Tuesday 24 January 2012

A coaching role

I know my posts are as few and fair between as an Andy Carroll goal (pause for laughter), but since I was last with ye I had the horrific experience of turning 29.

Now at the time I didn't notice any difference but from hanging around with college people who think 23 is pushing on, apparently all hope is lost for me. Allied to this was a Christmas spent at home with friends and family asking sympathetically was I still single. When I explained I was, they ruefully shook their heads and quietly patted me on the shoulder.

So having clearly past my sell by date without realising, I am retiring to the shelf, or wherever it is, to mind puppies. Before I do that though I would like to, as some sort of romance coach, offer my advice to all you young people on avoiding the mistakes I have made in the past, thus saving ye from the apparent untold horrors of being nearly 30 and single.

DO NOT break up with a gorgeous girl with the excuse, "The World Cup is on, and I won't have much time for you in the next month." With Euro 2012 coming up this year heed this warning lads.

DO NOT ask a girl was her hair a different colour the last time you seen her, when it clearly wasn't. Thats just simple science. You're just an idiot if you do.

DO NOT say no and continue to sleep on the couch when a girl asks you do you want to sleep in the single bed beside her, just because you want her to think you're a nice guy. You're not a nice guy. You're an idiot.

DO NOT watch 12, ( TWELVE ) episodes of Friends with a girl. She did not invite you over to the house and cuddle up beside you on the couch just to see what Chandler, Joey and the rest of the gang were up to. Equally DO NOT eventually try and kiss as she is just about to fall asleep. It's your own fault she fell asleep.

DO NOT headbutt a girl in bed. Many years ago I was mad about a girl and eventually one drunken night we ended up her place. One thing led to another and as we were about to kiss, I, in my exuberance, moved forward too quickly and headbutted her knocking the girl out of the bed. She laughed, I cried, nothing ever happened.

DO NOT ask a girl does she "come here much?". I did. I'm embarrassed for me.

Yep, these are a few instances of why I'm currently very single, and believe me there are many more, so take these nuggets of wisdom and everyone should be ok!

Monday 31 October 2011

The Scoring Drought

Its been a while since I posted. Five months in fact. Five long months.

Something has occurred in those five VERY long months since I was last whimpering on about sport and sex. I discovered something. I discovered I have a gift when it comes to women. Oh yes, since Cormac was last with you things have changed........ I have had even worse luck with women!!

You see my gift is my ability to be completely repellent to women. I am the Donegal football team of dates. The Roger Clemens of Shut-outs. If should take up tennis professionally such is my inability to find love.

In fact I am willing to offer my services as an umpire for the Mayo Ladies GAA team free of charge because the way things are going at the minute, their opponents wouldn't come within thirty feet of the goals I am standing at!

Now believe me I have tried to fix this problem. I have decided, you know what, maybe sticking with sport might help me overcome my current streak of bad luck/complete and utter uselessness.

My travels and work have taken me to soccer, gaelic, rugby, camogie, hurling matches, even to snooker halls, but no luck anywhere. I have gone to junior hurling matches, eager to impress the Ladies with my knowledge of junior B Kildare Hurling. No luck there. In fact no women there either.

I resorted to the tried and trusted Croke Park-Quinns-Flannery's-Coppers on a summer Sunday, but Mayo didn't even get to play any teams from Ulster this year which upset me greatly. Its a well known fact that the best looking female supporters all come from Mayo, and the Ulster counties. Except Fermanagh. (Not sure why Fermanagh, maybe they just don't have enough practice of big match days....)
Yes I missed the chance to try and charm a lovely Northern lass with my sweet, lilting  dull, flat accent. It was very upsetting I must say. Dublin winning the All-Ireland was just a disaster, with all those scary, mental Dublin women around. And not even the good Donegal/Limerick kind of mental women.

No it has been a cruel time for Cormac recently, to such an extent that he has starting to refer to himself in the third person again. Even going back to college and reprising my role as manager of the college soccer team has failed to halt my slump. Imagine, women seem to be more interested in Sigerson footballers and rugby scholarship players than the manager of an Inter-varsity winning college soccer B team!
I'm in shock about that one myself, and worse the only ones scoring are our opponents. 13 goals conceded in 3 games by my team this season - not that I'm counting. Oh for those happy carefree Coleraine days once more...

So with my managerial job on the line and my....whisper it... 29th birthday mere weeks away, I must try and somehow figure out where its all gone wrong. I'll be sure to let ye know how I get on.....

(I'll probably just drop my defenders)

Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Line Up

Well I'm back with my rambling thoughts on love and sport. Recently many of you good people have pointed out to me- Cormac, when the fuck do you go on these dates that you talk about? And to that I say, "Clean up your language Mister, you've got a bad attitude."


But yes, it is rare that I would actually subject myself to the horrors of actually going on a date, as I am as useless at chatting with women as Man Utd are at facing Barcelona in a European Cup Final. And, as I have said previously, the bloody things are anathema to most Irish men, and well, the fact that my social misadventures do not lend themselves to me meeting many women.


You see lately my idea of a night out is going to the front bar of the Roost as early as is possible, drinking as much Guinness as is humanly possible (I think six is the world record), and then stumbling home, alone. For those of you who might not know of the joys of the front bar of the Roost in Maynooth, it is one of those wonderful establishments where there is always a fire going and you can sit down and talk as much shit as you want to the oul fella next to you at the bar without the fear of an actual woman even entering the premises. And if you have no idea about what shite you're talking, all the better.Plus Reeling In the Years is always on the telly.


As wonderful as this is, it does preclude me from meeting many women and thus my lack of dates. But on a few rare occasions I do manage to stumble into one of those godforsaken pubs or nightclubs that actually encourage women onto their premises. 
In these places, it appears that some men in fact go out to try and score women, and not spend their nights arguing about how many All-Ireland football titles Dublin have actually won (it's only five). No, these cads and bounders actually go out of their way to chat up women. But they don't all do it the same way. Oh no. Funnily enough in fact, there are almost as many different techniques that men use to snare a woman as there are positions on a GAA team! 
So here is my line-out, and mark my words, next time you're out and you cast a beady, drunk eye around the nightclub at these brave souls, you will reflect that, you know what....maybe I should go to the bar for another drink.


GOALKEEPER;The lone wolf of the team, he has no problem heading off on his own, leaving the team-mates behind and is known to face down teams of attackers/ hen parties single-handedly. They say you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper, but you have to be a bit creepy as well to do what he does.


CORNER-BACK; This lad likes to mark his target early in proceedings and will shadow them for the rest of the night. Not adverse to the dark arts of wandering across to the easy target, getting them hammered drunk and making sure they leave before the final whistle.


FULL BACK; Happy to settle on the edge of the square/dance-floor and will gleefully accept any marker, no matter the size.Not known for dancing feet.


HALF-BACK; Classier than the corner back, can be good at going forward but sometimes doesn't like to stray too far from safety. Often hangs back waiting to clean up any breaking ball. Usually seen close to the more confident midfielder at the bar.


MIDFIELDER; Like any good man in the middle on the pitch, this lad lets the action come to him. The whole package, not necessarily always the biggest man, but generally knows exactly what the situation requires everytime.Handy to have at the bar too.


HALF FORWARD; The forager, this man will clean up any breaks that are going, even those dropped by midfield. Usually spotted in the dying minutes of the night, ready to pounce when others are tiring and their guard is down. Supermacs equals extra-time for this man.


CENTRE HALF FORWARD; The class act. Doesn't generally need to go looking for the loose ball, slick and savvy, knows when to score and is a great help to his team-mates. Will often be seen covering the star performer on the opposition team.


CORNER FORWARD; Puts in a lot of groundwork, and is generally a key help to his team-mates, but unfortunately doesn't always get on the score-sheet himself. Always the first to get hauled off if there is a sign of trouble anywhere i.e. any messing and the small man is the first out the door. On the good days though can rack up some serious scores.


FULL FORWARD; The Jaeger"Bomber" generally has a good eye for scoring and regularly trots out the mantra that "every hole is a goal". Often playing through the pain-barrier with "injuries". And yes, these injuries are contagious.


P.S. Before you ask which position best describes my seduction techniques....its probably the SUBSTITUTE; Good in training but can't transfer it onto the pitch when it matters!

Tuesday 10 May 2011

The Truth

It has been a while since my last post, but you can forgive me hopefully, as I was busy researching for my latest instalment. The best possible way to research of course is drink plenty (not two-stroke petrol though, that's just silly, but you know who you are), watch ridiculous amounts of sport and give out about women with standards. So with all the excitement/trepidation of Daniel Timofte about to take a penalty, I will once more enlighten you all with my meandering thoughts and findings!


Aside from this exemplary research the past couple of weeks have proven to me once again (and this is hardly ground-breaking news to anyone of you), that sport and the art of chasing/wooing a woman have one very big factor in common. Lies.


Yes ladies and gentlemen, its true.....Lying is the bedrock of everything we do. As players and spectators of sport, we lie to ourselves all the time, be it from our state of fitness, to our stringent denials about being on the beer before a match to kidding ourselves that this year will be our teams year (which is ever more true if you, like me, support the twin terrors of Liverpool and Mayo...).


The thing is that while we will lie in sport to make ourselves feel better or just to win an argument, we will tell even worse lies once it comes to the opposite sex. Be they from telling someone that you won the 7.15 race that night at the Punchestown Festival (in my defence she was very good looking, and it wasn't me that started the untruth. But I digress), to lying about how someone looks, we will truly say anything to get se.....to hold hands- even if it is just for one night. In fact especially if it is for just one night.


You lie to yourself that that girl was looking at you, or that you had a chance with the hot blonde, or that surely there is no way that she can fail to be impressed by me just standing there staring at her!


But it is not just lads that are the worst offenders. Oh no. Have you ever heard a girl describe her friends to a guy? It is amazing how gorgeous looking every woman's friend is, isn't it? This is also where the absolute nightmare that is the blind date comes into play. When you're a single lad with female friends, you are ripe for these lies. And as bad and all as we know "dating" can be, a blind date is ten times worse. The problem is that they already know something about you, so you can never be sure what lies you can get away with this time....

Wednesday 20 April 2011

The Dating Game



I understand sport, I don't understand women.


As alien as training is to your average junior C footballer, or a system other than 4-4-2 is to soccer teams in this country, I believe that dating is even more of a mystery to the Irish male.
Now maybe I'm just being cynical, but I truly believe that many of the ills of our society are down to American television and its tentacles which have wrapped their way around the minds of all young people in Ireland and across the world.
Of course American television has brought many, many good things to this world, (the Olsen twins to name but two), but it has also resulted in ridiculous expectations being placed on our menfolk by women, and in particular with regard to relationships.
Dating is probably the most prevalent of these expectations, and lets face it most Irish men are as about as useful as Peter Stringer in the front row of a scrum when it comes to this ritual.
First of all, its not the way we were brought up....nothing our fathers went through in their heyday can really prepare us for the trauma of a "date". I mean can you imagine being sat down by your père and being guided through the minefield of what constitutes a good date.... Not happening is it?
The question remains, are Irish men suited to going on a date? Sure some of the finer members of my brethren take to it like a duck to water but I think many of us are programmed to the more gentile forms of finding women....getting plastered and getting a shift, followed by a number at the end of the night, and seeing where that goes. Hardly classy but its seems to have worked in the past and why can't that continue?
But no, now its all about dating and trying to make the perfect date, and trying to work out should I met her there or collect her and bring her to wherever there is. The cinema, the pub, a restaurant, geo-caching????
The first date is really the equivalent of pre-season training for men- not something that we want to do, we probably feel we don't really need it, but know in the back of our minds that its best to get it over and who knows it may be of benefit to us later on in the season.....  

Monday 18 April 2011

In love with Sport

Birds do it, bees do it, apparently even the educated Siphonaptera do it. Yes everyone is blogging, or so it would seem anyway. So to jump on the bandwagon that already looks like an overcrowded train at rush hour in Tokyo, I have decided to join the much heralded blogosphere.

I suppose the title of the blog does obviously indicate that sports are a passion, and you wouldn't be far wrong. In fact they are probably more of an obsession to be fair. Having said that though, this blog will hopefully be more than just my thoughts on the latest action from La liga, the Rugby World Cup, the World Snooker Championships or indeed the latest round of Speedway, but I will also be writing about something of which I have absolutely no clue.......women.

You see I am a 28 year singleton with a lousy track record with women and given that I do admire them very much and would enjoy meeting more of them to perhaps distract me from the latest round of the Alpine Skiing World Cup or the Premier League Darts race, I will also be writing about my (most likely futile) attempts at finding love. Or even a snog every now and again. Don't worry names shall remain nameless if you will!! 

Anyway I hope that it will prove entertaining enough that you may want to read more or even tell your friends about it.

Chat soon,

Cormac.