Pat Spillane..

"A man that is widely known as a walking encyclopedia of football".

Well, maybe if the person who believes that knows absolutely nothing about the game.

Even earlier on this thread, there's a link to an interview in which he himself admits he knew next to nothing about the lower divisions and had no interest in them until his son started playing for Sligo. Some encylopedia that!

I remember back in 1991 in his column when commenting on the All-Stars, he openly admitted he never even heard of the outstanding Roscommon corner back Enon Gavin. Gavin had reveived the Man of the Match award in the live televised match against Leitrim. He was outstanding in both (live on TV) Connacht finals (replay) and kept the great Colm O'Rourke to a single point in a very narrow loss to a great Meath team in the (live on TV) All-Ireland semi-final.... and Mr. Encyclopedia never heard of him??? Was he watching the omnibus version of Cornation Street while these matches were on?

There are numerous other examples, but why bother, sure he was 'entertaining' and 'a character'. Both those tags means he behaved like an asshole, insulting players and looking for cheap laughs from people who know even less about the game than he does.

On the defensive style of football, which involves forwards funnelling back into their own half and (shock horror) actually tackling the opposition in order to help their team win, if you were around as long as me you'd remember the first footballer wearing double-digit numbers on his back who was consistently back in his own backline was.....Pat Spillane. Double standards are ok if Kerry are involved.

My god you really have got a hard on for poor old Pat, wind your neck in and less of the obscure references from a 30 career, What mindless drivel,

For someone who claims to mute the TV when he comes on you seem to have a good knowledge of and very strong opinions on what he says.

Fair point, but I didn't start muting him straight away and after I did, I eventually I stopped muting him as I ended up missing the other decent analysis.

And of course, when discussing matches with friends, colleagues etc. you get to hear what he said when they're discussing it. And the comments were usually negative.

Definitely the end of an era in terms of punditry and not necessarily a good era. I thought Pat let his Kerry bias too often get in the way of any attempt at objective analysis.

That said, it was quite moving yesterday to hear him talk about his late father and the magnificent legacy that he has left in terms of Kerry football and can I also say - as nowadays it can tend to be overlooked - that Pat was an unbelievable player. He, alongside Jacko, was one of the two greatest footballers I have ever seen.

Realistically, when listening to a match analysis, who would you rather listen to - Pat Spillane or Gooch Cooper. Colm was a magnificent player, but has he ever said anything interesting in his pundits role. I just keep hearing the same boring cliches over and over again.

I thought Rory Gallagher brought a little extra last night on the Sunday Game. Brought a bit of humour, and had the balls to call out the inclusion of James McCarthy on team of the year. How many matches did McCarthy play all year? What a joke. He put in a good 20 minute spell against Kerry. That was about it. Ciaran Whelan must have passed around a few brown envelopes when the panel were picking that one.

I enjoyed Pat Spillane over the years, very entertaining with his analysis and praised Cork very well in 2010 when they finally scraped over the line on All Ireland final day. Wouldn't be easy for Kerry man to say that but he did it. He will be missed on the tv. One of the Greats.

The women are the most boring pundits, they would put you to sleep, they will never say anything controversial.

Thats not telling the truth, thats bragging. People with bit of class don't brag, about what they have.

He was very bitter about Dublin 6 in a row saying they won some soft all irelands, bit rich from him when kerry never had meet a football county till least semi final.

That's the thing. He was no fool and I had no problem about the stuff he said about my county cause most of it was true.

But Dublin won soft all Irelands, Tyrone were not team of decade(who cared anyway), Kerry this and kerry that. If I got a Euro for everytime he mentioned his eight all irelands. Plus I used laugh when he compare kerry football to national rugby team or soccer team. Kerry were winners but they were not. Sweet jesus.

And fact he is still bitter about 1982 says it all. Man won 8 all irelands, enjoy them. Most would chop a arm off for one.

To be fair to him he did admit on TV prior to his meltdown last year that Tyrone were the team of the 2000s decade because even though Kerry won more All Irelands they could never beat Tyrone.

Jack Charlton type stuff by the Sligo Co board so….?

maybe ‘pits’ young lad wasn’t up to it as if he was surely the KY board wud Ave done anything required for him to stay with Kerry

He only seemed to get going when he joined Judes. The commute to his home club wasn't working and he wasn't even starting on the team when they won the club all Ireland. AFAIK Sligo train somewhere around the Midlands which isn't too bad commuting from Dublin and he is good enough to start for them now when he's probably not good enough for Kerry yet.

That’s Cockiness and hot air talk for you 😀😀

quite impressive time for the 100m though…..10.54 secs…….the Brit /Scott lad Alan wells won the 1980 olympics with 10.25….

Are you sure they reverted to a 100 yard distance for the ‘super-stars’ despite what the report on the web report says…?

he would beat them all in a ‘talk-a-ton’ ……?

Spillane also used to be a presenter, I was watching the tape from The Sunday Game the night of the 2004 semi final and he was presenting along with Anthony Tohill as a pundit.

I suppose I enjoyed him overall but recently I have taken a dislike to Brolly despite him being a Derry hero. His wokeness on Twitter is off the scale and he is obsessed with Brexit, I've never seen anyone who posts about it as much as him. I think Brolly is a massive virtue signaller.

Two of them got inter-county manager jobs.

Did RTE lobby for them to get the jobs ?