Jeff Stelling recalls Croke Park experience of a lifetime

As they reach the end of their Journey to Croker, Jeff Stelling and Chris Kamara spoke to the media in Dublin today.

 

Sky Sports Soccer Saturday presenter Stelling reflected on his own time covering our national sport, and the first point of conversation was the gutting defeat Mayo endured and how their fans must feel today.

 

“Unless you have an allegiance with either side you are never going to not support the underdog, with what has happened over the years and how close they have come," he said.

 

"And with the way the game unfurled, behind after 90 seconds the way they came back, [they] had the better of the game but you always felt that they were running out of legs. When they hit the post you thought there might be something in the curse”.

 

Stelling later spoke of what his feeling were before the big game threw in at half-past-three as he was getting mentally ready for the occasion.

 



“The first thing was panic, because Kammy wasn’t there. He was in London doing goals on Sunday and I knew he promised me he would be there, and I was sitting there at ten-past-three saying 'you bastard, where are you?'

 

"I look behind me and I see Micheál [Ó Muircheartaigh] sitting behind me and I said if Kammy doesn’t show up, there’s a good substitute here.”

 

Stelling was overwhelmed with the spectacle put on in Croke Park as over 82,000 fans watched the contest along with millions watching at home around the world.

 



“We could not have been at a more dramatic game, I don’t know enough about quality but in terms of drama you couldn’t get any better than that, from the goal in the first minute to the red cards, hitting the posts and saves from the keepers, and then Dean Rock.

 

"You think this is the best and worst moment in every sports person’s life, knowing you are going to win it or lose it for your team. That’s what being a sportsman is about.

 

“The integration of the fans is something else: there is no segregation, fans sitting alongside one another, not a whiff of trouble, not even if your side is beaten. In those circumstances that was eye-opening and quite uplifting.”

 

Grassroots football was a key journey of the lads as they learned GAA from the ground up and Stelling himself was mesmerised by it.

 

“The biggest eye-opener was when we went to the Aran Islands. You think it’s a bloody rock, isn’t it? There’s nothing there and then you see this green oasis which is a football pitch, then you have kids four and five learning the sport, all the way up to the guys who are playing for the team, and the whole community of all the islands embraced in it”.

 

David Clifford was a name on everyone’s lips after his sensational man-of-the-match performance in the minor final, helping Kerry to the first ever minor four-in-a-row and even Jeff was left blown away by one of the best up incomers in GAA today.

 

“He is fantastic. He got absolutely mobbed flattened by all of his teammates at the end. It was brilliant - there is talk of him going off to Australia.

 

“It puts a massive weight on his shoulders. He is a kid, it is an unfair decision for him to make. There is never a guarantee that he is going to make it in the senior game but you never know.

 

“If he can perform like that, when he is under so much mental pressure with things happening outside of the game, he must be mentally strong."

 

Now in the wake of Dublin’s All-Ireland glory, fans will be able to tune in to see how the pair fared as they commentated on the Final from the top tiers of Croke Park. Watch the final episode of Jeff and Kammy’s Journey to Croker on Monday the 25th of September at 5pm on AIB’s social channels which can be viewed on YouTube www.youtube.com/AIB.