Kerry beat Cork to win All-Ireland. Ireland flop against Georgia. Villa lose to City. But…

As you can see, sport dominated my weekend.

Time was, All-Ireland Football Final Day would have been one of the biggest days of my year. But my move to “hurling fan” has seen an erosion of the football final’s importance. Add in the fact that this year’s final was an all-Munster affair – with relatively little enthusiasm for it in other parts of the country – and the big occasion proved a sort of big anti-climax really.

The other big Irish sporting occasion of the weekend was the Rugby World Cup clash of Ireland and Georgia. This didn’t affect me very much as I personally think that rugby is a game for toffs and oafs. Oh yes – and idiots too. Why else would you have a referee constantly shouting the rules out to players? Imagine if that happened in other sports. Can you imagine it in tennis? “Hit it. Hit it back. Hit it again. Hit it back again.” Or in hurdling: “Run, run, run, run – jump. Run, run, run, run – jump.”

My beloved Villa didn’t do too good today losing out to Manchester City, one of the few teams I actually loathe. But…

The really, really, really big sporting occasion of my weekend, however, was seeing my son’s hurling team reach the finals of their P7 championship. Played in Cushendall on a bright sunny morning, with views of Ailsa Craig and Scotland in the background, the setting was pretty much perfect. Unfortunately, they lost the final but they managed to capture a couple of big scalps along the way. And my boy scored two goals. So he was happy.

We celebrated by going to the shop and buying the kids ice cream before we hit the road. Then, in the car, Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacherman popped up on the radio on the way home. For some reason, one of the kids knew all the words. So the rest all joined in with him as best they could and then they sang it over and over and over again as we drove back to Belfast.

Stuff like that you just can’t plan.

As my son would say – “sweet”

A debut goal from Zat Knight and a late Gabriel Agbonlahor strike saw Aston Villa beat Chelsea 2-0 and end Chelsea’s 18-match unbeaten streak in the league.

We listened to the end of the game in the kitchen as I prepared a very fine pasta, pepper and chicken dish for the family. Indeed, the end of the game was much more exciting than the all-Ireland hurling final we watched earlier which Kilkenny won at a canter.

I must sometime explain that the love of Villa is a sort of family inheritance. And I do like the fact that we have inherited a team that we follow through thick and thin – not like all those other Johnny-come-latelies, or bandwagon-jumpers, who follow a top three team, knowing that they will always be winning something or other.

So on an evening like this, it gives me even more pleasure in saying Up the Villa.

You can tell it’s September – who knows what will happen at Villa Park?

A very important season for Martin O’Neill lies ahead. When he came in last year, he essentially played with Dreary O’Leary’s team. The expectation was that he would organise them and deliver a top 8 finish. It didn’t quite work out like that, though. But now that he has flexed his muscle in the transfer market, it is very much his team now. So any blame for non-performance in the months ahead will fall squarely on his shoulders. They’ve started evenly – won one, drew one, lost one. And today they face Chelsea in a 4 o’clock kick off. So, once the hurling’s over, we’ll be turning our attention to Villa Park. So don’t even think of calling between 3.30 and 6.00.

Toga international Moustapha Salifou: the final piece in the Villa tranfer puzzle?

Middlesbrough 1-3 Aston Villa

Villa’s Craig Gardner is mobbed after his first-half equaliser God Save Ireland is delighted as Aston Villa stage a remarkable fightback to claim all three points at the Riverside.

Come on Villa

Aston Villa 1-1 Everton

By Chris Bevan Agbonlahor celebrates scoring Villa’s late equaliser Gabriel Agbonlahor’s late strike rescued a vital point for Aston Villa and made God Save Ireland a slighly happier chap.   Jammy Everton sneaked a lead in the first half but the god-like Villa improved after the break and John Carew forced Tim Howard into two good saves. The Everton keeper denied Carew again before the end but this time Agbonlahor followed up to slot home the equaliser.