DRUMCONDRA, Ireland — On Friday night, I visited Tolka Park, a soccer stadium in this north Dublin suburb that’s the home of a top-division Irish soccer team. I hoped to flesh out a column and to absorb a slice of sports in a different country.
I returned to my hotel with a singular life experience.
My original plan for this space was to share a sense of how Dubliners feel about the annual American football game between two U.S. colleges in their city – the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, which Saturday matched Georgia Tech and Florida State.
However, I hope you can indulge me in sharing a purely personal story. It does have to do with sports. But it is more about a person and his almost comical generosity of spirit that always will shape how I view the country I’ve spent the past week in.
Dear reader, please meet Johnny Watson.
The plan was to interview a few Dubliners about Saturday’s Tech-FSU game while also enjoying a night of Irish soccer at this quaint stadium, which seats about 4,800 and is bereft of a video screen, LED ribbon boards and most things associated with a modern stadium.
To me, it only added to the experience. The home of Shelbourne F.C. was sold out Friday night for the game against Dublin-rival Bohemian F.C., and the environment was what I’d hoped to experience – fans singing and chanting team songs (one of which was to the tune of “This Old Man”), waving flags and cheering fiercely.
I watched the first half along a fence behind one end of the field with a plan to ask nearby spectators about the American football game taking place Saturday. A man next to me had on a jacket and sweatpants with the team’s three-castle logo. He appeared to be in his 50s or early 60s, with glasses, thinning hair and a kind face. Perhaps he could answer some questions for me. I asked him if he worked for the club.
Yes, he replied. He was the kit man, the soccer term for an equipment manager. Hearing my accent, he asked me if I was visiting, and I think I said I was here from the States. He paused.
“Do you want to see the kit room?”
You probably don’t need to be told this, but this normally doesn’t happen. Teams’ private spaces are just that – private. Generally, club employees don’t invite people whom they’ve just met into that sanctum. I’ve been at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 26 years, mostly in the sports department. I am pretty sure that’s never happened to me, particularly in unprompted fashion.
I was too overwhelmed to politely decline and hope he would ask a second time. Of course I did. And I followed this man whose name I didn’t even know, and who didn’t know mine, into the Shelbourne kit room.
He showed me a wall of photos commemorating the club’s past accomplishments and moments. He told me about Shelbourne’s history. He invited me to come into the laundry room, where old jerseys commemorating momentous games in club history covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Many were signed to him.
This was about the time when he told me his name, Johnny Watson. He had worked for the club for about the past 25 years. Now 60, he had been a fan of Shels, as the team is called, his whole life.
Thinking my original column idea was about to get ditched, I asked to take his photo. Watson first agreed but then suggested that he should take my photo, which he did.
“Have a look,” he said, leaving the room. “I’ll get you a souvenir to bring home with you.”
He returned with a red and blue supporter scarf. It marked a Shels game in July against a club from Gibraltar that was part of a European club competition.
Credit: Ken Sugiura
Credit: Ken Sugiura
Our relationship at that point probably was about five minutes old. I took his photo, and then he suggested we take a selfie together. I kept thanking him for giving me such an incredible privilege.
“It’s more of a privilege for us to see you,” he said, meaning visitors from abroad.
This was quickly becoming a truly unique evening.
Watson showed me more of the room, including the transparent panels plastered with company logos where TV interviews are conducted. Obviously, Watson offered to take some more pictures of me in front of the setup.
He told me about a chance encounter he had had years ago with the late Prince Philip, husband of the late Queen Elizabeth II, when they visited Dublin and the Irish version of the White House, Áras an Uachtaráin.
“Have you ever seen our president?” he asked, and then led me back to a wall of photos.
He pointed out a matted frame with cutouts for three pictures.
“This is the equivalent of your president,” he said, pointing at the middle photo.
It was Irish President Michael D. Higgins at a soccer game, wrapped in a thick overcoat.
Who do you suppose was leaning into Higgins in a blue Shels jacket, hand on his president’s shoulder?
The night of the photo, Watson said he was seated near Higgins and asked to take a picture together. Watson then moved in to put his arm around him, prompting security to step in.
“And the president goes, ‘He’s OK,’” Watson said. “So there we are, with me arm around him like that. Brilliant, isn’t it?”
We continued to talk. Two men walked into the room, and Watson told me they were his sons Graham and Karl, who both work in the kit room with him. Who wouldn’t love that, working with your sons for your favorite team?
“I love this place,” he said. “I eat, sleep and drink this place.”
He loves it enough to stay at the stadium until 3 a.m. washing uniforms after games. I shared with him the appreciation I have for equipment managers – kit men – for the long, thankless hours they put in, having gotten to know a few through my work.
“It’s a great job, it’s a bit of craic,” he said, using the Irish slang for “fun.” It rhymes with crack. “Now, we don’t get paid for this. This is not our job.”
Wait, what?
It was true. Other Shels staff, like the team’s public relations chief, also volunteer for the small-budgeted club. Watson works a 5 a.m.-1 p.m. shift as a cleaner in a shopping center and then comes to Tolka Park.
His paying job isn’t great, he said.
“Money’s not great,” he said. “But it puts food on the table, pays me bills, pays me rent, sit in me house, watch me telly, love me football – happiest laddy.”
I couldn’t help but laugh in appreciation of his spirit.
“Happiest man in the world,” Watson declared.
An older man, also in Shels gear, walked in.
“This is Jack, by the way,” said Watson, and introduced me.
“He’s from America,” he continued.
“Going to the game (Saturday)?” Jack Kennerk asked, presuming correctly.
They had become close buddies since Kennerk joined Watson’s ranks, also as a volunteer, two years ago. Kennerk, 84, is a carpenter.
“It gets me out of the house three times a week,” Kennerk said.
“Three times a week, he drives me (freaking) mad,” Watson responded, clearly just busting his friend’s chops as he does often.
Credit: Ken Sugiura
Credit: Ken Sugiura
They were like a comedy team. They bantered about American football and pretended to spar with each other. Watson shut one eye, as if it were swollen shut.
“That’s what happened to his eye,” said Kennerk, feinting a two-fingered poke at Watson, Three Stooges style.
Watson walked off and came back as Kennerk and I chatted. He asked if Kennerk and I wanted a drink, and then went to fetch two apple-flavored waters. I asked Kennerk for his name and his role with the club right as Watson came back.
The kit man leaned in and answered without a pause.
“Pest,” he said.
It was like being the unwitting straight man in a comedy sketch about an absurdly kind man who keeps dropping crazy details about his life and hammering his buddy.
Yes, that’s me with the president of my country. That’s right, I volunteer to do a job with long and crazy hours that most people get paid for. Please, let me take your picture. Hey, Jack, that drink I gave you was a laxative.
And so it went. An injured Shels player, Sean Boyd, walked in as the game was going on.
“Seanny, jump in there with that man for a photo,” Watson said. “He’s all the way from Atlanta. Came over to see us.”
Boyd complied and politely made conversation with this random dude who apparently was friends with the kit man.
Kennerk, also a longtime Shels supporter, had a story. Two years ago, he came to Tolka Park for a game but didn’t have a ticket for the sold-out match. He was somehow directed to a man he’d never met. After a brief conversation, the man put his supporter scarf around Kennerk’s neck and offered him his season ticket. It was his final season as a season-ticket holder, and evidently he was passing it on. He invited Kennerk to come in to the kit room at halftime for a cup of tea.
There, noticing the shabby condition of the room, he offered his carpentry services to shape it up. And that’s how he met Watson.
“That’s how we became great mates,” Watson said.
There is some heart-tugging context. A few weeks before that night, Kennerk’s wife died. And then, a seemingly mystical sequence of events led him to a new close friend.
“I really believe that particular day, his wife brought us together,” Watson said. “That’s what we believe that, now. The two of us came together and became good mates.”
I was with Watson in the kit room for the better part of an hour. At the start, I might have guessed I’d be in there for maybe five minutes. We walked back through the tunnel perhaps early in the second half.
I’ve left out other stories and gags. For instance, Kennerk revealed that Watson actually has been invited more than once by the Irish national team to be its kit man, but that he’s turned them down, preferring to stay with Shelbourne.
“I love this place,” Watson said.
Throughout the night, I couldn’t help but marvel at my fortune to have met Watson and been the recipient of his kindness and good humor. The thought also occurred that Watson could not have been a better ambassador for Ireland, this in a week when I’ve received hospitality from many. I thought about what I could take from the example of the self-proclaimed happiest man in the world.
Maybe by trying to practice the generosity bestowed on me by Shelbourne F.C.’s kit man – freely sharing what you have with others, even strangers from another country.
Thank you, Ireland. Thank you, Johnny Watson.
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