We in the Balls office are admitting to feeling some jealousy towards Tipperary football supporters on the road to Croker this afternoon: a first All-Ireland semi-final in eons (1935 marked their last appearance, to be precise) brings with it that heady mix of excitement, anticipation, hope and fear that feeds a year-round obsession with Gaelic games.
Ahead of the game, and to mark one of the most remarkable football storylines in years, Michael Foley has written a superb profile sketching the obscurity from which the Tipp footballers have arisen in the last couple of years.
One of the scenes stood out to us, a frankly comic scene involving John Evans' rounding up players to form a team:
Conor Sweeney was cornered outside his father's milking parlour and cajoled into playing football. Michael Quinlivan was talked out of a soccer contract. One player met him in the doorway of his home with a plate of curry in one hand and a fork in another. "What do you want with me?", he asked Evans.
That's the kind of montage that prefaces the heroic tale of the underdog in cinema.
It remains to be seen whether Tipp can apply the ending Hollywood would assign. It all throws in at 3.30pm.
Also, we advise you to read the full piece in today's Sunday Times, it's very good.
[The Sunday Times]
