It was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday afternoon at a point-to-point meeting in the Irish countryside.
I was reminded about it during my conversation with Brian Wilson when he revealed that former Workington mayor, Councillor and Alderman Jack Miller had died six weeks ago.
Back then, in the early 1990s, we were on a stag weekend in Dublin from the Miner’s Arms in Workington.
Saturday had been spent at Leopardstown races and then afterwards in the city being shown some of the late night watering holes by a rather strange guy who was, allegedly, a fugitive from the IRA!
Despite a few sore heads in the morning the general consensus we should go to a point-to-point meeting in the afternoon somewhere outside the city.
We caught a train to Bray but that’s where it terminated and the point-to-point meeting was some 20 miles further on and the only way of getting there was by taxi.
As we emerged from the station there was a shout from behind “Walshie, how are you?”
When I looked round it was Jack Miller, on a weekend break with his wife and it was the first time we had met up since he moved to the Warrington area.
Jack sympathised with out plight and suggested we might go and watch the football match which was taking place that afternoon – Bray Wanderers v Athlone Town.
That suited myself and Kenny Wallace, but nobody else seemed keen so they took off to a snooker/pool parlour which actually overlooked the Bray ground.
Well, what can I say about Irish club football? It was certainly different!
The referee seemed to know and refer to all the players by their Christian names. They kicked lumps out of each other, yet no-one was booked or sent off.
Anyone who went down in a challenge was quickly told to get up – by referee, team-mate and opposition alike.
Everything was knocked long and became an aerial battle. They needn’t have used the grass.
It was 1-0 (and I can’t even remember who won it) but I know Kenny and I regularly just looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief.
The overriding feeling was, though, that the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the contest – very vocal as you can imagine – and engrossed in the whole 90 minutes.
When we met up with the rest of the lads they clearly had a good time playing pool/snooker – but I’m sure it didn’t compare to what we had just witnessed.
