September Morning
By David Kissane
“September morning
You can make me feel that way…”
The words of Neil Diamond’s emotive song about a September love was far from my mind as I stepped into the discus circle in Santry Stadium. Sunday, September 5th 2021. Around 2pm and a hot day. A day of our Indian summer. The Athletics Ireland national masters’ athletics championships. A day of our lives.
A crowd of hardened throwers of all ages from thirty five upwards. Much upwards. Former national senior champions much more talented and experienced that I, although a win in the O65 5K walk a few hours earlier had added lead to the pencil.
The understood plan in St Brendan’s AC for throwers is to get a safe throw in first. Get on the results sheet and then go for broke in the other throws. That would mean a standing throw for me of about twenty two metres in this O65 competition. The training in the weeks leading up to the championships had produced a curate’s egg of performances. One bad wet evening in An Ríocht, the discus had slipped out of my grasp on launch, hit the edge of the cage and smashed onto the concrete with a groan of breaking plastic and metal. It was a forlorn sight. Bent and banjaxed. Battered and bruised. I had lost a friend! Luckily our club treasurer Moira Horgan took pity and our equipment sourcer David Butler was able to get a brand new discus delivered from Germany just in time for the big event. My new best friend. Red and new and shiny. “A lovely frisby” as clubmate John Culloty called it.
So a standing throw now was the logical beginning to have a chance of a national throws medal. For some strange reason, the moment I stood inside the circle I threw caution to the breeze and decided to do my one-and-a-half-turns. Learned it during the lock-down in the local field when the isolation was encouraging. No one saw an oul man doing one and a half turns on Ardfert mornings in Walnut Grove, uttering utterings to an utterly unuttering sky before the discus and the body and mind became friends. Then one day harmony broke out from somewhere deep and the turns were completed and the disc flew further than the standing throw. I tried to write down how to do the turns but it was coded in the brain and wouldn’t convert to words. It was for doing only!
Now I found myself turning under the gaze of experts. Among them John Sheehan. One of the country’s finest discussers who had advised at a coaching course in Killarney earlier in the summer.
So now the first (full) turn was completed and I relaxed on the final quarter turn and saw the 1K disc fly sweetly into the North Dublin air. An alliance, an elastic agreement between head, hands, feet and heart. Heard “good throw, Dave!” from Patsy O’Connor of Tralee Harriers. He was competing in the same O65 age-group and if you get praise from Patsy, you will have earned it. Encouraging words. Looked at the scoreboard and saw 27.38m. Looked again just to make sure my ageing eyes were not playing tricks on the regions behind them. A personal best by about two and a half metres. Heaven!
Patsy threw the disc two minutes later and let out a shout of joy as his missile hit the ground 40.84m away, creating a new national age-group record. In his first throw as well. Two pleased Kerrymen in Dublin! Gold and silver at that stage. Patsy held his gold position till the end of the competition but for me my silver became a bronze when Richard O’Hanlon from Galway City Harriers produced a final throw of 28.43m and well done to him. Tim Greenwood (Derry AC Spartans) threw 26.22m to knock on the door of the bronze but my first and best throw held it’s ground.
In the small world we inhabit as sixty year olds, that first throw was a moment of sheer satisfaction. Greater and lesser circles, both metaphorical and physical will have to be entered in the coming days and years, but that September moment will not be forgotten while the oul powerlines of the brain are still sparking. Especially proud that the name of the club which I had helped to establish thirty four years ago would be mentioned on the results sheet somewhere. Club first.
And it was a good September day overall for St Brendan’s AC. Our coach Ursula won her long jump and collected a silver in the 100m. In the long jump she jumped off her weaker leg because she had twinged a muscle in her stronger leg in training. No sweat like! She doesn’t like admitting her age so I am not going to say what age she is but she competes at O45 level from this year onwards for another five years! David Butler collected a gold in the javelin and a silver in the shot. His first All Ireland masters appearance. John Culloty was also appearing in his first big one and threw well in the javelin and the shot. Had had never thrown the javelin or putted the shot in competition until this year when he won medals at the Kerry Athletics county championships. John won’t rest until he has bling around his neck. He is one of those athletes who is like a fine September morning or a new pair of runners…full of promise.
A September day to remember in the famed Morton Stadium in Santry.
The summer of 2021 had collapsed into this September. Many writers have a love affair with the month. Virginia Woolf wrote that “all the months are crude experiments out of which the perfect September is made”. Feeling Septemberish is a very common emotion. There is a clarity around the month which stirs something ancient inside us.
In our youth, going back to school at the start of September aroused emotive ripples of a lost summer, a new challenge, a new growing up. The smells of the classroom, the aroma of new books (sweet), chalk and new biros were striking. Smells last in the brain longer than other things. New teachers with fire in their eyes, shortening evenings, All Ireland finals, National Ploughing Championships, Listowel Races, Mosney, sweet apples, blackberries. Haws and sloes lighting the bóithríns.
As a retired teacher now, I still feel the call of September. I recall the September days returning to the classroom in Tarbert Comprehensive and previously in St Paul’s College in Dublin. Meeting the new students and reacquainting with the existing ones was a rich and rare experience. Asking the new first years how many of them were into athletics was always a moment to savour. Training Thursday at lunchtime, girls and boys. And the new school year was under way and hallo September.
One September recalls sad memories. We had visited New York in August 2001 and a month later there was the 9/11 disaster. The site of the twin towers has a special family connection as my great grandfather lived in the area for a long while in the 1890s. It was there that he contracted TB at the age of 50. He was to die five years later. That autumn day twenty years ago will be forever a cloud on humanity’s sky.
And yesterday morning, September 11th there was a special flavour to the new September of 2021. The return of the parkrun. Tralee Town Park and over two hundred people gathered safely around 9.15am. Another beautiful autumn morning, calm as eternity and as full of quiet passion. A short address by run director Siobhán Kearney set the tone and off we went. Three laps of wonder and rediscovery, a few pbs and a variety of salutations between people who hadn’t seen each other for ages. A statement of the durability of the human race. A joy on our doorstep. A carefree September Saturday morning zone where we can meet the other versions of ourselves. I once heard a presentation about loss. The presenter asked us to imagine that we lost everything we had and got it back again a few days later. What would we be thinking in between. It made us think. Like the last year and a half. And so the return of the parkrun and athletics events have given us back something simple and precious. The joy of group running. Blocks to build a future-house.
My run was intended to be a nice jog. With a few memories thrown in. A summer of sport recalled as the body attuned to running 5Ks again. A passing dog on a lead looked at me and thought in his doggy language “He’s a bit old to be running!” But I answered him back that is one of the reasons to run. I think he understood and looked back and muttered “Have a nice day!”
I was carried back to a Saturday morning, July 24th. Up at 6am and gear packed and off in the summer dawn to Templemore for the Munster Athletics walks championships. The magic of an early summer morning and that July sky over Abbeydorney and onwards and a queue going through Adare already and the green fields of Limerick and Tipperary and a haze capping the Silvermines as a hot day began to form. A cupán tae in the Obama Plaza (a favourite oasis on all trips up the country) and a stretch to keep the hammers hammering and the calves calving and the hips hipping. Then a crowd gathering in Templemore and pole vault poles being taken out the back windows of cars and that athletics look in the eyes as there was a big programme for juniors that day. There was the ageless Munster chairman Mossy Woulfe with a smile and a welcome and a mask and Orla Fitzgerald with my number ready before I even thought of my number and a team of officials ready to resume provincial athletics under guidelines. And a warm up with Pat Murphy of Castleisland Walking Club who was wearing two different shoes! The stitch marks on his right foot looked very fresh and the colour of the ball of the foot looked raw but a recent foot operation didn’t stop the walking Kerryman from walking again. “A walk in Banna Strand cures all injuries!” says Pat as he shoots off like a rocket from Cape Canaveral. I was inspired.
There is always a curious feeling when the masters walks are held with the junior and U23 championships. In the warm-up for the walks there were a few juniors speeding past us with a very sophisticated style and with drills that experts like Frank Lynch are teaching them. A sixty year old sometimes feels a bit out of place sharing the same track with these young talented athletes. But the young athletes accept the sharing of the day. A couple of teens invite me to watch a relay event from the Olympics on their mobile phone from a safe distance as they stretched for their own event. A moment of Irish athletics history shared in Templemore as we watch the Irish mixed relay team competing in an Olympic final in faraway Tokyo. No medal but the two teens knew something is stirring in Irish athletics at that moment. Then off they go to prepare for their event, wishing me good luck in the walk. Perhaps we will be watching those fine young athletes who shared their phone screen with me that Saturday compete for their country someday.
Ang “cush” the gun goes and we’re off on the 3K masters walk, and I get one warning from the judge who hails from New Zealand that I am not locking and he advises me to keep my head up. I thought my head was up till I see my shadow and I am more like a banana that a carrot! So I square my shoulders and pull my head back and now the leading knee locks on impact as a result and there is a rhythm. Pat Murphy overtakes like a steam train…what sore foot and John Laste is motoring with his new style…a little hop off the leading leg impact that propels the body forward. Good if you are fit to do it. John does it. I hear encouragement from our club chair John Clifford who is volunteering for the day and I see his camera in action. I know I will appear to be walking in slow motion in that video and John will say later that I was walking in slow motion anyway!
And the line arrives with no further warnings and there is a pb and the top of the head is throbbing in the hotting sun. Some of my colleagues are unlucky and get the three dreaded warning cards but that’s the walk for you.
Medals presented and a quick photos and into the van to head for Killarney Valley AC track where I am to complete a Level 1 coaching course. I won’t make the start but I will make the second half. Trying to rush the hundred odd miles in July traffic on a beach and shopping day is not recommended so I bite my tongue and calm the senses and I arrive in Killlarney just in time for the discus session by John Sheehan and, yes, the walks session, with Frank Lynch who has sped from Templemore also. Roasting day and clubmate Kenneth Leen played a blinder in his assessment demonstration at the end of day. Honours in the bag, I’d say. Qualified Level 1 coach now, Kenneth. Former Kerry minor footballer too!
A week later it was back to Templemore. With clubmates this time. Uber Ursula created a Munster record in her long jump with a mighty leap of 4.72m. How sweet it is to have CBP (championship best performance) written into the Munster records forever. She also sped to a silver in the 100m with a 14.00 sec dash. For a warm-up like! David Butler collected gold in the O35 javelin with a 17.77m throw and gold in the shot with 5.87m. His father Martin made a comeback to athletic action with a 5.94m bronze medal putt in the O65 shot. How many fathers and sons compete in the masters events in Munster? Or anywhere! David Kissane won the O65 discus for the second time in three years with a throw of 22.46m but could have done better that day! An “electric” performance, ie shocking!
But for one former St Brendan’s AC athlete, it was a special day. Stephen Wallace recently rejoined the club. He had been among the first club members back in 1987 and where did the club go on its first Munster championships outing a year later? Templemore! A roasting day back then and a cinder track unlike the good tartan track that adorns the arena now. A cinder track not made for falling, as Ann Sullivan found out! Ann faced the starter in the hurdles on day 1 of the 1988 championships and clipped the fourth hurdle and went crashing to the cinders. Sore. Burned knees an palms of hands. But the brave Ann got up and finished the race to the cheers of the huge crowd and became a hero in the club that weekend. A shy smile from the Brandonwell girl assured us all that she had true grit as well as the cinder grit embedded in her knees after the fall! On the Sunday, a big contingent travelled by bus from Ardfert with club founder-member John Kelly and myself on board. A crowd of new athletes full of hope and among them was Stephen Wallace. Great memories of the club’s first ever Munster outdoor championship medals from that weekend and the news half-way through the day that Ireland had beaten England in the Euro 88 championships in Stuttgart. Sun, action, gold medals in the girls relay and good Euro news and the craic on the bus on the way home made it a special day.
That night, after a few pints in Joe O’Sullivan’s in Ardfert, Tom Kelly and I talked under the stars outside the gate at Tubrid Cross about the possibilities of the club and the talented athletes who had joined. Proposals were crafted and milestones laid out for the next meeting and for the years ahead as the moon came up and the early hours of Monday morning approached. Lá dár saol.
So Stephen Wallace returned to Templemore on Saturday, July 31st, 2021 after what seemed like a lifetime away from those dreamy days in 1988. He hadn’t been exactly idle in the years in between. He had been involved with Kerry football at all levels, the winner of seven All Irelands, four as a player (U21, junior and two club wins with Ardfert) and three All Irelands as a manager (two with the Kerry juniors and one with Ardfert). He has never been beaten in Croke Park as a player or manager. That’s some career. So he rejoins St Brendan’s AC and goes back to Templemore and collects a gold medal in the O45 shot putt with a performance of 8.89m. That’s the senior 16lb shot by the way. Cannonball. Then he jumps 4.13m in the long jump to take the silver medal. That’s a return to athletics all right!
That day in Templemore this July 2021 was enriched also by a brand new club member who had never competed in Munster before. Danielle Faulconbridge had shown a capacity to putt the shot at juvenile training one evening, by picking it the shot up and hugging it. It was love at first meeting with that shot and it ended up with a putt of 6.39m in Templemore to get a silver in the O35 category. An emotional occasion and tears of joy were shed when she discovered that she was in the medals.
It is an indelible memory of summer 2021.
So hallo September 2021. Willie Stargell said that “I love September especially when we’re in it!”. Henry David Thoreau believes that the month “illuminates all creatures” while Lauren Oliver described it as a “a month that smells like progress, like moving on”. JK Rowling believes that September is “as crisp and golden as an apple”.
I agree with all. And more. For those of us who have more Septembers behind us than before us, it may be a time to harvest the emotions of summers from our interior selves. Precious events can be like Irish summers, taking a long time to come and gone in a flash! So the real enjoyment may be in a September recollection. A friendly fiesta of the mind before winter sets in as we inherit the genetic disposition of the ages.
