Malachy Clerkin on...soccer tournaments

I used to work with a guy who took a month off work whenever a big soccer tournament came around. A full month, early June to early July. There’s a fair chance he still does. He’s a producer at Today FM now, so if the station seems a bit ropey on occasion over the coming weeks, now you know why.

He properly did it, too. It wasn’t that he took the month to get bits and pieces done around the house and watch the football in between. If you have visions of him getting out to weed the garden and sloping in to catch the first game of the day midway through the first half, you’re getting the wrong end of the stick. He had no children to ferry around or entertain, no errands to be running, nothing. He took a month off to watch the football.

That, kids, is a hero.

I was 21 years old the first time I found out that he did this. It was the 2002 World Cup and while we were in work every day putting the world and Roy Keane’s place in it to rights, my man was nowhere to be seen. When I asked around and found out what the story was, I thought it was just about the coolest goddamn thing I had ever heard of.

It had never crossed my mind that you could actually do something like that. That, as a grown adult, you could just drop out of society to watch football without, I don’t know, breaking a law of some sort.

I had watched the 1998 World Cup in similar fashion, but that was because I was a scuzzy student at the time and was so monumentally broke that when I eventually got a bar job that summer – after the tournament had finished, of course – I walked from Rathfarnham to Wexford Street on my first night because I didn't have the price of the bus into town. You can do that when you're a student. It's expected.

But the notion that an actual grown-up, a serious man who wore a suit to work every day, could and did decide to use four of his six weeks’ holidays in a year to sit at home and watch a football tournament blew my tiny little mind. It was genuinely one of the formative moments in the transition from teenagehood to adulthood. It told me that with a bit of foresight and a bit of planning, grown-ups can generally find a way to do the things they like in life. That’s not something you necessarily know when you’re 21.

Of course, I’ve never actually done it myself. Partly, that’s because I’ve never had the balls. Mostly though it’s because it’s easier for the big tournaments to bleed naturally into your daily life when you work as a sport journalist than pretty much any other job on the planet. It’s one of the main attractions of the gig.

The games are always on in the office for a start. Also, there’s usually no great hassle sticking the football on during family gatherings. You’d be amazed at the amount of people who figure you’re watching it “for work” and just leave you at it. Work that week is more likely to be chasing some snotty 20-year-old hurler for a measly five minutes of his time, but there’s no sense disappointing people with the truth.

And so, by and large, I’ve seen as much as I’ve wanted to of every major tournament since 1986. This time around, however, I have a small problem. A very small problem. That small problem is 15 months old tomorrow, has precisely nine teeth in her head and has just this past fortnight started walking. She knows nothing of football tournaments, major or otherwise.

Look, it’s going to be okay. I’ve studied the schedules. The games are at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm. For the 2pm games, I’ll be at work, she’ll be in the creche. By the time the 8pm ones come around, she’ll be dropping off for the night or coming close to it.

Those 5pm games are going to be tricky though. They’ll be on during getting-home time, feeding time, playing time, crying time, dribbling time, bathing time. The kid will probably need to be attended to as well, says you.

And sure, you could make an argument that they don't all strictly matter. Indeed, when I write out the list of 5pm games in the next sentence, I will likely not come well out of it. Romania v Switzerland, Wales v Slovakia, Poland v Northern Ireland, Czech Republic v Croatia, Austria v Hungary, Iceland v Hungary, Portugal v Hungary. That's right, I'm going to barely see a single Hungary game. This is serious stuff.

Ireland's game against Sweden is at 5pm on Monday week, but that's okay because I'm heading over to Paris for it. Which means that my idea of heroism when it comes to these tournaments has been updated. Taking the month off is still pretty cool, but it doesn't compare to your wife suggesting six months out that you and your friends should go to the Euros for a game.

That’s a real hero.