World News – UK – Sideline Cut: Mayo will be a county with a hundred thousand vigils by 5pm

Mayo’s Matthew Ruane celebrates with Jordan Flynn after beating Galway in the Connacht SFC Finals. Photo: James Crombie / Inpho

In November 1984, a collection of smaller English pop kings came to the Saas Fee ski slopes to make a music video. « Last Christmas » was officially a Wham! Lied and the pop duo Pepsi and Shirlie as a background singer. But it was George Michael’s creation, from the lyrics to playing instruments to the bass note of desperation in his delivery.

Once the shoot was over, Michael headed to London to record his segment of a charity single « Do They Know It’s Christmas ». . As is well known, the Bob Geldof extravaganza has both Wham! and « The Power of Love » by Frankie Goes To Hollywood from the coveted number one.

“Last Christmas” was supposed to be a one-way pop hit, but has stubbornly prevailed over the changing decades and is now a museum classic that has been burnished by time but strangely remains timeless and with millions of Memories is associated.

Nineteen eighty-four was also the year Mayo began to awaken as a football unit again, the following August stormed Kevin Heffernan’s Dublin, threatening to return to their first All-Ireland football final since 1951. They didn’t make it, but mayo football has never gone away since then. And you can be sure that on this Saturday morning in December, the waves in the air will be filled with both the sounds of “Last Christmas” and Mayo football.

Nobody really gives Mayo a big prayer tonight. But if they want to win it – swirling magic, exiled curses, all that nonsense – there could be a more fitting year than this, or a better setting, in the wintry chorus silence of Croke Park with Mayo believers living and dead. locked within the county?

It has been a year of reckoning for the world. The GAA has navigated its way through the pandemic as well as possible. The football championship was dominated by talks about Dublin’s omnipotence and financial needs, as well as the wisdom to cling to the centuries-old, romantic and deeply oppressive county-versus-county system.

But the real question people are probably asking is what the All-Ireland Football Championship is going to be like. What do we want from this pageant? And: has it got too serious?

One explanation for the force Dublin has become lies in the culture of monastic solemnity and pursuit of excellence that began to infiltrate the intercounty GAA scene some 20 years ago. Yes, the best of Gaelic football was always serious and always intense. But it was also a world of calamity.

The 1960s through the mid-1990s are full of stories that are mostly unprintable, players wandering after league games, curfew, post-all-Ireland bacchanals: get away with it, grab your life and get it straight make of the bottle. The behavior reflected Irish society at the time.

When teams from the 1970s, 80s and 90s meet, the bar remains their focal point, the meeting their refuge. One has to wonder if, in 25 years’ time, today’s teams will have a triathlon weekend in a sunny spot for their reunion, followed by sitting in a juice bar.

Habits change. A generation of gamers that arguably began with Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh came and demanded a culture of totalitarianism from everyone in the group. The remarkable thing about the dubs is that they haven’t allowed a distraction in six full years. You win. They celebrate modestly. You have success again, you are more successful.

One of the old GAA certainties is that if Mayo ever wins All-Ireland, the county cannot handle the extremes of emotion. I was told by a Mayo friend that the thought really scared him. When mayo performs across Ireland on normal weekends it always feels like a transatlantic affair – Mayoites speak of Chicago and Cleveland as if they were just additions to Bohola. Either way, the weekend ends up at home and in New York, half of the southern Bronx is piling up on Aug.. and 54. at Eugene Rooney’s bar, where they’re WhatsApp friends in Croke Park. Not this year. On Saturday, in Mayo, everyone will be in their homes: in the county of a hundred thousand vigils.

It’s one of a kind and it will certainly never happen again. And when the impossible happens, none of the predicted scenes will happen. If Mayo wins the 2020 All-Ireland Football Championship, it will be done in the dark. You will do this in the dreary winter. There will be no storms in the field from Mayo devotees who have waited for it all their lives. There will be no symbolic return with the Sam Maguire either. There will be no descent into overjoyed madness, no barnstorming tour of the county.

Instead, mayo would experience something much rarer and more valuable. You would actually have time to let the history of the past 69 years breathe. More than any other GAA county, Mayo’s football fans have been soldered into their teams, which exist as a giant Greek choir to witness every twist of brilliance and heartbreak.

But it was always about the team. The quest that began with James Horan’s crew in 2011 ultimately revolved around the bloody sentiments of the extended roster and players who kept coming back over and over again.

The task of beating Dublin has never been more difficult than it was tonight. But Mayo never bothered about it. And when an element of falling magic falls through the sky on their shoulders, it will feel right that the night is theirs and theirs alone. What could be nicer than having the players end this thing with their own screams and applause in Croke Park – and then head west for Christmas?

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, Mayo GAA, Gaelic Athletic Association, Mayo, Dublin GAA