Confessions of a handball addict in World Championships week

My name is Paul Fitzpatrick, and I am a handball addict. I have been hooked since my first hit as a child, that sweet rush of one good shot after a dozen fresh-air swings keeping me coming back for more.

I’ve tried giving up on several occasions but it’s not easy. In college in Dublin, in a house full of handballers, it was everywhere, making weaning myself off it all the more difficult.

Step out of the bedroom and there were some stinking gloves drying on the banister. Come down to the hall and someone had dragged a table aside to create a little alley, complete with a list of rules. Walk into the living room and there was a stack of DVDs, a couple of trophies (not mine), balls and gear littered around like debris on a bomb site.

One summer, I abstained for a couple of months, played some football to take my focus off it, but while the mind was willing, the flesh – like the serve, incidentally – was weak.

My wife has accepted it, as have my colleagues. Even my non-handballing friends now feign an interest for my sake, although one of them is still caught up in the fact that actor Ed O’Neill was once also a handball fanatic (if he asked me one more time “will Al Bundy be playing in this tournament?” I will lose it).

There’s strength, I suppose, in the fact that I’m not alone – in a way, we’re all junkies in this crazy secret society of a sport, gripped by the chase, seeking that thrill again – and on weeks like the Worlds, that comes to the fore.

The last week or so has been heavenly for handball freaks like me. Imagine, if you are a hurling fan, 10 days of All-Ireland finals, with a new episode of The Game premiered every evening.

Well, you’re coming close, although hurling always captivates the country – handball is hidden away in dark corners and it’s only now, when a light is shone on it by the media and wider public, that we can bask in that glow for a few days at least.

An ordinary non-believer (as opposed to the born again like me) texted me yesterday to say that he heard Paul Brady had been forced to withdraw from the Worlds. He knew because he heard it on the national radio news. How bitter sweet that was – handball on the national airwaves but bringing such bad news.

With Paul out – and like Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that – the stage is now set for a mouthwatering final. This afternoon at 5pm Irish time, Killian Carroll and Martin Mulkerrins will do battle for the title of world champion.

It’s almost impossible to call who will win it. Carroll, who has the build of a jockey, has transformed his game – where once he was a retriever, now he’s a shooter, although spectacular gets remain a trademark. Mulkerrins has always been a ‘kill or be killed’ merchant, a rollout man as we call them.

The game has gone that way, particularly in the States. The standard – the ambidexterity, the precision, the conditioning, the court smarts – have never been better but it will still likely come down to who can take their attacking opportunities when they present themselves.

Whoever can go low and do it most often usually wins these big matches.

When Carroll was 11, he wrote in a copybook that he would one day be “the world’s greatest”. His chance arrives this evening at 5pm Irish time. Mulkerrins’ career has been more of a slow-burner but he really took off this season when he made his first All-Ireland final and, once there, won it emphatically.

Bonfires licked the Connemara sky after that win as he brought the cup home to Moycullen. The Gaeilgeoir, gan amhras, desperately craves the chance to savour that feeling again.

It’s a pick ‘em bout but, today, there can be only be one. An epic awaits. Don’t miss it.