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Continue reading →: Euros 2018 Nottingham – Final Postscript: Newton, Ibsen, Scorpions, Cultural Self-Stereotypes, Jerks & Good Fellas15 things I heard, read or reflected on in the days following the Euros. 1. Billy Jean is not my lover… This I heard former World Number 1 tennis player Billy Jean King say on a Desert Island Discs podcast and I like it. ‘Three of my principles in life…
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Continue reading →: Euros 2018 Nottingham – Day 3/4 ‘The familiar ebb and low and unfamiliar rise’So, a week late. An account of the last two days of the tournament. There are reasons. Always reasons.
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Continue reading →: Euros 2018 Nottingham – Day 2 ‘Herding Cows’Three seemingly unconnected things happened around the 1870s. Food refrigeration techniques for food were vastly improved. Transatlantic boat crossings became faster and safer with the advent of steamships. And, crucially, barbed wire was invented in the USA.
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Continue reading →: Euros 2018 Nottingham = Day 1‘Adversity is the first path to truth… Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.’ Lord Byron, writer, native of Nottingham. Out of the chaos of the playing gear fiasco,
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Continue reading →: Euros 2018 Nottingham – If you shave a tiger, does it still have stripes?Remember Andy Townsend? Chelsea and Aston Villa midfielder who played for, and captained, Ireland under the grandparent rule. He is actually to blame.
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Continue reading →: ‘Tom Hanks, Avengers, Philosophers & Gladiators’ – Senior Touch Championships, 2017: PostscriptScorned and covered with scars, we strove with our last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable star… to right the unrightable wrong… to fight the unbeatable foe… to run where the brave dare not go… to ride into hell for a heavenly cause… And lose. Again. We did.
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Continue reading →: Day 2 – Senior Touch Championships, Edinburgh 2017I’ve read a lot of sports psychology over the last year so I know this is basic stuff and I just have to accept I got it badly wrong. I should know better. I built things up too much in my head, put too much pressure on myself, and got…
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Continue reading →: Day 1 – Senior Touch Championships, EdinburghGame 1 vs England First match up was against England on the pitch I made my Ireland debut on in 2011… against England. This was the advice I got from a friend by text before that game. ‘Everything is going to happen at such speed you won’t realise what’s happening to…
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Continue reading →: Senior Touch Championships Edinburgh, 2017https://www.facebook.com/seniortouchchamps/ This time last year we had just lost in a drop off (extra time – each team down to 4 players) in the European Championship final to England…
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Continue reading →: Touch Euros 2016 – Final PostscriptA sporting rival I had in another sport, who I sort of liked and sort of didn’t, once said to me, ‘Think of anything that is meaningful to you in your life. It’s always shared in some way with people you care about.’ (I liked him when he said interesting things…



