Send in the Clowns

BRIAN de SALVO on why being a small keeper is an increasingly tall order.

“How tall are you?”  I asked Dame Judi Dench.   “How tall do you want me to be?” she replied evenly.

To understand my impertinence you have to put the question in context.   Earlier in the day I had escorted a diminutive, stocky woman to the stage door of London’s National Theatre.     An hour later a slim, elegant Cleopatra walked on stage.   Yes, the wig and the costume must have helped but how did she do it?   Is simply believing enough? 

Last week end I was asking the same question of the young Cork Under 19 goalkeeper Dave Drinen.   “I don’t know,” was his equally even answer.   His height was not a stat he was prepared to consider sufficiently important to have on the tip of his tongue.   Tom Duffy’s Circus was in full cry behind his recently vacated goalmouth.   A suitable metaphor for what is currently happening to Irish domestic football.   

Mr Drinen may be only eighteen but he knew what informed my question.   Shay Given, at six feet, is the smallest keeper in the English Premier.   Clubs from across the water have instructed their scouts not to recommend keepers any smaller than Shay.   Where does that leave the three young goalkeepers I saw over the weekend?

On Friday I watched seventeen year old Sean Allen between the posts for Wexford Youths.   “There’s only one Sean Allen!” sang the Wexford glee club and, indeed there’s not much of him.   Slim in stature, well below spec in height, he was an unsettling doppelganger for me when I made my first senior appearance at a similar age.   The difference way back then was that the current England goalkeeper was Ron Springett, all of five feet nine inches tall and I was soon to compete against Peter Bonetti, who may have been five foot ten and a half but was built like a stick insect.

Now the fashion is for giants.   In my day some of these big keepers were about as mobile as the Hook lighthouse – big woodeners I’d call them and boast of my speed of reaction and agility.   But take a look at Gary Rogers in the St Patrick's Athletic goal, always a commanding presence and now so nimble footed and lighting fast to get down he’s a credit to his goalkeeping coach. 

If big keepers can now emulate the acrobatic qualities of their smaller rivals where does that leave Garry Comerford?   Really a central defender, he was pressed into service as Shamrock Rovers Under 19 keeper in Bishopstown, and proved an excellent fielder of high crosses.   Levitation was no problem for him but elevation, whether as keeper or central defender, might hinder his development.   He can’t be more than five feet ten inches tall.  

These teenagers are impressive young men.   I recall my own gaucheness in dealing with journalists.   These guys neither patronise me nor are they obsequious on account of age.   They are focused, coherent and surprisingly mature.   They know what they have to do to buck the trend in their chosen craft.   Like Dame Judi they believe.   But, unfortunately the administrators have just dealt their chances a serious blow by abolishing reserve team football for Airtricity League clubs.         

I suppose the unbaked idea is that young players can be recruited directly from the Under 19 squad for first team duty.   Some youngsters make that leap anyway.   But many more will not be ready.   They will need more time to mature, mentally and physically.   Now there is no reserve team, where will they find this next stage in their development?   Clubs will be forced to release them and they will disappear into a black hole in the structure of the domestic game.

Likewise senior squad players occupying the bench or returning from injury will have nowhere to maintain or regain match fitness.    And what happens to Chris Bennion, the experienced deputy to Rogers at Pats.   Pete Mahon may be forced to release him since he has no team in which to play him.   Would that make Bennion eligible to sue for constructive dismissal?

As I leave Bishopstown a donkey brays in the circus enclosure.   No sign of any clowns.   They must be all up in Dublin plotting the future.   As the professional game in Ireland becomes increasingly less viable, financially and administratively, why don’t they consult with the managers, the men charged with playing an impossible number of fixtures with an increasingly circumscribed squad, before making changes that can only further damage the game they are seeking to promote?