The Blue Book

[ONeill]

All the payers were forced.  Get ready for the scoop of the year...

Cody simplicity exposes futility of 'the beard book'

Monday September 08 2008

So the big, stark patriarch with the flushed complexion delivered history. The temperance folk would have Kilkenny banned on the basis that excess is corrupting. But Brian Cody remains such an emblem of uncomplicated desire, it's hard to be aggrieved when his striped wonders start piling the silver high.

You could feel disappointed for Waterford yesterday, without begrudging Cody a single second of this day in the sun.

His management of perhaps the greatest hurling team ever seen has long been rooted in simple, understated delivery. He leads with a quiet ferocity that we like to tart up in mystery. We want him to be profound, even if he never feels that way.

And, so, he looks at us from under those slender eye-brows, his hard mouth pinched in quizzical discomfort.

Cody rations his animation to a once a year ignition, that giddy, self-conscious sideline dance once Liam McCarthy is secured. For the remainder, he is unreadable as stone.

He laughs at the idea of genius in what he does. To him, management is no more than housekeeping. Brian Cody loves hurling and the heroism it deposits into otherwise plain lives. That is the beginning and end of his story.

Cody is the great, surviving constant of a practice getting more layered and nuanced by the season. He is old-style, a one-man rebuke to the management by numbers impulse that seems so increasingly de rigeur.

You look at some county teams today and everything they do is so trussed up in theory and philosophy, it's little wonder that their thought processes seem robotic.

Tyrone footballers reside in a claustrophobic world and, increasingly, they look hairy by that world. The search for an smig has carried them into easily lampooned territory, the choreographed march to the hill, the arm-linking intimacy of the backroom, the practiced hostility to gillette.

In a sense, the harder Tyrone tried to distance themselves from cut-throats, the more fuzzy they became.

Somewhere within the camp, a lust for mind bending overtook the plain demands of preparing young men for hard football games. Mental preparation morphed into dangerous psycho-babble.

This year, Tyrone came up with the 'Beard Book'. You won't have seen one because it came with pretty stark 'rules of engagement.'

Holders had to (literally) sign up to a creed. And rule four of that creed declared: 'I will not show or admit to the existence of THE Beard BOOK to any other person except another Beard Book holder.'

It didn't quite promote the cyanide pill solution to interrogation, but this was loopy stuff. A constitution written in Branch Davidian language.

The Beard Book was constructed in diary form, running from January to September. Every month carried an assembly of quotations, each page topped with the line 'Tyrone, All-Ireland Champions 2008'. Page One demanded that the holder sign up to the seven-point creed, which had to be then counter-signed by a 'witness.'

And point number five of that creed declared that the holder would accept 'any disciplinary measures including withdrawal of MY Beard BOOK, should I not apply myself as a Beard BOOK HOLDER is expected to.'

The line between constructive motivation and oppressive thought control wasn't so much blurred as obliterated.

Thirty eight years after his death, Vince Lombardi's little wisdoms exist as such pet tools for lazy GAA psychology, he ought to be claiming Irish royalties from the grave. Lombardi's wall mottos have become clichéd through over-use. They need to be de-commissioned.

The Beard Book is -- naturally -- speckled with his words, but it's the company Lombardi keeps that leaves the starkest imprint.

The profundities of ZZ top, Osama Bin Laden, Bjorn Bjorg, Santa Claus, Jesus himself, Jeff Capes are all invoked within as a kind of booklet-form mission statement for the modern Tyrone man.

Page after bullet-point page itemises the specifics of preparation. Players are invited to fill in 'bush Reports'. Everything is segmented, broken down. Confidence. Success. Shine. Length.

The Beard Book seems intent on shining a light on every mental shadow.

Excellent work from Harte again. This man leaves no stone unturned.

[qprmeath]

Can I just say "Thank you" to whoever leaked the book for giving a depressed Meathman the best laugh Ive had in years? Surely there is a Gift Grub sketch in this. The first rule of The Blue Book is "you must not talk about it etc....

[JMohan]

Keith Barrs article in the Indo today sums up my thoughts perfectly on the whole thing

[his holiness nb]

Keith Barrs article in the Indo today sums up my thoughts perfectly on the whole thing

You arent a salesman for the Indo by any chance?

[RMDrive]

"I'm not paranoid about anti-Dublin sentiment but I'm well aware that the rest of the country enjoys seeing them fail."

OK Keith. Sure.

[his holiness nb]

"I'm not paranoid about anti-Dublin sentiment but I'm well aware that the rest of the country enjoys seeing them fail."

OK Keith. Sure.

Do you honestly disagree with that? 

[JMohan]

Keith Barrs article in the Indo today sums up my thoughts perfectly on the whole thing

You arent a salesman for the Indo by any chance?

Naw but he's right - if you think that the blue book is unusual then you've not been in a county changing room

[RMDrive]

"I'm not paranoid about anti-Dublin sentiment but I'm well aware that the rest of the country enjoys seeing them fail."

OK Keith. Sure.

Do you honestly disagree with that? 

100% disagree. It's a lazy stereotype to lump 31 other counties into a pile and say "ye all hate us". There are loads that do but there are loads that don't as well. There are lots of neutrals hoping that Kerry fail against Tyrone but that's not because it's enjoyable to see Kerry (or any team) fail.
IMO, this whole 31 against 1 BS is perpetuated by fools within the Dublin set-up who think it will motivate players and fools among supporters who use it as a prop for their insecurity.
I just found the whole "I'm not paraniod but everyone is out to get us" think from Keith Barr a bit of a joke.

[his holiness nb]

From experience on here, I'd say about 90% of posters like to see Dublin lose.
Hatred is too strong a word though.

Nothing about props for my insecurity, I dont give a shite.

Plus it leaves to endless banter on here.
As much as we moan, this board would be a dull place were everyone to wish Dublin well!

[Declan]

I'd say about 90% of posters like to see Dublin lose.

Didn't think we made up 10% of posters

[johnpower]

From experience on here, I'd say about 90% of posters like to see Dublin lose.
Hatred is too strong a word though.

Nothing about props for my insecurity, I dont give a shite.

Plus it leaves to endless banter on here.
As much as we moan, this board would be a dull place were everyone to wish Dublin well!

I dont hate the Dubs and hope that this will not set things back . The football scene in Dublin has always struck me as been very intense

[time ticking away]

I love to see the Dubs lose but i feel for Caffrey over this book carry on

[Zapatista]

From experience on here, I'd say about 90% of posters like to see Dublin lose.
Hatred is too strong a word though.

Nothing about props for my insecurity, I dont give a shite.

Plus it leaves to endless banter on here.
As much as we moan, this board would be a dull place were everyone to wish Dublin well!

I like to see the Dubs do well. Most of my friends from outside Tyrone are Dubs. Good people I like to see do well.

[Mickeys beard]

I like to see the dubs do well about once a decade.  But no more than once. 

[Zapatista]

I like to see the dubs do well about once a decade.  But no more than once. 

2010 and 2011