Blues Look To Create Their Own Poetry

Every Game A Vital Game by Bluebeard

(first published in the November 2010 Monaghan United play-off match programme)

Now looking back over the years,
And what ever else that appears
I remember I cried when my Blues lost
Never wishing to have cried the tears
Gilbert O’Sullivan – Alone Again (Nearly) about April 25th 1993…

For a fourth time this season, we play Monaghan; for a second time, we face Monaghan in a play-off. Presumably the bicycles will have been locked by the bus stops in twos and threes as the faithful from Paddy Kavanagh’s homeland come down to face us once more.

It is fitting that the only team we have failed to beat in the League this year are the last First Division team to stand between us and the ultimate playoff against Bray or Galway. Fitting too that it should come down to a single encounter, making it the single most important First Division game of the year: an Epic, by the standards of Homer’s Ghost, if you like. If we fail to beat Monaghan for a fourth time this year and a second time in the RSC, well we won’t deserve to go up.

The 1-0 defeat in Monaghan in April was perceived as a blip against our away bogey team by most of us. We’d won the previous six games and were cruising at the top of the table. Monaghan had become a tough team to topple at home in recent years, and a 5th minute goal from Cathal O’Connor put us behind, and we never got back from there, despite dominating possession.

The game in the RSC was a disappointment. We’d lost our last home game against them, but had hammered them 6-0 the time before in April 2009. After a Vinny Sullivan header was ruled offside, Monaghan scored another early goal. And then they scored a mad late one, Philly Hughes with his second, before Willie John scored an even later consolation goal. We were now 10 points behind and only second on goal difference from Monaghan and Limerick. Things were looking very bad.

The greatest insult was probably the last game. 2-0 up with an early goal (for us for a change) from Willie John and Vinny scoring just on the half hour. We were cruising, and then just after the hour, a harsh penalty made it 2-1, and a sequence of dreadful events followed to make it 4-2.

That was it, season seemed to be over as far as many fans were concerned. Moments to see wonders in the Premier Division grass for Monaghan, while we already seemed consigned to the Stoney Grey Soil of the First Division.

So much for appearances. Here we are tonight, second placed team in the Division, and now a couple of games from the Premier once more. Monaghan is the first hurdle though. What has gone before will count for nothing – it is how we play tonight that will count, not how we did in April, July or even a month ago.

So it is now time to go all out. Win this, we have a real shot at the Premier, regardless of how the first game goes. Lose it, we have a long winter and a longer summer in the First ahead. So, to paraphrase the words of the man who is in my opinion the great Waterford-born poet, an under-recognised challenger to Paddy K:

Nothing old, nothing new, nothing ventured
Nothing gained, nothing still-born or lost,
Nothing further than proof, nothing wilder than youth
Nothing older than time, nothing sweeter than wine
Nothing physically, recklessly, hopelessly blind
Nothing I couldn’t say
Nothing why ‘cos today
The Blues rhymed