No secret has ever been made of how grateful yours truly feels to have many who were once heroes admired from afar become treasured friends. Yes, a lot of them are, shall we say, ‘colourful’ characters but then, it would be my genuine belief that if there wasn’t a bit of a maverick in myself, negotiation of life’s path thus far would’ve been altogether more arduous.
One thing that will be said is that I would be extremely protective of being in such privileged positions and, more importantly, of those who make such circumstances possible. On three separate occasions, one was probably fortunate more wasn’t made out of my efforts to defend the honour of one such individual whom people take – or at least did – great glee in making up absolute sh*** about.
So in one sense I can totally understand John Kiely wanting to support Kyle Hayes during the difficulties which came to light towards the back end of last year but had seemingly been ongoing for quite some time before becoming public knowledge. However, where I would express mild surprise is that he would go into a court of law and testify in front of a judge to do so.
At this point, in the interest of honesty and fairness here, I will openly admit to providing two character references for individuals who found themselves in hot water of their own boiling but on both occasions such testimony was submitted in writing without the need to appear. Now I can nearly hear you saying “Of course you didn’t, you’re in a wheelchair” but circumstances made absolutely no difference in either case, but it just wouldn’t have sat well. With me or others.
Having said all of the above, from a purely (neutral) sporting perspective, you’d hope that, once whatever the next steps for Mr Hayes are become known, focus of one all can revert to being on Mr Kiely and his players due to their hurling brilliance and not other regrettable distractions.
By the way, I am not having a dig anybody here. Just expressing surprise at how certain matters played out. For it is still way too fresh in the memory how several people held very dear by me were almost portrayed along the same lines as master gangsters.
Thankfully, in all such cases, those concerned let their sporting greatness do the talking. Expectations are that John Kiely and Limerick will do just that in the weeks and months ahead.
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