Santa's little helpers.

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By Hugh Farrelly

Friday December 12 2008

CHANCES are, if you are not in Thomond Park tomorrow afternoon for the Munster match, or returning from Llanelli or Castres following Ulster and Leinster's respective Heineken Cup clashes, you may find yourself at one of 24 venues around the country watching an AIB League club match.

And chances are, if you wander into the clubhouse afterwards to partake of a post-match beverage with accompanying ribaldry, you will spy that peculiar rugby phenomenon known as the alickadoo, or in simpler parlance, the 'alick'.

There is no simple definition for this entity as it could, essentially, apply to any non-player who hangs around a rugby clubhouse.

Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable but its explanation of alickadoos under the heading "Rugby Union -- Culture" makes for interesting reading: "Retired rugby union players who still turn up to watch, drink and serve on committees rank as 'alickadoos' or, less kindly, 'old farts'."

There are players who regard these blazer-clad bastions of the club game as unwanted 'cling-ons' and make no effort to feign interest in their 'back in my day' tales -- even when the alick has paid the accepted release fee of a pint for his intended audience.

Lifeblood

However, I always viewed alicks as essential to the lifeblood of any clubhouse. If you wanted to bond with the history and culture of the team you played for, the alicks were your first port of call -- the free jar merely a bonus.

And the Irish club scene has been decorated by some great alicks over the years. There was the chap who used to attend all of Trinity's games, sporting a Catweazle beard, long jacket and Colours scarf and spent the duration of the match chanting "Trinnniiiittttyyyy" oblivious to those around him.

UCC had the late John 'Diver' Casey, their Paddy-and-bainne-drinking bagman who administered his carefully hoarded 'secret' rub (which seemed to be a dastardly concoction of methylated spirit and Milk of Magnesia) with Chinese-burn charm.

Another alick no longer with us is former Ireland full-back Con Murphy, who attended every Lansdowne training session, regardless of the weather, well into his 80s. I also once had the pleasure of meeting Ken Goodall after a match with City of Derry. Goodall played No 8 for Ireland in the 1960s when his only equal was Wales' legendary Mervyn Davies. He switched to rugby league out of economic necessity and was ostracised by rugby union under the draconian attitudes that existed at the time.

Fixture

However, Goodall went on to become a regular fixture at Derry's ground on Judges Road and when he passed away in 2006, Irish rugby lost one of its true gentlemen.

Shannon lost their great alick, Frankie Flynn, a few weeks ago, the man whose powerful voice soundtracked numerous black-and-blue beatings by the Shannonmen when belting out club anthem 'There is an Isle'.

There were, and are, numerous others -- George O'Connell down in Cork Con, Billy Keating over at Sunday's Well and any number of colourful characters in the clubhouse at Young Munster's Tom Clifford Park.

Club rugby would not survive without them. Committee meetings have a tradition of descending into triviality-topped talk-shops but a club does not survive without committees and someone has to sit on them.

I can remember walking off the Eaton Park pitch in 1997, having just being destroyed by Ballymena, to be greeted by a solitary alick who had travelled the length of the country (at considerable expense) merely to greet us with the now legendary morale-booster: "Heads up boys, we never thought ye'd win anyway."

To those players entering the clubhouse tomorrow afternoon, spare a thought for the alickadoo. He may have chameleon cheeks, beery breath and a proud paunch, he may wish to regale you with marathon tales of yesteryear, but he will buy you a pint and has earned the right to speak.

And, if you are still not convinced, remember, every player becomes an alick eventually.

- Hugh Farrelly