It was the day I’d been dreaming about since the idea was announced: meet and greet the players day at Casement Park. The chance to get up and close with the elite physical specimens in the entire country was too alluring to turn down. I already had an invitation to attend the opening of a brothel at Tate’s Avenue but it was relegated to second place when I heard of this venture.
I was slightly disappointed when I arrived. I estimated 45’000 were queued up outside the ground, stretching the whole way towards Glengormley. It was a little soul-destroying to join the end of the line and that feeling worsened when sporadic fighting broke out over the next five hours for various reasons. There were knifings, gun shots and at one point the PSNI had deployed four helicopters to oversee the violence. The man in front of me was done with the stun gun for urinating in the garden of a house in Broadway.
The husbands of McCann’s female Angolan following also wait their turn to see him.
Finally, the time arrived when I danced through the gates of Casement Park. Unfortunately, the lads were physically and mentally exhausted by the time I’d arrived and a little irritable I thought. I went over to Magill to get my thigh signed by him and he told me to ‘get the freaking hell out of my face’ which initially shocked me but I soon mellowed as how could you be angry at a face like that. In the goalmouth, Kerr was doing free face-painting for U5s. In the knowledge that he was sitting on a plastic chair for hours on end in the increasing cold night, the Casement bar staff had been supplying him with bottles of stout to ease the pain.
It turns out that this was a bad idea. Kerr was rightly inebriated after the second hour and had veered from the agreed face painting choices. Children were seen screaming in terror when he held the mirror up to show them the fruits of his labour. A young girl who’d asked him for Rapunzel got some horrific angry devil attempt, complete with blood dripping from her rotted fangs. It not only terrified the child but the parents refused to take the child home, leaving the young girl in a crumbled heap on the 45. On other occasions he simply painted the children black and said ‘there ye go, Theo Walcott’. It was a nightmare scenario for the parents. Their children wanted their faces painted and to meet the legendary Kerr, but they knew the outcome could see them return as Freddy Krueger or ET.
This young boy asked for Batman.
At the other end of the field there was great commotion. Tomas McCann’s line was swamped with barely clothed women of all nationalities. Bitch-fights were breaking out every second minute as throngs of men left their bar stools in Biddy’s or the Whitefort to watch the scraps unfold in front of an oblivious McCann from the stand. Tomas was asked to leave his signature on every imaginable body part which he did with great composure. It was a who’s who of young women. Holly Sweeney, Nadine Coyle, Christine Bleakley and Eoghan Quigg were all chomping at the bit to meet the little Adonis. In contrast to that, Aodhan Gallagher’s line saw the likes of Pamela Ballentine, Wendy Austin, Sue Ramsey, Dana and Alex Attwood wait patiently for his company. He attracts a different beast.
Gallagher’s line had a fusty smell.
All-in-all, I got want I wanted. Bam Neeson give me a round-kick when I asked him for a kiss and that made my day. I feel we’re one big family now. I didn’t see Baker Bradley but rumour was he was queuing up in Tomas’ line too dressed as some slag from Strabane. Weird one that.
Hitting The Bar 