Yes, you heard us.
Yesterday afternoon, Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak will have watched a team built largely from his money win the Capital One Cup Final with a 3-1 victory over Sunderland at Wembley.
A little earlier this evening, he was playing up front in an 11-a-side league at the Zayed Sports City alongside Alan Kennedy, a Tipperary native who used to hurl with Thurles Sarsfields but is now forming a lethal attacking partnership and frightening the opposition on a weekly basis with one of the richest and most influential men in football.
We were given the heads up about Alan and Khaldoon by his fellow Tipperary native, GAA journalist Jackie Cahill, a little earlier this evening, with Alan then getting in touch to fill us in with a little more detail about one of the more unlikely strike partnerships you’ll come across.
Alan, who has been working as a PE teacher and personal trainer in Abu Dhabi for the last two years and hurled for Thurles Sarsfields alongside the likes of Padraic Maher, Lar Corbett and Michael Cahill before making the move, told us that he first met Khaldoon through a client of his who he trains three times a week and began playing on the same team as Khaldoon in a weekly league on Monday evenings.
Alan told us that Khaldoon played earlier this evening having only arrived back from London this morning, but whatever jetlag he might have been suffering from (somehow we doubt he was flying economy) didn’t affect his performance as his hat-trick, along with a brace from Alan, earned their outfit a two-goal victory.
A humble guy, Khaldoon also invites Alan and his teammates around to his house to watch the football when he’s not travelling back and forth to Manchester and, in Alan’s opinion at least, he’s “not a bad player at all”.
Alan didn’t mention it, but we can only imagine that he’s doing his best to tell Khaldoon all about the joys of hurling, so don’t be surprised if Khaldoon throws a few billion euro the way of the GAA in an attempt to establish a worldwide hurling championship within the next few years.
Huge thanks to Alan Kennedy and Jackie Cahill for their help with this one
