It’s like shopping for a confirmation suit with your mum. You spot a banger but there’s no way you’re wearing it.
Hurlers and footballers encounter similar frustrations. The impediment, on far too many occasions, is that pesky county board official.
We caught up with Littlewoods Ireland GAA ambassador Jackie Tyrrell at Croke Park today and he provided an amusing insight into how the Kilkenny players wind up with their All-Ireland Final suits. He said:
“The county board used to always pick it out. I would have rathered to pick out my own but it was the county board.
“In fairness, they always used to go for the slim-fit now so all the lads used to be happy.”
The Cats were far too busy focusing on collecting Liam MacCarthy trophies than worrying about their rig-outs for Croker and the post-match meal.
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For the Kerry footballers, their senior players have more of a say… or so they thought. Kingdom forward Colm Cooper once told us that the team captain had the responsibility of picking out the suits for the big day.
Former Kerry teammate Paul Galvin offered further insight. He told The GAA Hour:
“It was more of a committee. There are about three or four lads together and they go to the local [shop] like Sean Hussey’s in Tralee. And a county board official comes along. AND a Kerry Group official comes along.
“The three players will pick out this suit and the county board official and Kerry Group official will pick out this suit. Sean Hussey will no, ‘No, no. I think the boys suit. We’ll go with that’.
“And we all go away thinking it is our suit and we show up at the hotel, on the day, and it is the other suit. Really it’s nothing to do with the players, in truth.”
Grown men, it seems, can’t always be relied on to make their own decisions.
Michael Lundy joins Wooly for a wide-ranging discussion that starts with a chat about Ger Loughnane, dodgy transfers and Davy Fitzgerald’s training methods. Subscribe here on iTunes.
