger days as a goalkeeper. I wonder what Ferguson would have made of him. Played on the Roscommon Junior team that beat Kerry in the 2000 All Ireland Final in Nenagh and gave a rousing speech afterwards.
Quote from: Syferus on October 04, 2014, 08:36:58 PM
Quote from: moysider on October 04, 2014, 08:24:18 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
Some say Syfín is really the young cake.
The one thing Cakeen isn't is young.
That s why you have to assume the persona of the young 'cake'.
I remember 'Cake' when he was only a bunín.
Quote from: moysider on October 04, 2014, 11:06:57 PM
Quote from: Syferus on October 04, 2014, 08:36:58 PM
Quote from: moysider on October 04, 2014, 08:24:18 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
Some say Syfín is really the young cake.
The one thing Cakeen isn't is young.
That s why you have to assume the persona of the young 'cake'.
I remember 'Cake' when he was only a bunín.
Sure the Dah remembers running a penalty kick competition in Trien (out-skirts of Castlerea) back in 1986 and a young ginger ladeen of 15 saving almost everything that was hit at him. They still talk about the real young Cakeen back home..
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
The foreword would be longer than the book.
Quote from: IolarCoisCuain on October 05, 2014, 10:06:37 PM
Quote from: seafoid on October 04, 2014, 08:21:25 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on October 04, 2014, 07:45:36 PM
If or were free it would make good bog roll.
would that be Ming^s bog ?
looks like an interesting book but i would only buy it with a foreword by Syfin
The foreword would be longer than the book.
The forehead would be longer than the book.
I heard the book is going to be launched from the bus.
Quote from: Jinxy on October 06, 2014, 06:49:38 PM
I heard the book is going to be launched from the bus.
The bus has a cannon?
Quote from: moysider on October 04, 2014, 08:21:43 PM
Great character. Ye gotta love him.
Hmmmm. Wonder does he mention the times he used to Vaseline other keepers' gloves before matches?
Exactly, regardless of where you're from, he's some man for one man.
I just want to read about the Vaseline!
One of the all time characters of the game. I'd certainly buy the book. Had the pleasure of meeting him on a few occasions too, a pure gent
I see The Mort is bringing out his own blockbuster as well.
Quote
OKAY, there's no point 'burying the lead story' here so let's get straight to the point.
Conor Mortimer has written a book. Yes, that Conor Mortimer.
And it's coming our way very, very soon.
Shrule's most famous son, Mayo's all-time leading scorer, and the man who parted company with James Horan's county squad back in 2012, just as things were starting to get interesting, has put his thoughts down on paper. For better or worse!
Conor lives and works in Dublin these days, and is engaged to be married to Sara Bergin.
He also plays club football in the capital with Parnells.
Anyone who follows 'The Mort' on twitter will tell you he seems to have lost none of his lust for life since the curtain came down on his Mayo career, and he has an opinion on everything from the Oscar Pistorious murder trial to the welfare of cats to the performance of Mayo's forwardline in his absence.
So we can only imagine what sort of 'gold' that Jackie Cahill (a well-known GAA freelance reporter from Tipperary), who has written the book with Conor, has managed to extract from the mind of 'The Mort'.
It's safe to assume that a copy might find its way into James Horan's hand at some stage over the Christmas too, given that the ex-manager and the blonde bombshell didn't exactly part on the best of terms two years ago.
Neither party has ever expanded much on what exactly was said, or happened, on that particular Connacht Final week in July of 2012, so it will be fascinating to read Mortimer's version of events.
Equally interesting will be his take on 'Jerseygate', the day he threw his Mayo jersey away in disgust after being taken off against Limerick in an All-Ireland Qualifier in 2002.
The former Shrule/Glencorrib corner-forward took a lot of timber at the time for his instinctive reaction and we always got the impression it was something that he never truly forgot, or forgave.
Personally, we hope Conor tells the story of how he came to have 'RIP Micheal Jackson' written on a t-shirt under his jersey the day Mayo beat Galway in the 2009 Connacht Final in Salthill.
The sight of him showing off his tribute to the late 'King of Pop' remains one of the iconic Mayo GAA images from the last ten years, and I have no doubt that hearing how it came about will be worth waiting for!
The Mayo launch of Conor's book takes place on Thursday, October 30 in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris with a Dublin launch pencilled in for the following week.
Quote from: GalwayBayBoy on October 08, 2014, 12:04:25 AM
I see The Mort is bringing out his own blockbuster as well.
Quote
OKAY, there's no point 'burying the lead story' here so let's get straight to the point.
Conor Mortimer has written a book. Yes, that Conor Mortimer.
And it's coming our way very, very soon.
Shrule's most famous son, Mayo's all-time leading scorer, and the man who parted company with James Horan's county squad back in 2012, just as things were starting to get interesting, has put his thoughts down on paper. For better or worse!
Conor lives and works in Dublin these days, and is engaged to be married to Sara Bergin.
He also plays club football in the capital with Parnells.
Anyone who follows 'The Mort' on twitter will tell you he seems to have lost none of his lust for life since the curtain came down on his Mayo career, and he has an opinion on everything from the Oscar Pistorious murder trial to the welfare of cats to the performance of Mayo's forwardline in his absence.
So we can only imagine what sort of 'gold' that Jackie Cahill (a well-known GAA freelance reporter from Tipperary), who has written the book with Conor, has managed to extract from the mind of 'The Mort'.
It's safe to assume that a copy might find its way into James Horan's hand at some stage over the Christmas too, given that the ex-manager and the blonde bombshell didn't exactly part on the best of terms two years ago.
Neither party has ever expanded much on what exactly was said, or happened, on that particular Connacht Final week in July of 2012, so it will be fascinating to read Mortimer's version of events.
Equally interesting will be his take on 'Jerseygate', the day he threw his Mayo jersey away in disgust after being taken off against Limerick in an All-Ireland Qualifier in 2002.
The former Shrule/Glencorrib corner-forward took a lot of timber at the time for his instinctive reaction and we always got the impression it was something that he never truly forgot, or forgave.
Personally, we hope Conor tells the story of how he came to have 'RIP Micheal Jackson' written on a t-shirt under his jersey the day Mayo beat Galway in the 2009 Connacht Final in Salthill.
The sight of him showing off his tribute to the late 'King of Pop' remains one of the iconic Mayo GAA images from the last ten years, and I have no doubt that hearing how it came about will be worth waiting for!
The Mayo launch of Conor's book takes place on Thursday, October 30 in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris with a Dublin launch pencilled in for the following week.
Ah,well.
Quote from: Syferus on October 04, 2014, 03:51:19 PM
"It was thuggery," he says seriously. . . There is a parochial level of jealousies that it is a part of Irish life, be it sport, politics or business. If certain people don't measure up to skills or standards, they will find a way of trying to down you. . .
"I do think the GAA has changed – although when you see what happened to Paul Galvin you would wonder. In the late 1980s though, there was a lot of pure . . . thuggery is the only word. It was ugly. There were guys masquerading as footballers who just wanted to take guys out of it. I would have been one of the better players in Roscommon then and the level of dogging you got was unnatural – auld thumps around the back of the head, no manliness to it. . . .
All grand, but I remember Curran hitting Niall McNamee a cheap shot as he went by him in the 2003 qualifier between Offaly and Roscommon.
The teams were coming back onto the field for extra time McNamee, who was 17 at the time, wasn't even looking when Curran struck him as he walked by.
McNamee played on after getting treatment, but if I remember correctly ended up spending the night in Mullingar hospital under observation.
Quote from: GalwayBayBoy on October 08, 2014, 12:04:25 AM
I see The Mort is bringing out his own blockbuster as well.
Quote
OKAY, there's no point 'burying the lead story' here so let's get straight to the point.
Conor Mortimer has written a book. Yes, that Conor Mortimer.
And it's coming our way very, very soon.
Shrule's most famous son, Mayo's all-time leading scorer, and the man who parted company with James Horan's county squad back in 2012, just as things were starting to get interesting, has put his thoughts down on paper. For better or worse!
Conor lives and works in Dublin these days, and is engaged to be married to Sara Bergin.
He also plays club football in the capital with Parnells.
Anyone who follows 'The Mort' on twitter will tell you he seems to have lost none of his lust for life since the curtain came down on his Mayo career, and he has an opinion on everything from the Oscar Pistorious murder trial to the welfare of cats to the performance of Mayo's forwardline in his absence.
So we can only imagine what sort of 'gold' that Jackie Cahill (a well-known GAA freelance reporter from Tipperary), who has written the book with Conor, has managed to extract from the mind of 'The Mort'.
It's safe to assume that a copy might find its way into James Horan's hand at some stage over the Christmas too, given that the ex-manager and the blonde bombshell didn't exactly part on the best of terms two years ago.
Neither party has ever expanded much on what exactly was said, or happened, on that particular Connacht Final week in July of 2012, so it will be fascinating to read Mortimer's version of events.
Equally interesting will be his take on 'Jerseygate', the day he threw his Mayo jersey away in disgust after being taken off against Limerick in an All-Ireland Qualifier in 2002.
The former Shrule/Glencorrib corner-forward took a lot of timber at the time for his instinctive reaction and we always got the impression it was something that he never truly forgot, or forgave.
Personally, we hope Conor tells the story of how he came to have 'RIP Micheal Jackson' written on a t-shirt under his jersey the day Mayo beat Galway in the 2009 Connacht Final in Salthill.
The sight of him showing off his tribute to the late 'King of Pop' remains one of the iconic Mayo GAA images from the last ten years, and I have no doubt that hearing how it came about will be worth waiting for!
The Mayo launch of Conor's book takes place on Thursday, October 30 in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris with a Dublin launch pencilled in for the following week.
Oh dear
Quote from: GalwayBayBoy on October 08, 2014, 12:04:25 AM
I see The Mort is bringing out his own blockbuster as well.
Quote
OKAY, there's no point 'burying the lead story' here so let's get straight to the point.
Conor Mortimer has written a book. Yes, that Conor Mortimer.
And it's coming our way very, very soon.
Shrule's most famous son, Mayo's all-time leading scorer, and the man who parted company with James Horan's county squad back in 2012, just as things were starting to get interesting, has put his thoughts down on paper. For better or worse!
Conor lives and works in Dublin these days, and is engaged to be married to Sara Bergin.
He also plays club football in the capital with Parnells.
Anyone who follows 'The Mort' on twitter will tell you he seems to have lost none of his lust for life since the curtain came down on his Mayo career, and he has an opinion on everything from the Oscar Pistorious murder trial to the welfare of cats to the performance of Mayo's forwardline in his absence.
So we can only imagine what sort of 'gold' that Jackie Cahill (a well-known GAA freelance reporter from Tipperary), who has written the book with Conor, has managed to extract from the mind of 'The Mort'.
It's safe to assume that a copy might find its way into James Horan's hand at some stage over the Christmas too, given that the ex-manager and the blonde bombshell didn't exactly part on the best of terms two years ago.
Neither party has ever expanded much on what exactly was said, or happened, on that particular Connacht Final week in July of 2012, so it will be fascinating to read Mortimer's version of events.
Equally interesting will be his take on 'Jerseygate', the day he threw his Mayo jersey away in disgust after being taken off against Limerick in an All-Ireland Qualifier in 2002.
The former Shrule/Glencorrib corner-forward took a lot of timber at the time for his instinctive reaction and we always got the impression it was something that he never truly forgot, or forgave.
Personally, we hope Conor tells the story of how he came to have 'RIP Micheal Jackson' written on a t-shirt under his jersey the day Mayo beat Galway in the 2009 Connacht Final in Salthill.
The sight of him showing off his tribute to the late 'King of Pop' remains one of the iconic Mayo GAA images from the last ten years, and I have no doubt that hearing how it came about will be worth waiting for!
The Mayo launch of Conor's book takes place on Thursday, October 30 in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris with a Dublin launch pencilled in for the following week.
He should call it 'MORTIFIED'.
Quote from: moysider on October 08, 2014, 12:15:16 AM
Quote from: GalwayBayBoy on October 08, 2014, 12:04:25 AM
I see The Mort is bringing out his own blockbuster as well.
Quote
OKAY, there's no point 'burying the lead story' here so let's get straight to the point.
Conor Mortimer has written a book. Yes, that Conor Mortimer.
And it's coming our way very, very soon.
Shrule's most famous son, Mayo's all-time leading scorer, and the man who parted company with James Horan's county squad back in 2012, just as things were starting to get interesting, has put his thoughts down on paper. For better or worse!
Conor lives and works in Dublin these days, and is engaged to be married to Sara Bergin.
He also plays club football in the capital with Parnells.
Anyone who follows 'The Mort' on twitter will tell you he seems to have lost none of his lust for life since the curtain came down on his Mayo career, and he has an opinion on everything from the Oscar Pistorious murder trial to the welfare of cats to the performance of Mayo's forwardline in his absence.
So we can only imagine what sort of 'gold' that Jackie Cahill (a well-known GAA freelance reporter from Tipperary), who has written the book with Conor, has managed to extract from the mind of 'The Mort'.
It's safe to assume that a copy might find its way into James Horan's hand at some stage over the Christmas too, given that the ex-manager and the blonde bombshell didn't exactly part on the best of terms two years ago.
Neither party has ever expanded much on what exactly was said, or happened, on that particular Connacht Final week in July of 2012, so it will be fascinating to read Mortimer's version of events.
Equally interesting will be his take on 'Jerseygate', the day he threw his Mayo jersey away in disgust after being taken off against Limerick in an All-Ireland Qualifier in 2002.
The former Shrule/Glencorrib corner-forward took a lot of timber at the time for his instinctive reaction and we always got the impression it was something that he never truly forgot, or forgave.
Personally, we hope Conor tells the story of how he came to have 'RIP Micheal Jackson' written on a t-shirt under his jersey the day Mayo beat Galway in the 2009 Connacht Final in Salthill.
The sight of him showing off his tribute to the late 'King of Pop' remains one of the iconic Mayo GAA images from the last ten years, and I have no doubt that hearing how it came about will be worth waiting for!
The Mayo launch of Conor's book takes place on Thursday, October 30 in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris with a Dublin launch pencilled in for the following week.
Ah,well.
He banned me from following him on twitter, possibly after I christened the FF line that year The Killer, The Pillar & The Thriller.
Oh well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RhZDGLEXM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8RhZDGLEXM)
Quote from: Bord na Mona man on October 08, 2014, 01:58:49 PM
Quote from: Syferus on October 04, 2014, 03:51:19 PM
"It was thuggery," he says seriously. . . There is a parochial level of jealousies that it is a part of Irish life, be it sport, politics or business. If certain people don't measure up to skills or standards, they will find a way of trying to down you. . .
"I do think the GAA has changed – although when you see what happened to Paul Galvin you would wonder. In the late 1980s though, there was a lot of pure . . . thuggery is the only word. It was ugly. There were guys masquerading as footballers who just wanted to take guys out of it. I would have been one of the better players in Roscommon then and the level of dogging you got was unnatural – auld thumps around the back of the head, no manliness to it. . . .
All grand, but I remember Curran hitting Niall McNamee a cheap shot as he went by him in the 2003 qualifier between Offaly and Roscommon.
The teams were coming back onto the field for extra time McNamee, who was 17 at the time, wasn't even looking when Curran struck him as he walked by.
McNamee played on after getting treatment, but if I remember correctly ended up spending the night in Mullingar hospital under observation.
Or when he came flying out and clattered Neil Douglas with two knees into the back in the Connaught club final
Rhubarbs ruining another Rossie thread >:(
I believe the bookeen is in my Christmas Stocking already 8)
Bord na Mona man isn't a 'rhubarb'. :P
Quote from: Rossfan on October 08, 2014, 07:59:33 PM
Rhubarbs ruining another Rossie thread >:(
I believe the bookeen is in my Christmas Stocking already 8)
Easons in Sligo didn't have it in stock yesterday. Typical Sligo antics, twenty books on Roy Keane and his dog and about ten on the GAA.
Quote from: Syferus on October 09, 2014, 01:29:04 AM
Quote from: Rossfan on October 08, 2014, 07:59:33 PM
Rhubarbs ruining another Rossie thread >:(
I believe the bookeen is in my Christmas Stocking already 8)
Easons in Sligo didn't have it in stock yesterday. Typical Sligo antics, twenty books on Roy Keane and his dog and about ten on the GAA.
What's your point?
NEWSFLASH - Sligo is a soccer town!!!!
Quote from: magpie seanie on October 09, 2014, 09:50:37 AM
Quote from: Syferus on October 09, 2014, 01:29:04 AM
Quote from: Rossfan on October 08, 2014, 07:59:33 PM
Rhubarbs ruining another Rossie thread >:(
I believe the bookeen is in my Christmas Stocking already 8)
Easons in Sligo didn't have it in stock yesterday. Typical Sligo antics, twenty books on Roy Keane and his dog and about ten on the GAA.
What's your point?
NEWSFLASH - Sligo is a soccer town!!!!
You'd think with Marky Park and the IT there they might see sense and stock the autobiography of one of the province's biggest ever sporting characters, published by Penguin no less..
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
About half way through on the Kindle......Jaysus the League of Ireland folks are going to be fuming-LOL
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 01:13:06 PM
About half way through on the Kindle......Jaysus the League of Ireland folks are going to be fuming-LOL
Aren't you great.
Quote from: DuffleKing on October 09, 2014, 12:41:04 PM
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
Couldn't believe this either.
I never seen someone so desperate to break into the media but has been left sitting on the shelf.
Quote from: Jinxy on October 09, 2014, 01:47:29 PM
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 01:13:06 PM
About half way through on the Kindle......Jaysus the League of Ireland folks are going to be fuming-LOL
Aren't you great.
I guess it was a subliminal shout out to those cavemen who are scouring every bookshop in the country looking for a copy
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 03:31:39 PM
Quote from: Jinxy on October 09, 2014, 01:47:29 PM
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 01:13:06 PM
About half way through on the Kindle......Jaysus the League of Ireland folks are going to be fuming-LOL
Aren't you great.
I guess it was a subliminal shout out to those cavemen who are scouring every bookshop in the countryRoscommon looking for a copy
Quote from: Jinxy on October 09, 2014, 03:56:23 PM
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 03:31:39 PM
Quote from: Jinxy on October 09, 2014, 01:47:29 PM
Quote from: whitey on October 09, 2014, 01:13:06 PM
About half way through on the Kindle......Jaysus the League of Ireland folks are going to be fuming-LOL
Aren't you great.
I guess it was a subliminal shout out to those cavemen who are scouring every bookshop in the countryRoscommon looking for a copy
Any bookshop in Roscommon have it. Just anyone unlucky enough to be outside the county might be in both. Kindles are for robbing books anyways.
Quote from: Bingo on October 09, 2014, 01:57:05 PM
Quote from: DuffleKing on October 09, 2014, 12:41:04 PM
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
Couldn't believe this either.
I never seen someone so desperate to break into the media but has been left sitting on the shelf.
When Colm Parkinson broke into media it gave every other gobshite a chance
Quote from: ludermor on October 09, 2014, 06:42:43 PM
Quote from: Bingo on October 09, 2014, 01:57:05 PM
Quote from: DuffleKing on October 09, 2014, 12:41:04 PM
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
Couldn't believe this either.
I never seen someone so desperate to break into the media but has been left sitting on the shelf.
When Colm Parkinson broke into media it gave every other gobshite a chance
The Robbie Savage template, spot on.
The Mort must be hoping to get noticed again now that Horan is gone
Nah.
Quote from: ludermor on October 09, 2014, 06:42:43 PM
Quote from: Bingo on October 09, 2014, 01:57:05 PM
Quote from: DuffleKing on October 09, 2014, 12:41:04 PM
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
Couldn't believe this either.
I never seen someone so desperate to break into the media but has been left sitting on the shelf.
When Colm Parkinson broke into media it gave every other gobshite a chance
+1 Don't listen half as much to Off The Ball since he arrived and the Second Captains left
Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on October 10, 2014, 10:01:19 AM
Quote from: ludermor on October 09, 2014, 06:42:43 PM
Quote from: Bingo on October 09, 2014, 01:57:05 PM
Quote from: DuffleKing on October 09, 2014, 12:41:04 PM
Conor Mortimer has written a book? Seriously?
Couldn't believe this either.
I never seen someone so desperate to break into the media but has been left sitting on the shelf.
When Colm Parkinson broke into media it gave every other gobshite a chance
+1 Don't listen half as much to Off The Ball since he arrived and the Second Captains left
He's no David Brady. :D
43 and still going.
Quote from: orangeman on November 11, 2014, 11:33:56 AM
43 and still going.
Possibly time for him to be going going gone ....... at Senior level anyway.
Are there any young biscuits in Ros ready to step into Cake's boots ?
A few "characters" alright but good madcap goalies ..... not a lot.
Quote from: Rossfan on November 11, 2014, 12:23:13 PM
Quote from: orangeman on November 11, 2014, 11:33:56 AM
43 and still going.
Possibly time for him to be going going gone ....... at Senior level anyway.
44 according to the ridiculous scarce programs on Sunday. Some man. Might be his time to step aside, he looked a bit like a man saying his good-byes after the match. We'll see, the one thing Cake has never been is predictable. Young Shane Mannion is a three year minor county starter in goals and is the obvious heir apparent in Brigids but he's only turning 19..
Wonder would Ashers Bakery in Belfast produce a cake with cake's face on it with a tribute as gaelige
Quote from: T Fearon on November 11, 2014, 06:10:48 PM
Wonder would Ashers Bakery in Belfast produce a cake with cake's face on it with a tribute as gaelige
Slán a Cháca mhilis perhaps? :D
Quote from: Rossfan on November 11, 2014, 07:08:40 PM
Quote from: T Fearon on November 11, 2014, 06:10:48 PM
Wonder would Ashers Bakery in Belfast produce a cake with cake's face on it with a tribute as gaelige
Slán a Cháca mhilis perhaps? :D
Would it not have to be a currany cake ? And they don't have icing.
QuoteCake takes his 'final bow'
15 November 2014
After an eventful and distinguished gaelic football career, Shane Curran has decided to hang up his gloves.
One of the GAA's most colourful characters, the 43-year-old former Roscommon netminder announced his decision to quit club football on Newstalk's 'Off-The-Ball' today.
"The game sometimes gives you up instead of you giving it up," he said. "I've reached the stage where it has, I've taken my final bow."
The Rossies great arrived at his decision in the wake of last Sunday's Connacht Club SFC semi-final loss at the hands of Mayo's Ballintubber.
He revealed he has played under 57 managers during the course of his playing days and has ambitions to go into management in the future.
"There's no doubt about it, I'm highly ambitious, I want to get involved in it and will get involved in it. I think I have something to offer in that area.
"Hopefully, in time, I'll be successful at it."
http://hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=227660
Even Cake couldn't solo past Father Time. It's been a hell of a ride.