• Home
  • About Us
  • Activities
    • Let’s Get Back
    • Athletics
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Judo
    • Paralympics
    • Paratriathalon
    • Swimming
    • Tandem Cycling
    • Tennis
    • VI Rugby
    • Walking
    • Other Sports
  • Volunteering
  • Training and Education
  • ZERO LIMITS Track Day
  • Contact
  • News
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
YOUTUBE
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Vision Sports Ireland
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Activities
    • Let’s Get Back
    • Athletics
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Judo
    • Paralympics
    • Paratriathalon
    • Swimming
    • Tandem Cycling
    • Tennis
    • VI Rugby
    • Walking
    • Other Sports
  • Volunteering
  • Training and Education
  • ZERO LIMITS Track Day
  • Contact
  • News
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Activities
    • Let’s Get Back
    • Athletics
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Judo
    • Paralympics
    • Paratriathalon
    • Swimming
    • Tandem Cycling
    • Tennis
    • VI Rugby
    • Walking
    • Other Sports
  • Volunteering
  • Training and Education
  • ZERO LIMITS Track Day
  • Contact
  • News
No Result
View All Result
Vision Sports Ireland
No Result
View All Result
Home News Glory Days

Not a great fall but a good fall

Eamon Dunphy falls to support visually impaired athletes

admin by admin
December 7, 2013
in Glory Days, Our 25th
0
0
Not a great fall but a good fall
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

It was a good fall, not a great fall!

You won’t find this story in Eamon Dunphy’s best-selling biog The Rocky Road – a great book, not a good book!

It was Paddy Agnew, then sports editor of the now sadly defunct Sunday Tribune, who put Eamo up to it!

I called into see Paddy before Easter 1984 at at his Baggot St. office. “Paddy,” says I, “any chance you could join some fellow journos, some showbiz heads and a few politicos for the start of a tandem cycle involving Ireland’s visually impaired sportspeople?”

Paddy, feet on desk, thought for a second and beckoned Dunphy (then a Tribune writer). “Yeh, ok, I’ll do it but I haven’t cycled a bike since I was 10!”

Fair play to Eamo as, a few weeks later, he turned up for the ride. There were none of these high viz vests, helmets or reflectors  then. He went straight at it and piloted a tandem bicycle accompanied by partially sighted athlete Philip Dunne.

Legendary broadcaster Michael O’Hehir put Eamon and about 20 other celebs under starter’s orders at Dublin’s GPO.

They’re off!

Well, Eamon was on for about 50 metres until he got to the Carlton Cinema. Then, crash, bang, wallop, off the bike and poor Eamo landed flat on his ass!

Nobody was hurt.

However, then Irish Press editor Tim Pat Coogan was piloting another tandem close by and loved it all. He had great fun teasing Eamo in his print column a week later.

In the modern era no celeb would try what Eamo tried that day: hop on a tandem bike 30 years after your last childhood cycle!  Sure YouTube would go into over-drive.

Thank you Eamon Dunphy for a great memory.

– JOE GERAGHTY

Acknowledgement: Thank you to Patricia McVeigh at Penguin Books for kindly helping us in getting green light from Eamo to publish a great old memory. We also wish to acknowlege soccer-ireland.com who have an excellent review of Eamo’s new book The Rocky Road on their website. See link at bottom of this article.

Eamon Dunphy is also the author of Only a Game?, A Strange Kind of Glory: Matt Busby and Manchester United, Unforgettable Fire: The Story of U2, and as the ghost-writer of Keane : The Autobiography.

Book Details

Title: The Rocky Road
Author: Eamon Dunphy
Publishers: Penguin Ireland
Published: October 2013
Hardcover: 400 pages
Availability: In any good book store

The soccer-ireland.com review:

http://www.soccer-ireland.com/football-books/irish/rocky-road.htm

Previous Post

1993: When we hosted Europe’s biggest vision impaired event

Next Post

The Chieftains and our Chess Kings

Related Posts

May Games
Glory Days

Only yesterday

April 20, 2021
Our Stolen Christmas Hamper
News

Our Stolen Christmas Hamper

October 17, 2020
VSI Eamonn Coghlan
Glory Days

Eamonn Coghlan’s winning shirt

August 22, 2016
Next Post
The Chieftains and our Chess Kings

The Chieftains and our Chess Kings

Discussion about this post

Newsletter sign-up

Choose Your Activity

  • MayFest
  • Athletics
  • Swimming
  • Paralympics
  • Paratriathalon
  • Tandem Cycling
  • Tennis
  • Judo
  • Football
  • Walking
  • Golf
  • Other Sports

This website was created with support from the Irish Government Dormant Accounts Funds.

This website was created with support from the Irish Government Dormant Accounts Funds.
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram

About Us

Address

Vision Sports Ireland (VSI)
NCBI
Whitworth Road
Dublin 9
Ireland

Phone

+353 85 8500193

Email

office@visionsports.ie

Recent News

Pedal the Peaks cycling event promotional poster. Includes background image of stoker and pilot cycling a tandem bike.

Pedal The Peaks – Pat Colgan Challenge  

July 1, 2022
Photo of surf board standing upright on beach.

Come And Try Surf Session (Participants Aged 16-25)

June 15, 2022
Photo of Aaron Mullaniff, Chief Executive Officer, Vision Sports Ireland, Sara McFadden, Vision Sports Ireland, and Ivan Jurkovic, Used Car Controller, Windsor Motor Group.

Windsor return to Mondello Park backing #ZeroLimits 2022

June 14, 2022

Navigation

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Activities
    • Let’s Get Back
    • Athletics
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Judo
    • Paralympics
    • Paratriathalon
    • Swimming
    • Tandem Cycling
    • Tennis
    • VI Rugby
    • Walking
    • Other Sports
  • Volunteering
  • Training and Education
  • ZERO LIMITS Track Day
  • Contact
  • News

© 2018 VisionSports.ie - Sports for vision impaired people - Web Design and Hosting by Silkweb Group

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Activities
    • Let’s Get Back
    • Athletics
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Judo
    • Paralympics
    • Paratriathalon
    • Swimming
    • Tandem Cycling
    • Tennis
    • VI Rugby
    • Walking
    • Other Sports
  • Volunteering
  • Training and Education
  • ZERO LIMITS Track Day
  • Contact
  • News

© 2018 VisionSports.ie - Sports for vision impaired people - Web Design and Hosting by Silkweb Group

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
x

We use cookies to give you the best online experience. By agreeing you accept the use of cookies in accordance with our cookie policy.

I accept I decline
Skip to content
Open toolbar

Accessibility Tools

  • Increase Text
  • Decrease Text
  • Grayscale
  • High Contrast
  • Negative Contrast
  • Light Background
  • Links Underline
  • Readable Font
  • Reset
  • Feedback