Hello Bleep Test My Old Friend

This has to be one of the best times of the year. Lengthening evenings, 6 Nations, St. Patricks Day on the horizon and of course the echo of the bleep test. Like the call of the corncrake announcing the start of summer, in Cardiff, the bleep test master cleared his throat and declared the 2014 football season open. Winter is over, he said, time to suck it up.

Dr Barry McDonnell does some body fat analysis

The response was impressive. Like pilgrims at Lough Derg waiting to do the stations of the cross we lined up. We knew it would hurt. We knew there would be suffering and pain. But like a good auld rosary we knew it would do us good in the long run.

As the bleeps on the test got closer together the pilgrims began to drop to their knees. praying for it to end, dying for their next breath, wishing they had stayed at home. But worse was to come, because lurking in the shadows was the fat inspector.

With the bedside manners of Misery Chastain the fat inspector asked if this was a football club or a maternity unit. He poked and prodded and mauled lads to scientifically prove if we were big boned or just fat.

Branded like cattle we were given the results. Body fat readings were meated out, and we just had to suck it up and take it on the chin, thankfully a few of us had several chins to help absorb the bad news.

That evening as I lay waiting for the onset of the inevitable aches and pains and with those feckin’ bleeps still ringing in my ears, I began to smile and hum a tune……

Hello bleep test my old friend,

you’ve come to torture me again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

left its seed while I was sleeping.

And the vision that was planted in my brain,

Still remains,

To be County Champions once again

Colmcilles Abu