This is the age of the Goalkeeper in the GAA.
There was a time when the Gaelic football goalkeeper was a humble creature, who knew his allotted place and the confines of his role. His job involved executing the odd save when called upon, but his primary activity was lamping the ball into the middle of the field in the general direction of a beanpole midfielder.
Nowadays, their role has been thoroughly re-imagined. Goalkeepers are now all-action creators. It often seems these days there is a dwindling minority of teams who don't ask their goalkeeper up to have a pop at long-range frees. Kicking 45s appears to be part of the job spec. Any aspiring goalie would need to throw '45 taking' on his CV.
But even back in the conservative era, there were goalies who stood apart from the norm. These were the restless, flamboyant eccentrics.
Yesterday, Sigerson Cup-winning midfielder Paul Courtney appeared in goals for Armagh and bemused the GAA community with his gloveless, maverick behaviour against Cavan (which included several lung-bursting runs up the field in the vein of former Antrim shotstopper Paddy Murray) it got us reminiscing about the moments when our beloved GAA netminders have proved the truth of that old adage: goalkeepers are nuts.
Stephen O'Keeffe's kamikaze save vs Anthony Nash
June 2014 and a Munster hurling quarter-final replay at Thurles. Cork are awarded a first-half penalty and goalkeeper Anthony Nash steps up to try to put one past his opposite number. For most normal people, having to stand in front of a Nash penalty would elicit a reaction consisting mainly of trembling, shaking and general begging for mercy.
Not Waterford goalkeeper Stephen O'Keeffe. O'Keeffe met the challenge (quite literally) head-on, throwing his body in front of Nash's shot in an act of heroism that resembled that of King Harold in Shrek 2. Unfortunately for the Ballygunner man, his efforts were to no avail as Cork ran out easy winners. The madness descends at 1:09 below.
Shane Curran on the rampage...
Shane 'Cake' Curran, legendary GAA goalkeeper and wannabe politician, could probably have his own list of madness if only every game he ever played in was filmed. Curran was a player whose madness and brilliance seemed intertwined, and the big St Brigid's man's tendency to engage in marauding runs up the pitch perhaps inspired Courtney in Breffni at the weekend.
Here Curran, playing for St. Brigids in the 2013 Connacht final, displays an impressive burst of pace only to subsequently collapse like a tranquilized bear and prompt the hilarious sight of referee Marty Duffy and the team physio trying in vain to drag the stricken Cake off the pitch, sending the commentators into convulsions of laughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IsbWFZPh0Q
...and again
The last thing Peader Glennon expected as he stepped up to take a crucial penalty in the dying stages of the 1989 Connacht Minor Football Final was the arrival of the Cake steam train to steal the (brief, Galway complained and got a replay which the Rossies won) glory. Word is that Glennon was instructed to tap over for a point, and a draw. When Cake got wind of this, he took matters into his own hands. Granted, Curran was actually playing as a forward that day, but it was a sign of things to come when he would make the move into goals. 11 seconds in below.
... and
Perhaps the most left-field stunt of Curran's career (and that is no small claim to make) was the one he pulled in advance of the 2003 Connacht championship match against Galway in Salthill.
The two captains that day were the two goalies, Cake himself, for the Rossies, and Alan Keane for Galway. This necessitated a pre-match handshake with his opposite number.
In an ingenious move, Curran decided to slather his gloves in vaseline. In the pre-match formalities, he gripped Keane's gloved hand with 'great sincerity' and then jogged back to his goal, whipping off his own vaseline covered gloves and popping on a substitute pair.
Ideally, the trick would have gone unnoticed until such time as a high ball dropped in on top of Keane. In a perfect world, disaster would strike.
However, Galway cottoned on the trick just before throw-in and a second pair was summoned. John O'Mahoney was furious.
Davy Fitz's penalty, hop of joy and mad sprint for home
Before it became more common for hurling goalkeepers to scorch penalties past a fearful back three, Davy Fitzgerald had a crack at one against Limerick in the Munster final of 1995. It duly hit the net, and Davy allows himself a moment of brief jubilation before remembering whereabouts on the field he is and absolutely pelting it back up the pitch as fast as his legs could take him. Tune in at 0:42 below.
Paddy O'Rourke absolutely mills some poor fecker
Paddy O'Rourke charges out of defence with a one-armed carry Shane Horgan would be proud of and is approached by Westmeath's Kieran Martin, who is presumably intent on slowing down the play, perhaps placing himself in the way of Meath's giant goalkeeper and maybe posing some gentle resistance to Paddy's charge. What Martin didn't expect was that O'Rourke would flick the ball over his head and perform a move that would be outlawed in the WWE. A moment of craziness from the Skryne man.
So there you have it, and the pity is that we do not have footage from around the country of every Junior B 'goalkeeper' who has had to tog out last minute to make out the numbers and spends the match smoking, talking to the umpire and shouting 'wide ball' every time a ball goes blatantly over the bar. We are sorry we can't show videos of every failed corner-back, reluctant spectator and family pet who has ended up 'filling in' in goals over the years. All we can do is appreciate the curious, misunderstood, often lonely group known as 'goalkeepers' for what they truly are: as mad as a bowl of cats.
