Читать книгу The Boys of '93. Derry’s All-Ireland Kings онлайн

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PROLOGUE

SOME BOY

by Maria McCourt

Red, white. Silver. That’s how I see it through his eyes as he leaves the shores of Lough Neagh. The red and white of Derry. The silver of the Sam Maguire. Blue, grey, green, black … red, white. Silver. The blue of the lough, the lane from his bungalow, up through the fields to the asphalt road. To Croke Park, boys … Croker. The silver of the Sam Maguire. The cathedral of Gaelic football awaits the ‘third Sunday in September’ faithful but today is just the third Saturday and the pilgrimage has yet to be made.

He is Eamonn Coleman, my uncle, my godfather and friend. But to them he’s the Little General, the Boss, the Leader, the Man. For only the second time in the county’s history – and the first in thirty-five years – the senior footballers are in the All-Ireland Final, the Championship’s ultimate stage. By his side is his son Gary, a key player in this ’93 team. The warm words from his aunt as he leaves: ‘Don’t come back here without Sam’. She’s not renowned for her sentimentality, my grand aunt Eliza Bateson, but she has been here in their South Derry home since Eamonn was a boy.