A 20-year-old goes out to play a game of football and he’s labelled as the worst ever.
A 20-year-old makes a mistake and he’s accused of conspiring against his own county.
A 20-year-old has his heart broken, his dreams shattered, and he’s left to fend off relentless, unfiltered abuse directed straight at him.
Unfortunately, that’s the game nowadays. You drop a ball, you miscue a pass and you’re food for trolls. Errors, bad performances, unfortunate quotes are all magnified in this world of pause and rewind TV, in this world of armchair experts, in this world of social media that invites the entire country to the bar to air as many mindless views as they want.
It’s easy to pick out a mistake when you’re in no danger of making one yourself.
Cork under-21 goalkeeper Anthony Casey was just the latest unlucky enough to experience a taste of this modern-day world after his county’s All-Ireland final loss to Mayo on Saturday, 5-7 to 1-14.
It’s not to say that players aren’t subject to analysis. It’s not to hide behind the amateur status or any of that nonsense – if you play for your county, you’re an elite sportsman and you’re going to have opinions formed around you as a player.
As a player.
But when people try to encapsulate a young man by his mistakes – freak mistakes – then there’s a serious problem. It’s one thing playing badly or making wrong decisions but to then have someone – in this case, people you don’t even know – point out exactly how you have ballsed up, that’s verging on moronic.
Trust me, if a player makes a mistake, he knows better than anyone that he has made that mistake.
We don’t need any more Geoff Shreeves seeking out the guilty party and shamelessly reminding them looking for a response.
Yes, you can have an opinion, of course you can. Yes, you can talk about where the game was won and lost and you can even talk about mistakes all you like.
But don’t go seeking someone out to make one of the worst moments of his life even worse – just for the hell of it, just because you can.
What’s someone gaining from poking fun at a 20-year-old student whose All-Ireland final didn’t live up to the one he’s been dreaming about? Does someone really feel better if they question the character of the man because of a human mistake?
Do we live in a world that actually takes so much pleasure from another person’s misery?
Made a mistake! Im human! I go to college, work and do everything that every amateur footballer does! Thanks for the support! #alwaysarebel
— Anthony Casey (@AnthonyCasey3) May 2, 2016
Casey didn’t hide. He fronted up. He spoke about that day and those horrible moments that followed the final whistle of a Mayo win. He spoke about how he felt, feeling responsible for the devastation of the whole squad.
That’s the price you sometimes pay as a goalie. One mistake is costly and, even though games are played over 60 or 70 minutes, it’s easier to dwell when a ‘keeper is at fault. And it’s easier to target him.
“I showered on my own and, when the lads came into the dressing-room, I had already changed,” Casey told Independent.ie. “I tried to apologise to them but I couldn’t pull myself together. It was a really sh***y feeling. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“I turned on my phone and I had loads of Twitter notifications.”
What he presumably found was a tirade from nomads. Profile pictures of cats, goats, eggs.
People saying he should’ve been in the Mayo team photo instead, asking how much odds he got for Cork to lose, his own county men calling it the worst individual performance of all time. People actively seeking him out to consciously inflict more pain on the young man. Over a game of football too.
Some people are using social media as a punch bag now but they don’t realise that it’s human beings on the other end of those hits taking the blows.
Thankfully, it didn’t hold this player down. What’s that line from the poem Invictus?
“My head is bloody but unbowed.”
Anthony Casey picked himself up, he went again, he continued to believe.
He went out the next day in the Cork senior football championship and he put his neck on the line once more. A couple of saves for CIT against Newcestown, a clean sheet, a two-point win and it wasn’t as if the ‘keeper was back – he never went anywhere.
He made a mistake the game before and a few keyboard warriors decided to laugh at him from the safety of their computer screens.
“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” he said of how he felt that day. Unfortunately, there are still plenty out there who’d wish worse on people they don’t even know.
Just thank God we have men like Anthony Casey brave enough and strong enough to push past that and find better days.
