James McClean won the RTÉ Sportsperson of the Year award on Saturday night. You know James McClean, don’t you?
The non-poppy-wearing, chest-thumping, rebel-song-singing Irish winger who scored that goal in Cardiff that one time that thrust Ireland into a World Cup play-off. You know him don’t you?
The guy that could barely speak following Ireland’s 5-1 loss to Denmark in the second leg of that World Cup play-off because he was so overcome with emotion.
The guy that wore the number five jersey against Wales in Dublin earlier this year to honour his former teammate Ryan McBride, who tragically passed away at the start of this year.
The guy who donated £1,000 (€1,200) to help pay for the funeral of two-year-old Ronan McGavigan, who died after he was struck by a car last year.
The guy that came to Cyrus Christie’s defence after he was racially abused.
Yes, that James McClean, won the RTE Sportsperson of the Year award and there has been some conjecture over the decision.
The confusion has looked a bit like this –
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‘Wait, if McClean has done all of that, what’s the problem with him winning?’
There is none.
‘Then what’s the big fuss about?’
Well, he scored that goal in Cardiff but it was only his second goal of the year. He actually picked up more yellow cards (4) than goals scored (2). Some people think that there were more deserving candidates.
‘Well, who was he up against for the award?’
Rena Buckley, Ryan Burnett, Joe Canning, Noelle Healy, Michael McKillop, Andy Moran, Conor Murray, Paul O’Donovan, Robbie Power, Jason Smyth, Katie Taylor and Joe Ward.
‘Where’s the Dublin players?’
The Dublin players?
‘Yes, the Dublin players. They became the first team since Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry sides of the 1980s to win three consecutive All-Ireland finals. They might just be the best Gaelic Football team ever. Surely they had at least one player nominated?’
No.
‘What? Did people not go mad?’
They did. They really did.
‘Hang on, wait a minute, how was that award decided again?’
Oh, just by public vote.
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As shocking as it may seem, the public tends to often vote with their hearts instead of their heads.
In 2006, Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen, PhD, and colleagues published a study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience describing the neural correlates of political judgment and decision-making.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the team examined the brain activity of 30 committed partisan men before the 2004 U.S. presidential election as they listened to positive or negative statements about their chosen candidates.
The researchers found that the brain areas responsible for reasoning did not show increased activity as participants drew their conclusions about the information. Instead, the brain areas controlling emotions lit up.
You think Irish sports fans are any different?
Dublin GAA fans, generally a very rational, considerate bunch of supporters that consider all sides of any argument involving their players, were uncharacteristically incensed that Con O’Callaghan was omitted from the Sportsperson of the Year award’s list of candidates.
You know Con O’Callaghan don’t you?
The guy that won an All-Ireland club SHC title, a U21 Leinster football title, a U21 All-Ireland football title, a Leinster SFC title, a All-Ireland SFC title, an All-Star award, the Young Footballer of the Year award, the Dublin club SHC title and a Leinster club SHC title in 2017.
Yeah, that guy. The man that scored goals in both the All-Ireland semi-final and final in his first full season of intercounty football.
Well he was omitted. No Gaelic Football player has ever won the RTE Sportsperson of the Year award in 32 years and neither Andy Moran or Con O’Callaghan were going to buck that trend in 2017.
Following O’Callaghan’s omission, it didn’t take long for the Dubs to come racing towards the gates of Montrose as fan pages TrueBlue@Hill16 and Hill 16 Army both sprinted to the home of moral outrage, Twitter, to protest the 21-year-old’s exclusion.
How is Con not nominated
O’Callaghans 2017 –
All-Ireland club SHC 🏆
U21 Leinster football 🏆
U21 All-Ireland football 🏆
Leinster SFC 🏆
All-Ireland SFC 🏆
All-Star ⭐
Young Footballer of the Year 🏅
Dublin club SHC 🏆
Leinster club SHC 🏆Andy Moran ?🤔🤔#rtesportsawards
— Fran Mallon (@FranMallon1) December 16, 2017
“How is Con not nominated? Andy Moran ??? #rtesportsawards,” TrueBlue@Hill16 wrote.
Nothing for our 3 In A Row Champions or the greatest Gaelic Football manager of recent times, Jim Gavin. Not even a nomination for the greatest GAA year in living memory from an individual, Con O'Callaghan. And nothing for Noelle or our Ladies. I give you the RTÉ Sports Awards
— AllIrishSport (@AllIrishSport) December 16, 2017
Hill 16 Army chimed in with: “Nothing for our 3 In A Row Champions or the greatest Gaelic Football manager of recent times, Jim Gavin. Not even a nomination for the greatest GAA year in living memory from an individual, Con O’Callaghan. And nothing for Noelle or our Ladies. I give you the RTÉ Sports Awards.”
O’Callaghan should have been nominated, and fans rushed to his defence, as fans are entitled to do, especially in this instance, but journalists should be impartial.
The fourth estate should be objective, and should not let emotion cloud their judgement, or at least that’s what they write on the board at college.
At the Philips Sports Manager of the Year awards earlier this month, one national newspaper journalist, from Dublin, refused to stand when Micheál Donoghue was awarded the manager of the year award in protest that Dublin manager Jim Gavin did not receive the honour instead.
In America, sports journalists are interviewing NFL players as to why they sit or kneel in protest of racial injustice. In Ireland, some choose to sit in protest that Jim Gavin did not receive a manager of the year award from a Dutch technology company. Arse about tit. It’s laughable.
Sport, and sport punditry in particular, is largely a game of opinions, but in Ireland, sports opinions are often tied into an intense sense of tribalism.
Some soccer fans look at hurling as stick fighting largely played by hardy bucks in some field ‘down the country’.
The GAA sometimes looks at soccer as this foreign invader that is coming to tear villages apart by luring young lads over to England to ruin their lives and to corrupt their minds with inordinate amounts of money.
They both look on at rugby as this sport for people who wear polo shirts with popped collars and for those who order copious amounts of Jägerbombs.
“Put it on the card there mate. Noice one!”
They’re all ridiculous stereotypes, but ultimately, sport can be so tribal in Ireland that judging any of these awards will always receive a large degree of criticism.
If RTE’s Greatest Sporting moments taught us anything, other than the fact that Barry McGuigan has incredible influence with the broadcaster, it’s that Irish people aggressively back those from their favourite sports.
Ruby Walsh was dragged over the coals, beaten, left out overnight in the cold and brought back inside and told to go and sit in the corner for suggesting that all of Ireland’s soccer achievements were overrated, and that we have a tendency to celebrate and glorify mediocrity.
Irish sports fans celebrate champions, and you don’t have to be a boxing, sailing or rowing enthusiast to appreciate and acknowledge the achievements of Katie Taylor, Annaliese Murphy or the O’Donovan brothers, Paul and Gary.
But these awards rarely actually celebrate the best, they award those that have resonated with the public for one reason or another.
In it’s 32 years of existence, James McClean is just the fourth soccer player to win the RTE Sportsperson of the Year award; following Packie Bonner, Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy.
Damien Duff, John O’Shea, Robbie Keane, Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran, Denis Irwin, Shay Given and countless others have never won the award.
McClean may not be as decorated as those players, and while he plays with passion and has proven to be a very decent human being outside of football, there’s no escaping the fact that the Sportsperson of the Year award has gone to a player that has accumulated more yellow cards than goals scored this year.
But, this particular award has been a farce since its inception in 1985.
No Gaelic Football player has ever won the award – from Eamonn Fitzmaurice right up to Con O’Callaghan – and just two hurlers – Henry Shefflin and Seán Óg Ó hAilpín – have ever received the honour.
Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara and Ralph Keyes – not Paul O’Connell, Keith Wood, Jonathan Sexton, Jamie Heaslip or Gordon D’Arcy (players that have either won or been nominated for World Rugby Player of the Year) – yes, Ralph Keyes – are the only rugby players to win the award.
Sonia O’Sullivan is a five-time winner of the award, and I don’t want to diminish her accomplishments, but at the same time, literally the same time, Roy Keane won seven Premier League titles with Manchester United, four FA Cups, a UEFA Champions League medal and just about single-handedly guided Ireland to the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
He won the award once, that should speak volumes about its credibility.
To shout at the television because your favourite sports star didn’t win an award that has been nonsensical for over three decades is just one step above shouting at the clouds because it has started to rain.
Fans are passionate, it’s essentially what makes sport the spectacle that it is, but awards shows historically deceive.
Goodfellas lost out to Dances with Wolves at the Oscars. Christopher Cross’s Christopher Cross took out album of the year at the Grammys instead of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Jerry Seinfeld was nominated for five Emmys with Seinfeld and never won once.
Great, great talents are snubbed all the time.
Fans should be able to voice their opinion and have a right to be heard, but remember that the winner by popular vote isn’t necessarily always the most deserving candidate, but at least it’s just sports, and not a realm where it actually makes a difference.
