No Moody blues for scoreboard operator Mick

The Gerry Buckley ColumnThose of us of a certain vintage will have clear memories of the old scoreboard at the Flanagan’s Mills (now Dunnes Stores) end of our beloved Cusack Park in Mullingar.In its latter years, the manual scoreboard featured the front shell of a car which kept the operator dry - if not particularly warm, I imagine. Nowadays, of course, technology has dictated that scoreboards are almost exclusively remote-controlled and the man behind the controls at Westmeath GAA headquarters, Mick Moody is happy to continue his vital work in this area.A native of Mullingar, Mick has been involved on and off over a ten-year period in a number of capacities in Cusack Park and now works 19.5 hours a week there with the title of ‘Groundsman’. However, it is as scoreboard operator that the paying public know the affable Mick, who originates from the Green Road. A recent interesting documentary on RTÉ showed the behind-the-scenes work on All-Ireland final days in Croke Park and, while the volume of work on big match days in Mullingar pales into insignificance when compared with national occasions, all still has to be in readiness for spectators before the crowds congregate in and around Dunnes Stores to support their teams. Starting at 9 am, Mick takes a quick scan around the ground before getting stuck into essential tasks such as opening the toilets, turning on the water and what he calls “the east and west tank” for the showers, followed by the burners. Of course, a day or two before the game, he marks the pitch and cuts the grass as necessary. “We spike the pitch very regularly,” Mick states, “and thankfully there is great drainage on it.” He is fulsome in his praise of the knowledge which long-time County Board secretary, Paddy Collins has in this and other areas, while also lauding current incumbent, Pat Lynagh.Needless to say, “human errors” happen in Mick’s job, as with all mere mortals. Those of us (yes, I’m top of the class!) who impatiently press ‘print’ a number of times when a printer is slower off the mark than we would like, can empathise with Mick when he says, “I might press a point and nothing would come up. Then press again and still nothing. Again and still nothing. Then on the fourth go, four points would come up. And then the slagging starts!” People invariably turn round asking, politely and not-so-politely, depending on the closeness of the scores, “What the f…?” Mick must type in individual club, college and county names, while improvising to shorten the likes of Castletown-Finea/Coole/Whitehall! While most games are straightforward, Mick concedes that “it can be mentally tiresome”. With the safety valve in football now gone when trying to establish if a controversial score has or has not been allowed, as kick-outs are all taken from the one spot, Mick focuses sharply on the referee to see if he has written a score in his book, if the umpires seem to hesitate in any way. He is very happy with the proposed changes to the entire press and communications area (not half as happy as this columnist, for whom it has been a major hobby horse!), as people standing up and thereby blocking his view naturally leads to confusion for the man charged with keeping the scoreboard accurate at all times. Big inter-county games can double Mick’s workload as the subsidiary scoreboard at the Dunnes Stores end involves separate controls from the main board at the canal end.Needless to say, pranksters have impeded into Mick’s role and he recalls “an oul rusty bicycle, which looked like it had been pulled out of the canal” greeting him one morning, hanging out of one of the goals! On another occasion, “two or three hundred clothes hangers were hanging out of the giant nets behind the goalposts”, having been “boomeranged” in by a few rascals! “It took us two weeks to get rid of them, shaking them down,” Mick recalls jovially. ‘Acts of God’ have been known to disrupt proceedings also, with “the big freeze meaning that two tons of ice built up on the nets and severed the cable, but Peter Butler (‘Mr Fix-it’) and I eventually got them back up.” Given the litigious times we live in, and with Health and Safety concerns highlighted more than ever, in icy weather Mick often has to “throw salt on the entrance area even when there are no games taking place”, for fear of passers-by inadvertently slipping if they enter the ground, officially or unofficially.When asked what celebrities he has met in Cusack Park, Mick remembers Bertie Ahern “coming over to shake hands with me”. Without disclosing his affection or otherwise for the former Taoiseach or, indeed, his own political affiliations, Mick emphasises that the best-known Dubs fan did the approaching! He has also met another former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, while Marty Whelan’s ‘Celebrity Bainisteoir’ role with Maryland meant that the television personality attended the 2008 county intermediate football final. “I recall him jumping up with his hands in the air when Maryland scored a goal,” Mick says. Of course, like all Gaels, he has great respect for the recently-retired legend, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, whom he also came across in Páirc Chíosóig.Despite his ‘off-duty’ allegiance to St. Oliver Plunkett’s and Mullingar Shamrocks (at the time of writing he was hopeful of a hurling/football double for the capital town - neither leg was achieved, as it transpires), Mick accepts that he “can’t add on a few extra scores for them, unless all the spectators turn their heads away!” He recalls his delight as a Westmeath man when Meath were defeated in March 2008 in the National Football League in Cusack Park. “ I loved watching Martin Flanagan with the ball delaying time that day. I don’t hate Meath, obviously - I just like to beat them.”.Naturally, Mick’s memories of his time in Cusack Park, while largely fond and positive, are tinged with sadness, and he promptly rhymes off “Adrian Murray, Iggy Fulham, Pearse Butler, Mr (Paddy) Fagan and Ber Murtagh” as departed friends from his time in the little box on the halfway line. For his part, Mick Moody intends to be around for some time to come, undertaking his “labour of love”. Fans need have no worry on that score!