A GAA team. You wouldn’t find as many different breeds in a zoo.
It’s a wonder that team mates even get on sometimes never mind get at each other’s throats considering the blend you’ll find in every single changing room up and down the country.
There are so many different characters on every team and here are the 21 that are currently littering sides all over Ireland.
1. The tape guy
“Does anyone have any tape?”
Who’s more annoying: the guy who asks that question or the person who replies, “what colour?”
Tape and its universal remedies. Put it around your knees and you’ll be grand or apply generously to the wrist area and doctors will bury their heads because they’ve been wasting your time with x-rays and plaster paris mumbo jumbo. You’re much more medically sound this way. Plus, you look cool.
2. The Deep Heat guy
Wake up and smell the Deep Heat, this is an imperfect world. Match day changing rooms are bad enough, what with the dry mouth, the clammy palms and the championship sun belting in through the slammed-shut windows because the manager doesn’t want anyone outside to hear.
The toilets are usually a no-go zone as throw-in approaches and now someone in all their wisdom has decided to intoxicate the place with a half tube of Deep Heat filling the room like a gas chamber.
3. The foam roller guy
Because squashing 36 men of selectors, players and injured onlookers into four tiny walls of Deep Heat-infested hysteria isn’t economical enough, the foam roller guy is taking up six feet of space across the ground so he can roll back and forward on a hamstring that he’s going to blame if he’s having a stinker. He’s more than likely to have a Thera-band in that kit bag somewhere, too.
4. The collar guy
Every GAA player wakes up in a cold sweat every night reliving his polyester nightmare that is the club jersey. The club jersey collar, specifically, doesn’t help anyone. They don’t stay up, they don’t even stay half up and they flap all over the shoulders hiding the deltoids you’ve worked long and hard sculpting in the gym.
The collar guy tucks it in though and makes his own collarless v-neck because he’s different. He’s better.
5. The socks guy
Another fashion crisis riddling every club team. What the hell do you do with your socks?
Some opt for the over the knees approach – they’ll usually make an alliance with tape guy. Others are so impressed by their own calf muscles that they actively try to wrap them around the heel of their boots whilst the most annoying socks guy brings his own, non-club socks, sometimes even in a different colour. He wears Penney’s socks, soccer ones, anything to give him an edge in this department.
6. The can’t-believe-he’s-been-taken-off guy
Will either be seen shaking his head on the subs bench after a slow, bemused walk from the pitch or will take a new stance on the sideline now as a self-designated selector after feigning an injury when his number got called and he suffered a sudden onset of limping disorder. Just so the crowd know that’s the only conceivable reason he could be taken off, you know.
He’s now patrolling the technical area barking instructions with the rest of the subs sat behind him. He’s played on the pitch, you see, he’s not a sub, and he’s making sure everyone can see that he has a starting number on his back.
7. The set piece taking guy
Feels it’s imperative that he stands over every single set piece from a sideline to a free kick out of defence and will sprint 50 yards to take control of the situation.
8. The sleeves guy
If you thought the collar guy was a visionary, the sleeves guy hasn’t spent 20 minutes adding an arms curl feature to the end of every gym programme only to have a non player-fit jersey hide his work. He’ll have the sleeves rolled up or tucked into his arm pit to show off the guns. Might need to consult with tape guy on occasion.
9. The burly full forward pointing to the crown of his head guy
“Would you hit the f**king thing in?!”
The burly full forward makes many a glorious ball look terrible because he’s ran three steps to his right and decided that he shouldn’t have to run any further. He’ll be found on the edge of the square in a permanent state of holding his man off and crying that the team aren’t playing to his strengths.
10. The one glove guy
That’s his thing.
11. The doesn’t-want-to-be-playing guy
Can be found running in the other direction or quickly hand passing a ball straight back to whoever gave it to him.
12. The wants-to-be-seen-to-be-making-things-happen guy
It’s not so much that he wants to be playing, more that he wants people to think that he wants to be playing. Hand passing is a mortal sin in this guy’s world. Taking the easy option? That isn’t an option.
Playing it simple is an insult to his skill set so every time he gets it, he’ll pull back and wind up the outside of the boot and then complain that you’re just not on the same wavelength as he is. Most likely to talk about getting a transfer.
13. The self-appointed luxury player guy
You don’t take Colm Cooper off if he’s having a bad day because, you know, he’s Colm Cooper and he can produce something Colm Cooper-esque at any minute.
The self-appointed luxury player might well have just been drafted into the number 15 jersey after five weeks in reserves but he now has taken on the Colm Cooper role in his own head. He’ll try a dummy 19 times in-a-row even if they all fail. He’ll turn back just to take a man on again when he’s clean through and he’ll shoot with unflappable confidence from the wing whenever he likes.
Will usually be found on his knees with his hands on his hips watching on as another ball he lost is being sent down the other side of the field. He didn’t lose it though, he almost made something happen.
14. The I-hit-free-kicks-so-I’m-exempt-from-all-other-activity guy
The free kick taker doesn’t do warm-ups. He has to cram as much practice as he can into 45 minutes pre-kick off.
He doesn’t do team talks either – well, not without three extra shots whilst the rest of the team’s already in a huddle. This kind of free kick guy will rarely have a score marked down in the paper without an (f) at the end of it.
15. The pre-season guy
Some people raid the gym on the cusp of a New Year’s resolution, other people decide that this year is the year that they’re going to give the football a proper go.
If you weren’t there the four years previous when this guy had racked up a total of three months worth of training, you could be forgiven for thinking that he’s actually a leader of the team because he’s talking in huddles, he’s asking for more training, he’s staying behind afterwards.
After January, his interest slowly begins to dissolve. Come championship, he’s nowhere to be seen.
16. The physio guy
Mr Sick Note and the physio have invites to each other’s weddings at this stage.
They both understand each other. The player wants the physio to find something wrong with him because he couldn’t be bothered to do full training. The physio wants to tell him there’s something wrong with him because he wants to keep coming back.
The guy racking up the humongous physio bills that are shown at the AGM probably won’t even be paying his membership in January.
17. The hatchet man guy
Usually goes by the name of Bruiser or Rhino or something of the sort that makes it clear he’s a savage – if the look in his eye didn’t do that already.
Thrown on in games to “put a bit of manners” into young bucks and comes in handy in hostile away grounds.
18. The age-is-but-a-number guy
Shows up every January but, unlike pre-season guy, he’s intent on not playing much this year. He swears he won’t.
Has kept himself in ridiculous condition so he’s topping some of the fitness tests, he’s still playing reserves but, as impressive as he is, you know your season hasn’t gone to plan when you’re recalling him for a senior game.
Every year is his last year.
19. The county star guy
Only in the GAA would an elite athlete get taken down to size like this guy does. Club footballers have no time for county stars and this guy will probably be known as ‘County’ by some of his own team mates.
Will take serious abuse from the sidelines of an intermediate game for no other reason but for the fact that people know him.
Is always more than likely going to be singled out for a big hit followed by a whisper in his ear, “this isn’t county now.”
He’ll also be guilty of being a ‘full kit w**ker’ with his training ensemble on occasions and it’s an even worse crime because it’s a full county kit.
20. The soccer guy
So he’s played a bit of Sunday morning league but he’s not going to be allowed to forget about it.
He’ll be the one referred to as a ‘soccer b***rd’ and sometimes might not help himself with his socks, tape and collar antics. Will be the one most likely arguing with the referee throughout.
But even if he plays a clever ball on the ground that turned out to be a key pass, his own club members will roar at him to “bend your f**king back” and the other team’s fans will pelt him with a mountain of abuse because of it.
21. The back-for-the-summer guy
Sometimes, not playing is the best thing a GAA player can do.
The back-for-the-summer guy has missed a lot of the bad times so far so his stock has risen through the roof in his absence.
He comes riding in on a white horse to save the season and he’ll knock poor, old never-misses-a-session guy out of the team almost immediately.
The manager will make his life tough for him by making him a sub for his first game back but he’ll be warming up after 10 minutes ready to sort this mess out.
Until he pisses off again in September.
