Celebrating the unsung heroes of Irish sport, we’ll be tuning into this.
Last night, RTE 2 treated us to the GAA doc Skin In The Game and next Wednesday they looked to have lined up another cracker for us, called The Underdogs.
Hosted by 2FM’s Paddy McKenna, the doc looks at three teams that don’t get a lot of attention, but they are teams that mean an awful lot to those involved.
The Irish Wheelchair Rugby team, a gay football team called the Dublin Devils and the Irish homeless football team are the three stars of the show and each has a very interesting story to tell.
The wheelchair rugby team are captured as they host the Euro qualifiers at home for the first time. Playing Holland, Italy and Czech Republic, the spirit they show to overcome the hand they have been dealt is very inspiring.
We also meet Ciara Staunton (main pic above), one of two female members of the team, who describes the day her life changed utterly.
“A tree fell on my car. I was driving home from my brother’s house in Castledermot. I was only about five or ten minutes from home. It was really, really windy – stormy weather. The last thing I remember is telling my boyfriend of the time to watch the road because I was in the passenger’s seat, telling him to watch the puddles and stuff. What apparently happened was the tree came down right on the roof of the car, threw me in to the back seat, however the tree came down and snapped my neck and that was that”
The Dublin Devils are also hosting, this time the ‘Gay Champions League’ – the International Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual European Championships in Dublin. In the doc we meet two players, Ronan Herlihy and Francis Fitzgibbon, who speak about how involvement with the team helped them, as Rona explains.
‘Since I was a young fella, my family has been steeped in soccer. When I came back to Tipp from Australia, I heard about this gay team in Dubin. I got in touch with them in Facebook and the next week I was driving up to train with them. It’s a great way to integrate in to society in Dublin. See, I’d come out just before I went to Australia and then I hit the road! If I look back now, I should’ve done it years ago.”
Paddy also travels to Poland to follow the fortunes of the Irish homeless team as they compete in the Homeless World Cup. We meet Karl Sullivan and Derek Martin from Dublin, for whom the team means a lot more than just a kickabout and it could change their lives.
As Karl says: “I wouldn’t be a person that meditates or stuff like that but when I’m out on the football field, the noise is not so loud. I’m quite calm on a football pitch, it’s nice, it’s my getaway you could say.”
All three strands of the doc look really interesting, so it should be worth tuning in on Nov 20 at 9.55, RTE 2
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