Paul Fennessy

FOR THE majority of people, watching elite sport is primarily about escape.

Like music or cinema, people often engage with it as a way of switching off from life’s problems and indulging in a fantasy world for an hour or two.

In a recent episode of The Ringer podcast ’22 Goals,’ Brian Phillips used former Italian star Marco Tardelli’s famous celebration at the 1982 World Cup final as a means of exploring goal celebrations generally and what makes ordinary people so identify with certain professional athletes.

He explained: “What it comes down to, I think, is that we’re all trying, pretty much all the time, to figure out how to feel, what to think, how to interpret the world around us.

“Social media gives you the impression that most people are fiercely confident opinion machines who always know their own minds. But I don’t think most people are like that at all. I think most of us spend most of our lives feeling like we’re inside an ancient barrow hidden deep within a dark forest, and there are no instructions telling us where to go or what we’re meant to be doing here, and we’re looking for any hint that will help us avoid being eaten by a grue.

“And a goal celebration? It’s a clue. It’s a candle. It’s a guide to how to feel. Because of the sympathetic identification we feel with athletes, because of our openness to sharing their emotions, a goal celebration makes the joy of the goal more complete. It lets us take in their happiness, in the same way that we take in their athleticism, in the same way we take in their grace.

“If that sounds like overthinking, well, I was born with this doctoral dissertation inside me, and this is the moment when it happened to come out. But a good goal celebration helps unite you with other people during one of sport’s peak moments.

“It’s a little bit outside the game, but it’s also at the heart of the game.

“It makes you—it makes us—less alone.”

In journalist and author Matt Dickison’s excellent recently published book ‘Manchester United, the Treble and All That,’ he writes of the famous 1999 Champions League final where Manchester United scored two last-gasp goals to beat Bayern Munich.

The book interviews former Manchester United player Lou Macari, who was commentating on the final for Talk Radio.

Less than a month before the final, Macari’s youngest son Jonathan died by suicide at 19, after being released by Nottingham Forest the previous year.

On the outpouring of joy he experienced as the Red Devils scored their dramatic late winner, he explained: “For those two, three minutes you’ve got away from the tragedy you’ve gone through. You’re thinking about something else. People say you think about it day-in day-out, but you don’t, you can’t. You’d crack up, and that obviously must happen to a lot of people who experience a similar thing. Their life is torture.”

And on Tuesday night, during the greatest moment of her footballing life and Ireland’s history in women’s football, Amber Barrett had the humility to think instantly about other people and specifically those who lost loved ones recently.

The striker knelt down and pointed to her black armband seconds after scoring what turned out to be the winning goal, as a peak audience of over 600,000 people collectively held their breath amid a nerve-ridden conclusion that eventually saw Ireland get over the line.

In her post-match interview with RTÉ afterwards, the Donegal native elaborated on her mixed emotions.

“I know Creeslough like the back of my hand. Both my grandparents were Creeslough born and bred. I spent my whole upbringing there — summers and Christmases and every year, I go back from football to Creeslough.

“I know people that died in the tragedy, I know people who were affected by the tragedy. I know people who were first on the scene at the tragedy. I’ve not been able to put it into words in the last few days.

“This is the best day of my life in terms of what we’ve done for football. When you put it into perspective, we don’t scratch the surface of what happened over there on Friday.

“This result, this game, that goal, this award, I’m dedicating it to those 10 beautiful souls who unfortunately perished on Friday. For all their families. Because I know they touched their lives. They certainly touched ours. This is for Creeslough. This is for Donegal.”

Ireland and particularly those affected by the Creeslough tragedy will never forget what happened that day.

A football result is meaningless by comparison.

But Barrett’s words and actions will surely bring some comfort to those directly affected, as well as serve as a powerful reminder that they are not alone in their feelings of grief and sadness.

Even in the most euphoric moments where it’s easy to get swept up in the ecstasy of the occasion, there can be an underlying sense of melancholy, a recognition of life’s preciousness and our own mortality. Perhaps because emotions are so heightened, it is more commonplace than normal to experience these conflicting thoughts.

And Barrett’s words ensured that momentarily, hundreds of thousands of TV viewers had this precise sensation. 

As the legendary Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi once said: “Football is the most important of the less important things in the world.”

Rarely has that famous phrase ever been more apparent than Tuesday night. 

At its best, irrespective of personal circumstances, sport can make anyone, anywhere, feel less alone, if only for a moment.