AGAINST THE ODDS:FORTIFIED BY a large sausage sandwich smothered in mustard, two bags of cheese-and-onion crisps and a six-pack of stout, Vinny Fitzpatrick had just enough provisions to see out the final round of the US Open on Sunday.
As he chomped contently on his spicy sarnie, he observed with disdain the insect-like golfers in their dandy designer clothes, nibbling on nutrition bars and bananas, doing calisthenics between shots.
It was almost half-two in the morning when Vinny declared his innings over with an audible burp and tottered unsteadily up to bed, having witnessed an improbable sporting story unfold above the cliffs of the Monterey Peninsula.
Graeme McDowell might talk like someone who’d just stepped off the mid-Atlantic iceberg that sank the Titantic, but as far as Vinny was concerned he was one of Ireland’s own, a broth of a boy, with a welcome hint of a paunch in the Ikea golf world of flat-pack bellies.
McDowell was born on the island of Ireland, played in the Irish Senior Cup for Rathmore, won the Irish Close and represented Ireland as a pro in the World Cup. The Portrush native competed in a 32-county sport and his California daydream was an Irish win.
Not everyone felt the same. Macker had been in a texting frenzy all night, at one point labelling McDowell a Spelga slurper, much to Vinny’s distaste.
As the war of attrition heightened on the punishing back nine, Vinny had followed every McDowell drive, approach, chip and putt with the same intensity as if Pádraig Harrington or Paul McGinley had been chasing a major.
Like Barry McGuigan, Willie John McBride, Alex Higgins, AP McCoy or Rory McIlroy, the sporting achievements of Ulster’s finest fanned out to embrace, and thrill, all of Ireland, as far as Vinny was concerned.
Some narrow-minded folk didn’t share his view, which he couldn’t fathom. Macker, for example, would hold court in Foley’s on the magnetism of the Tyrone footballers yet was ambivalent towards the same county’s greatest golfer, Darren Clarke, or its master cue-man, Dennis Taylor.
Vinny believed everyone should get behind the sportsmen and women of this little ol’ island of ours, especially on the international stage, and that any political or religious beliefs didn’t matter when the bell rang, or the white line was crossed.
It was why he had cheered Billy Bingham’s Northern Ireland during the 1982 and 1986 World Cup finals, and why he had taken himself to his local cricket ground, Castle Avenue, that Thursday to see Ireland, captained by William Porterfield from Donemana, against Australia.
He had intended going solo, but his sister, Bernie, phoned to say her husband, who Vinny called Bungalow Bob because he had nothing on top, had got two tickets for the one-day international through his club, Knockharley, where he played infrequently for the third XIs.
“You take Bob off for the day and I’ll catch up with Angie and the twins,” said Bernie.
Vinny felt Bungalow Bob was a muppet, who blabbed on about the price of everything but knew the value of nothing. That he somehow thought Drogheda United could reclaim the summit in the League of Ireland was an example of how deluded he was.
When it came to the subject of cricket, Bungalow Bob also had more opinions than Geoff Boycott.
As they ambled down Mount Prospect Avenue, Bob warbled on about how 20/20 cricket was the saviour of the sport, that it was wrong for Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan to aspire to play for England, and that the national media had ignored the emergence of the Irish cricket team.
Vinny didn’t agree with Bungalow about 20/20, as he was a traditionalist who felt Test cricket was the supreme challenge; nor did he feel Joyce and Morgan should be blamed for trying to improve themselves.
As for the media, he felt newspaper coverage of Irish cricket had improved ten-fold. It was too early for an argument, so instead of pulling Bob for four, he padded up and played a dot ball.
Castle Avenue was en fete and Vinny barely recognised the ground from the one which he had graced – or disgraced – as a stalwart of the Foley’s Taverner’s XI many a summer’s evening.
Walking in, he’d been given a complimentary copy of that day’s paper of record, plus a video of Ireland’s World Cup success in the Caribbean in 2007, Breaking Boundaries. It was a flying start.
Taking a seat beside Bob in the stand beyond the mid-wicket boundary, Vinny heard voices from all corners of Ireland. “Macker wouldn’t approve,” he joked to himself.
There was a noisy crew from the North, another gang from the Mardyke, as well as hardy sons of the soil from Fingal and well-heeled chaps from private schools on the southside. “What other sport brings folk together like this?” he thought.
They had been drawn by the green baggy caps, just as Vinny’s late dad, Finbarr, over 70 years earlier, had when he snuck in to see the Australians play Ireland in College Park in 1938.
Vinny felt there was a strong subliminal connection between the nations. Four pillars of the Irish team in recent years, Jeremy Bray, Dave Langford-Smith, Trent Johnston and Alex Cusack, hailed from Down Under.
On the flip side, sons of Irish sons had shaped Australia’s success as a Test nation, among them Stan McCabe, the captain on their 1938 visit here, Bill O’Reilly, Jack Fingleton and Leo O’Brien.
More recently, Glenn McGrath and Simon O’Donnell could claim Irish ancestry. This Australian team contained Mike Hussey, who had to have an Irish connection.
While he missed two World Cup games for his Foley’s points coupon, Vinny had enjoyed the day, all seven hours of it, even if Ireland had allowed Australia wriggle off the hook.
Unlike the time Allan Border smashed five sixes in an over in a previous Aussie visit to Clontarf in 1993, there were only three sixes all day at Castle Avenue, one of which neither Vinny, nor Bungalow Bob, would ever forget.
It happened as Ireland chased down the Aussie total of 231 runs and involved captain Porterfield, whose slingshot carried the boundary, bounced up and caught Bungalow Bob unawares in the nether regions as he returned to the stand armed with two pints.
As Vinny suppressed a giggle at the sight of Bob, drenched in sticky stout and in some discomfort, he was reminded of David Coleman’s commentary in the 1973 FA Cup final when Sunderland scored against Leeds.
“Porterfield. One nil.”
Bets of the Week
3 ptsUSA to beat Algeria in World Cup (Evens, Betfred)
3 ptsMeath to beat Dublin in Leinster SFC (13/8, Paddy Power)
Vinny's Bismarck
1ptLay Andy Murray to win Wimbledon (7/1, general, liability 7pts)
