Planes, trains and Ubers to follow the Green and Red

For the Mayo footballers, it was a case of flying into London, taking care of business and heading home this week to prepare for Roscommon.

They made it look straightforward enough, even allowing for a lacklustre first half, but many supporters will tell you getting in and out of London is rarely that simple.

Take the Mayo fans who were due to depart Knock on Saturday morning, only to be held back because there was, reportedly, a crack on the windscreen. A new plane had to be sought and among those kicking their heels at the airport were Mayo young guns Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne as well as one of our greatest ever footballers, Lee Keegan.

McDonald and Beirne, mercifully, were not part of the matchday panel.

They reached Ruislip just before half-time – and they were not the only ones oblivious to much of the opening half. So were the masses who opted to stay in the marquee rather than head out and watch the game. When a rain shower hit midway through the first half, it was hard to be too critical.

And the other man who missed the first half was Keegan, who was due to be Midwest Radio’s co-commentator. Keegan stepped in for the second half and if there is one man with the disposition to take all of that madness in his stride, it is the Westport man.

Mayo goalkeeper Rob Hennelly was booked to be on that flight too. His sister Eleanor got married on Friday so he couldn’t travel with the team. But wisely, as it turned out, he opted for an earlier flight and made the game.

Eugene Lavin told us he had boots if Hennelly was on the delayed flight.

It wasn’t just a Knock flight on the Saturday that presented challenges for Mayo folk.

Spare a thought for the six men due to be on the Luton flight on Friday morning who somehow contrived to miss it. It wasn’t that they were late arriving at the airport; in fact they were remarkably early and enjoying a few beverages.

As anyone who knows Knock can testify, the bar is closer to the departure gates than possibly in any other airport in the world.

The trouble was they had used a well-known Mayo GAA fan and businessman as their alarm clock. If he was sitting relaxed, they were safe.

What they realised too late was that he was flying on a later flight to East Midlands – and not Luton.

So they had to wait at Knock until 5pm, fly to Liverpool, get a not-too-cheap Uber down to London, but despite all of that at least they can say they made it to Ruislip before Lee Keegan, Kobe McDonald and Darragh Beirne.

It is a wonderfully social weekend and it is great to meet people from every corner of the county – in Ruislip, Knock, in various other meeting spots (okay, pubs), and while navigating the labyrinth that is the Tube.

Whatever about the Midwest co-commentator, their commentator, Michael D McAndrew and his wing-man Stephen Grealis (who stepped into the breach for Keegan for the first half on Saturday) had arrived in good time.

They were in The Oxford Arms in Camden Town on the Friday night, hosting a live radio show and the place was heaving.

We were based just up the road and Camden is a cosmopolitan spot, full of diversity and quirkiness. But The Oxford Arms was a corner of pure Mayo at the weekend.

It was great to chat to the proprietor, Tom Maloney from Bohola, as well as other Mayo men like John Barrett from Doohoma and Martin Masterson from Achill, who have successfully made their lives in London, all speaking to what this fixture means, especially when Mayo come to town, for expats in the city.

It is far more than a game – which is possibly just as well because the game itself was only average fare, through nobody’s fault.

But the occasion was brilliant, as this writer recalls from trips in 2006, ’11 and ’16.

There were all sorts of tourists we met there on Saturday.

From second and third-generation Irish with proud Mayo roots to day-trippers, including one Balla man who brought his two daughters from Cardiff and one Breaffy man who flew in and out from Dublin, carrying nothing but his phone and credit card, having a few drinks at the match, and flying back to his bed in Dublin that night. For all that Knock has going for it, that’s not a day we can experience from this side of the country.

A weekend to remember; a weekend to savour no matter how long or short it took you to get there.