Eimear Ryan: The emotional difficulty of being the sub goalkeeper
CORK'S FINEST: Caoimhín Kelleher during a Republic of Ireland training session.
One of the realest moments on Patrick Kielty’s (already quite down-to-earth) Toy Show debut arrived when Stevie from Kilkenny took the stage. You’ll remember Stevie as the young fella in the rugby jersey who sang ‘Ireland’s Call’ and got to meet Bundee Aki and Peter O’Mahony. But first, he highlighted a fun fact in The Book of Irish Sporting Heroes, a gorgeous book for sporty kids written by Adrian Russell (of this parish) and illustrated by Graham Corcoran. ‘You’re on page 89,’ Stevie gleefully told the host.
Kielty took over, reading not exactly verbatim from the book: ‘The Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty was the substitute goalkeeper on the Down All-Ireland minor-winning team [in 1987],’ he said ruefully. ‘He also played the next two years when they won absolutely nothing.’ In that moment, Kielty was not a successful TV presenter making a decent fist of helming a cultural juggernaut on his first go: he was a teenager again, right back in that minor dressing-room, pulling on the number 16 jersey.
