I gotta love Ricky Hatton

Never knew much about this lad, but he appears to be a rock of sense.

"Hatton then spoke about the relationship between himself and Wayne Rooney, a fact that astonished many observers given Hatton's frequently stated love for Manchester City.

"Wayne and me go back a long time, as he is from a family of boxers. I fought his cousin David who boxed for the Croxteth club and Wayne saw the fight, since then he has followed my career with great interest. He is a great lad and we don't have none of that stupid hatred that you get between certain clubs. Wayne could have actually been good at the boxing if he had chosen to go that way instead of football."

Hatton was touched by the level of support that he received in Las Vegas, among whom were Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Wes Browne. Did he see any blurring between the sports of football and boxing?

"I have a lot of mates who are footballers, Robbie (Fowler) and Joey )Barton) took me up to watch Rangers as they are big fans, but to be honest I really didn't enjoy the atmosphere at all. It might seem strange coming from me ,but the atmosphere was aggressive without being hard if that makes sense. I really didn't understand them at all. I then went with Wayne and Roy a few years back to watch Celtic and it was magic. Their fans were passionate and supportive and gave us a great welcome without getting in our faces all the time. Celtic has a lot in common with City in that they are the people's team of their city (sorry Wayne!) and they haven't forgot their roots, a real working class team which does credit to the city they represent".

The same may be said of Ricky Hatton a man who has brought great distinction to his city without compromising his background or his working class values"

Lost.

Had a lovely weekend, but feel totally lost for the last day or so, went down yesterday to visit Ger's family and I have so much going on in my head since.

I have hundreds of questions, but the most important one is "why Ger and not me?", and the randomness of it all makes me very angry, actually that's not what makes me angry, what really angers me is the people who try to explain... who try to explain it through religion mostly, I can understand how we can tell children stories to make them feel better and understand, a bit like Santa Claus, but as adults surely we can accept that parts of life are completely random and can't be controlled no matter what you do.

Two things.

1. Yesterday afternoon the limerick manager Richie Bennis was interviewed after a match and he put the win down to the fact that he attended a novena in limerick during the week, and described the win as "our lady's first miracle for limerick" I mean FOR FUCK'S SAKE" did the Tipperary people not pray hard enough or something, it's bloody ridiculous that we laugh at native americans doing rain dances and new guineans putting bones through their noses, but we believe this shit... maybe if Ger had prayed harder... well that's your reasoning Richie....I give up.

2. Actually i can't be bothered about the second thing.... still angry but think the rant has helped me a little bit... the thing about life is that there's no grand plan lads... it's a combination of personal choices and random chance... looking to the heavens, or doing a dance, or putting the bone through your nose in an futile attempt to believe that we can guide the chance bit is just delusional, maybe it helps some people to deflect responsibility for just living as big and as free and as strong as they can, but I'll take my chances thanks very much.

Why i love sport.

So Sligo beat Roscommon at the weekend, as i'm from Roscommon and live in Sligo I've had nothing but notice and slagging since, most of it good natured, with a few spiteful and caustic assholes thrown in for good measure, like the cavemen behind me on Sunday who derived great pleasure at the final whistle from calling me "an ugly Roscommon cnut"and telling me i could "F**K off back to Roscommon", but a lot of the Sligo lads and management are mates of mine and i'm delighted for them.

What i love about it is that it reflects life, we could stay away from all the matches and experience no pain at all, but then how would we enjoy the pleasure when this useless pack of knucks finally surprise us all and win something, so it's simple for me... either participate and take the belts on the chin or give up...and i'm not giving up cos i remember being there in 1974, 1977, 1978, 1980, 90, 91, 2001 and in ennis last year,,,, and on those good days it was made all the sweeter because of the terrible days..... so fair play to Sligo, and roll on the qualifiers..i'll be there.

PS. Have a match tonight that i'm just bigtime looking forward too, it's funny how quickly we get over our disappointments.

I hate blogger so much.

I noticed today that the post i spent half an hour writing last night and published 3 times has vanished into the ether and it looks like i never update my blog.... again.

I'll be starting a new business blog today over at www.newton.ie and I really have to keep adding to it, my biggest downfall in life is that i'm not always the most disciplined, sure i can do it if the stakes are high enough, but sometimes i'm not convinced that they are and that's when i let it go for a while without doing anything about it.

The really important things in my life i have no bothered being dedicated to and disciplined about... it's important that i see this new site and new blog as really important... that's what will help me make a success of it..

wish me luck and call over to see it.

now i wonder will this publish?

Grab it.

My friend Ger died yesterday.

I'm more convinced than ever that I need to live life as big as possible.
Cancer is an equal opportunities employer, it does not discriminate on who it strikes and takes, and there simply is no reason for some stuff, we all try so hard to find meaning and reasons for everything, maybe there is none? maybe many things iin life are just completely cosmically random.... think of the fluke meeting you had with your now best friend, maybe you were put sitting beside them in school, or sat beside them in a dressing room, or were in a Q at the same time in Tesco.

It's the same with our partners, we just happened to be in a certain place at a certain time, i know that my life was dictated and directed by a draw from a hat in 1985, there were six people in training and six national offices to send them too, there was Sligo, Tralee, Mullingar, Dublin, Galway and Kilkenny. My name came out beside Sligo, it's been wonderful for me but the truth is i'll never know what it would have been like if i'd got Tralee, or Kilkenny but i do know it would have been different, chances are i'd be working at something different, married to someone different, have a different circle of friends and worst of all my children could have Kerry accents.

I think there's a lot to be said for poker, there's no control over the cards you get dealt, the best players are the ones who know how to make the best out of them.... Ger certainly played his well...

Pressure!

The one thing that creates great businesses, the one thing that creates great performances, the one thing that develops great managers.... the pressure!

It's a gift really, but sometimes it's impossible to see that.

We rarely get to do anything wonderful or creative in the absence of some stimulus, and one of the best stimuli is a bit of pressure, i feel under a bit at the moment, but it's one thing that really gets me going, so therefore i should really be glad of it.

We certainly should not universally see pressure as a bad thing.