It would be immoral for a calendar year to end without the Irish sporting public selecting the pre-eminent beard of the calendar year.
2016 has been a great year for sport but a terrible year for human civilisation and in truth it has only been an average year for the Irish sporting beard. For many years, we here at Balls have presented our annual Beard Bracket, generally a list of the best 16 or so beards in Irish sport (Past winners include John Muldoon and the current Sligo goalkeeper). The beard, however, is not the symbol of manly power that it once was in Irish sport.
This year, rather than venerate less inspired efforts, we have selected two exemplary beards that still prove to the sporting world that nobody beards like an Irish sportsman. We want you to select the best beard of the year.
Big Damo O’Connor
In terms of sheer volume, Belfast’s Big Damo O’Connor boasts a beard that simply cannot be matched. In fact, the NXT beast owns a beard so epic that it has surely earned him honorary membership in the Dubliners.
Big Damo’s beard is everything a sporting beard should be: audacious, full-bodied, and complex. For what it’s worth, this contest has never been won by a professional wrestler but O’Connor’s intimidating effort is arguably Ireland’s greatest ever sporting beard.
Richie Foran
Twelve months ago, no one would have ever expected Richie bleeding Foran of all people to be competing for Ireland’s best sporting beard, but safe to say Foran has shocked the world with the beguiling, sideburnless Amish Country goatee he’s been sporting this season. Foran’s beard has been the talk of Inverness and Scottish football this winter, and though, citing Freud, he claims that sometimes a beard is ‘just a beard’, such majestic facial hair could only come from a truly personal and beautiful place.
Richie Foran is VERY TIRED of people asking about THE BEARD. @stvsport @ICTFC pic.twitter.com/7FZM4Pvrz3
— Chris Harvey (@ChristopherHarv) December 2, 2016
Richie Foran's beard😂👏 pic.twitter.com/C1sINSUCDW
— Scott Bradley (@ScottBradleyX) December 24, 2016
