Tag: Premiership
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Gerrard playing the long game with percentage call
Bastions of the bandwagon are one of the few sporting phenomena yours truly cannot stomach. Fair weather followers is another acronym attributed to the same lot. It usually is followers, you see. There’s usually obvious telltale signs, they’ll be over the top if the need arises to decorate, will become expert ‘analysts’ overnight and everything…
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Sympathy for Bruce symbolic of a sporting world gone toxic
There are times, half joking whole in earnest, when it can often be quipped that being in a wheelchair can have its (relative) advantages. Unfortunate case in point most recently when yours truly had to go for yet another Covid-19 test having felt like I’d been backed over by a tractor and tri-axel trailer load…
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The obvious answer is often the only one
It’s funny how the wheels of time often come full circle. In the autumn of 1995, the late Shane McEntee TD ran against Sean Boylan for the position of Meath senior football manager. This being against the babkdrop of the ten point drubbing against Dublin in the Leinster Final. The Nobber native, who was a…
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Masterstroke or madness?
It’s said sporting stars, be they human or equine, never come back as good as they once were after a long term layoff. Of course, in most instances, it refers returning from injury. Occasionly, though, it’s a case of the road coming back to meet itself. Gareth Bale going back to Tottenham, Neil Lennon returning…
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Boylan Talks Sport Brain Workout – No. 20
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Two red corners on very different paths
Easter Saturday, 1993. The talented but luckless David Hirst gives Sheffield Wednesday a very early lead at Old Trafford. On a day that, if Manchester United won, they would virtually have one hand on their first League title in over a quarter of a century. Having blown a similarly promising position previously against Leeds United,…
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A harrowing, emotional illustration of why there’s always hope
Not all that long ago, mention was afforded in this space to the time my dear mother was the winner of a draw run by the local soccer club for which the first prize was two tickets to see Liverpool vs. Manchester United at Anfield. As was referenced in the previous piece, with there being…
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Days you can’t forget to remember
It may come as a shock to some to learn that there was a time yours truly gave serious consideration to becoming immersed in the local soccer scene. Indeed, the fact is that I had been to several soccer matches before wheels transporting this writer parked up on a GAA pitch. Thanks to the kindness…
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Weird window leaves many questions
A few years ago, on Deadline Day of the winter transfer window, I wrote a piece headlined “Almost time to take down the tent”. Inference being that the concept and the time around it resemble a circus. At the time, that manifested itself in the insane fees clubs were paying for players and the manner…
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Lampard a victim of his own relative success
There are certain jobs in the sporting world that everybody would want, yet nobody would queue up for at the same time. Some roles are a poisoned chalice. Who would want to take over from some of the greatest managers in any sport – Sean Boylan, Brian Cody, Sir Alex Ferguson, Phil Jackson, the list…