That was a lively old sporting weekend, but perhaps the one let-down was the All-Ireland Intermediate final between An Ghaeltacht and Glenullin. After 50 minutes, the score was the same as the concluding one in Manchester City’s FA Cup win over lowly Exeter: 10-1. And it didn’t get a whole lot livelier or more competitive after that.
TG4 had reminded Glenullin manager Michael O’Kane before the game how he had described his club reaching the final as “the best Christmas you ever had since you got a Nintendo 64” games console, but by full-time he must have felt like he’d found a pair of socks under the tree.
On top of that, a fair chunk of the TG4 audience might possibly have made emergency calls to pest control after hearing an incessant threatening buzzing din in their livingrooms, before realising that Croke Park was actually filled with the sound of vuvuzelas. It took us back to the World Cup in South Africa in summer 2010, but not in a good way.
While O’Kane might have rued not getting more out of his players, or encouraging them to be a tad more adventurous by moving in a forwards direction, Macclesfield’s players could have no complaints about manager John Rooney’s motivational skills for their third-round FA Cup tie.
“He told me last week I was two stone overweight and my best foot was my head,” captain and man of the match Paul Dawson informed the BBC after the non-league side knocked out cup holders Crystal Palace. He clearly, had, then, been inspired by that tribute.
Macclesfield manager John Rooney celebrates the team’s 2-1 victory over FA Cup holders Crystal Palace. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty
Wayne Rooney, on punditry duty, was in tears, so happy was he for his brother John, and he even graciously batted away the crowd singing “you’re just a s**t John Rooney” on a loop while he stood at the side of the pitch.
On Sunday, come full-time at Old Trafford, the Brighton and Hove Albion faithful might have been tempted to croon “you’re just a s**t Ruben Amorim” in the direction of caretaker gaffer Darren Fletcher after they knocked his Manchester United crew out of the tournament.
Before the game, TNT Sport’s Laura Woods had a chat with Owen Hargreaves and Steve Sidwell – and it had a Groundhog Day feel about it, ie where do United go now? “It’s so important that they get this decision right,” Owen said of the choice of next manager, something he’s been saying for 10 years or more now. Plus ça change, and all that.
Owen shifted uncomfortably, though, when Woods asked him for his thoughts on Roy Keane’s suggestion that Alex Ferguson was hanging around the club “like a bad smell”. Owen is a nice man who loves everyone, so he was never going to say: ‘Yeah, the old man is stinking the place out’.
But he stopped short of saying that Fergie should be given the interim job until the end of the season. Which actually wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. Imagine. “Dalot? Oot the door. Now. Ugarte? Any chance o’ passin’ tae a team-mate? Mainoo? Yer nae Zidane.”
Manchester United interim manager Darren Fletcher after the 2-1 defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
Game time and there was Nicky ‘Butty’ Butt and Paul ‘Scholesy’ Scholes sitting beside Fergie in the stands, a show of loyalty that means neither is likely to be invited on The Overlap again. Keane, as we know, doesn’t forgive easily.
And there was a Darren Fletcher in the commentary box and another Darren Fletcher in the dugout. “Since he got this caretaker job, I’ve had six-a-half-thousand brand new Instagram followers because they seem to think they’re following me and not him,” TNT Darren said. “To be quite frank, it was the only way you were going to get them,” Ally McCoist replied.
United Darren was 41 when he was appointed interim manager on Monday, he was 63 by the time he finished watching his team lose to Brighton and Hove Albion. “United are like a big ocean liner just meandering around the high seas with nobody sat in the crow’s nest to see where they’re going,” TNT Darren said. Yet again, they’d hit the rocks.
“What does the new manager need when he’s appointed,” Woods asked Sidwell post-match. He didn’t say “a miracle”, but he was thinking it.
But the upshot of Sunday’s defeat, of course, is the new interim/permanent supremo can now focus on the battle to qualify for next season’s Europa Conference League.
And the way things are going, that achievement would be up there with getting a Nintendo 64 for Christmas back in the day.