The Longshot: A wall, a ball and a tale to fill you with terror

WE HAVE reached that annual barren point in the sporting scene, when the GAA season is on the cusp of hitting white-hot action and the true markers of the beginning of high summer, Wimbledon and the Tour de France, have yet to begin.

Now that the international football is over (thank god) elite soccer players will finally get to feel sand and between their toes, while fans get to discuss where Harry Kane is going to go, before he inevitably ends up staying put.

For those of us of a certain vintage this is the ‘Page 220 on Aertel’ time of the year, referring to the constant teletext refreshing we would do 30-odd years ago to get any latest transfer news, bereft as we were of any sporting action or up-to-date information elsewhere.

This was of course interspersed with our own endeavours on the patch of green (brown around the goal area). Growing up in an estate this patch was literally ‘the green’, where if numbers were high enough, tournaments - often lop-sided ones, where some players favoured picking their nose over tackling - could flourish.

Low participation often meant the action moved to my own back yard, which had the advantage of actual rudimentary goalposts instead of breeze blocks, although the net was more for decoration than decreasing ball speed or interfering with its trajectory.

Our back windows were only single glazing but surprisingly durable (we tested them many times with wayward half volleys) but it was probably the fact that my parents were the least likely to murder their offspring if one did get smashed that I got to play most of my three-goals-in career at a home venue.

There is a wrinkle to this reminisce, of course there is.

I was reminded of it when reading the excellent short story by Italian writer Michele Mari, The Soccer Balls of Mr Kurz. Mari is not that well known here but I came across him by chance recently and was delighted to find out he once played for the Osvaldo Soriano Football Club, otherwise known as the the Italian writers’ national football team, something we shamefully don’t have here, despite having authors such as Adrian Duncan, whose most recent short story collection is named Midfield Dynamo and who once played for Longford Town.

Anyway, Mari’s short story concerns the concerns a group of schoolboys have about inadvertently kicking their ball over a high wall during lunchtime games. It is a wonderful tale about, among other things, the delights of holding a new football (the smell of the leather, the shape, the bounce, the desire not to get its surface panels scuffed too soon), albeit it has the most disgraceful and despicable endings in all of literature.

Anyway it brought back to mind my own trauma. The fear of losing your balls and not getting them back. No, not marriage, but ‘the neighbour’.

Our back-yard arena was surrounded by walls on three sides and was then fully enclosed by the rear of the house.

A football funted at a certain velocity and altitude from any point in the yard had four choices. It could rifle up the roof and roll back to the safety of the playing area. It could shoot out beyond one end wall and go harmlessly into the estate, possibly rolling into someone’s front garden, barely harming their shrubbery and be easily retrieved.

Over the other end wall was less a back garden, more a jungle. Golf balls sent in there were abandoned, tennis balls were hunted like nuggets of gold, but footballs could be discovered after a brief foray through the native flora.

And if the owner of this house (our neighbourhood’s Boo Radley) noticed us through his back kitchen window (all the other room’s curtains were forever drawn), he’d only wave or, more likely, completely ignore our trespassing.

However, firing the football over the wall opposite the back of our house was greeted with a reaction of dismay by every player.

What stuck terror down to our very studs? Purple Granny. I have no compunction in naming her here because I’m not sure she realised it was her name and she certainly left this earthly realm many years ago.

What frightened us so? Simply this: if the ball went into her garden and she got to it before we did, we would never see it again.

That’s not totally true. The first couple of times, we called to her front door and she sombrely handed our ball back to us. But after a while she stopped answering the doorbell. There was a rumour, that preceded our arrival, that she had once opened the door to some other kids and punctured their ball in front of them with a knife. This caused us to be a tad reluctant to cross paths with her too often.

She was well past 80 and looking back it seems strange we were so scared. But we were still pretty small and this also meant we couldn’t simply scramble over the wall; we needed to fetch a bunk-bed ladder to aid our ascent.

Whoever kicked it over, or even deflected off, was the one sacrificed for the mission, even though we were all nearly crying once they had put their foot on that first rung.

The descent was into a bush to enable camouflage. Once ensconced in this leafy domain, the branches and twigs were tricky obstacles but the scrapes were nowhere near as bad as the sound of her back door opening.

If it did, you didn’t breathe until she had retrieved the ball and gone back inside. If it did not, you made a sprint for it, booted the ball back over and whispered for the others to quickly throw the ladder over.

Sometimes the door opened as you were halfway up the ladder.

One day as I reached back to pull the ladder back over with me I made eye contact with her through her window. It remains my worst childhood memory.

In short time we grew and could soon leap over the wall with the ease, if not the dexterity, of Dick Fosbury. We no longer even really cared if she saw us, so swift were we.

One time when I was preparing to hop over, the ball came flying back over almost immediately.

It is over, I thought. An entente.

I was going to pop my head over and say thanks when a large stone followed it.

Vieira now favoured for Elland Road

PATRICK Vieira is the favourite to take over from Sam Allardyce at Elland Road, whose role as caretaker was as about as successful as Jack Nicholson’s at the Overlook Hotel (two Shining references in one week! We’ll be tipping Red Rum next.) Daniel Farke’s odds have now lengthened to 9/4, after being the early front-runner. The German manager, who got Norwich City promoted to the Premier League twice, is a best price of 2/1. He spent four seasons at Carrow Road, from 2017 to 2021, twice winning promotion, but both times failed to keep the side in the top tier in the following season. He left his role with Bundesliga club Borussia Monchengladbach after just one season in Germany, in which he led them to an underwhelming 10th place.

Scott Parker is 8/1 generally but can be got at 16/1 with some firms.

Munster get far easier draw than Leinster

THE draw for next season’s European Champions Cup was made yesterday even thought no bookie has started a market on it yet.

For those who presume Leinster will be favourites again, consider first they have been placed in a ‘Group of Death’. About time too.

The Blues will meet their two-time final conquerors La Rochelle, Stade Francais and English giants Leicester Tigers and Sale Sharks, second and third respectively in last season’s Premiership.

Munster look to have got off lightly in comparison with tournament first-timers Bayonne, three-time winners Toulon, and recent rivals in the competition who they did a home and away double over last season, Northampton, and Exeter, who they beat on aggregate two years ago.

The format has changed once again with four pools of six clubs each, each having two clubs from each of the French Top14, English Premiership and the United Rugby Championship.

But now each team will play four matches against four different clubs that are not from their league, two at home and two away.

Glasgow make up the Reds’ group, while the Stormers join the Blues but these sides won’t meet.

Munster sides to dominate quarters

THE hurling semi-finalists will be decided by tomorrow evening.

There is no point is suggesting it is clear cut, even though Munster has looked the far stronger province from the action viewed so far.

It would be a surprise if Clare don’t beat Dublin at 1/6 at what is nearly a home venue on the Ennis Road.

Tipperary and Galway at the Gaelic Grounds afterwards should offer a ding-dong battle but Liam Cahill’s side are offered at 8/11, with Henry Shefflin’s charges 6/4.

The Tribesmen will still be kicking themselves for allowing Kilkenny net in the final act of the semi-final and that defeat might still be on their minds.s

The Bet

WE’LL opt for an accumulator in this weekend’s GAA action.

Clare and Tipp to reach the semis in the hurling and Cork, Kildare, Tyrone and Galway to reach the quarters in the football.

This accumulator will net you just shy of 40/1.