Malachy Clerkin: The long, high ball into the square is making a comeback – not before time

An old friend appeared the other day, out of the clear blue sky. The same lad hadn’t been seen nor heard tell of since we were kids. Oh, we talked about him, of course we did. Never forgot him. You’d be in conversation the odd time at a match and there’d be loose chat that somebody, somewhere had caught a glimpse of him the previous week. But the God’s honest truth is that we all presumed he was gone for good. There couldn’t be a way back for him, not with the way things were. He was too wild, too messy, too careless. We all know how the world works. It’s great to have a wild card around the place when everybody’s young and dumb and responsibility-free. But reality comes gunning for us all...