When wireless was a radio Ð not the cutting end of broadband

Date Published: {J}

Only the foolhardy and brave of heart made their way to Pearse Stadium on Saturday afternoon to witness the petering end of the Galway footballers’ championship year – but in the midst of the steam rising from the drenched spectators huddled together in the stand came a sound I hadn’t heard at a match in years.

Because behind me there was a man with a wireless up to his ear – although clearly his hearing wasn’t all it once was, because such was the volume that the Galway Bay commentary could be heard loud and clear six rows in front of him.

But the sight of a man with a wireless – as in, radio, as opposed to wireless broadband – brought me back to a time before iphones and internet when every GAA ground would be graced with a number of hardy spectators with their radio glued to their ear.

The connoisseurs of technology had an ear phone – not headphones but just a single white earpiece with a wire attached to the radio – which meant that only they knew what they scores were from the other big matches at Breffni Park or Aughnacloy.

Sometimes they would share this information in a welter of excitement – “Cavan are gone two points up with five minutes left” or “Limerick are down to fourteen men” – but otherwise you’d have to interpret their knowing smile as an indication how the wind was blowing elsewhere.

The fellas without the earpiece had the sort of radios that a later generation would have called boogie boxes – massive things that could knock your shoulder out of its socket but without any taping facilities and with a round dial.

They should have been charged for a second seat, such was the size of these things, and God help you if you were sitting behind them – because the noise was one thing but trying to see past a radio the size of a record player carried by a man with a giant crepe paper hat left you with little option but to stand up.

Back in the day radio coverage of sport was a more basic affair entirely, consisting of one live match commentary and a couple of phoned-in contributions from elsewhere.

The lines back to studio in Donnybrook broke down more frequently in those days and it was the job of the continuity announcer to fill those gaps with some appropriate music – occasionally with mixed results.

Philip Greene was the doyen of football commentaries back then and he was in full flow before the start of another eagerly awaited League of Ireland clash from Oriel Park one Sunday – so much so that the continuity announcer of the day wasn’t listening when the great man announced that the game would be preceded by a minute’s silence for a club official who had passed away.

Given that there was no other game to go to, the prod

ucer broadcast the minute’s silence – or he would have if the dozing continuity announcer hadn’t woken up with a start to the sound of dead air on the radio.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.