Sporting moments define our lives to a large extent. They run on a calendar basis so we know that every four years there is a World Cup, every other four there is an Olympics and in between we have a European Championships.
At home every year our Gaelic footballers and hurlers battle it out to create memories that will last a lifetime in the All Ireland Championships.
Those of a certain age remember FA Cup Finals as beacons of a sporting paradise, mainly because they were the only game broadcast live to a TV audience from the world of English football. It was before the days of the Premier League. Before Messi, Ronaldo and even Robbie Brady.
The GAA Head of Communications will speak to our Unleashing Content event at RTÉ today about the impact that releasing archive footage of games long past has had in terms of stirring memories and locking fans ever tighter to the sport of their choice.
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Sport for Business Membership provides information, innovation and intelligence to over 200 of Ireland’s leading organisations in sport and business including the FAI and BDO. Here is a look at what we do
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History can sometimes be a rod. Last weekend England celebrating winning the World U20 Championships, their first triumph at that level since 1966.
Last Friday in Dublin we celebrated our own piece of history at that age group in football when BDO brought together the players and management from Ireland’s run to third place in the forerunner of that tournament the FIFA World Youth Championship of 1997.
“It was a chance to highlight the achievement of those Malaysia Marvels,” said BDO Partner Ciaran Medlar. “To look back on a team that travelled more in hope but that came close to stunning the world.”
Brian Kerr was the manager of a talented group of players that included Damien Duff and three players from the League of Ireland representing Shelbourne, Athlone Town and UCD.
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Find out more about our next major event looking at the impact of Sport for Social Good in September 2017.
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Who knows with the advent of stronger national leagues at U15 as well as U17 and U19 we could yet relive those halcyon days.
Duff will play his part again having taken over management of the U15 team at Shamrock Rovers alongside his pundit duties with RTÉ.
The great thing about history is that it makes us hungry for more of the good stuff and teaches us lessons about how we can avoid the bad. Friday was a case of the former and while Brian Kerr’s shirt was something we might not want to remember the rest of the day certainly was.
Here is a trip down memory lane from an RTÉ soccer show of that year.
