November 26, 2011 by Irish Peloton
Get Outta That Saddle Stephen!
The 1980’s was a magical time for Irish professional cycling. For a while we could lay claim to the top two cyclists in the world. Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche won everything (except the Tour of Flanders). At no stage in their careers did they ever end up as team-mates, but they liked and respected each other and often rode for each other in races.
Roche once said that people shouldn’t look at their respective careers as separate entities, weighing up which one of them won which races. Instead, said Roche, we should put their career achievements together and view them as one.
These successes which brought so much joy to Irish cycling fans took place before I became one. Despite the recent resurgence spear-headed by another Roche along with Dan Martin and Philip Deignan, I can’t help but feel I missed out.
Fortunately, there are many ways for us to relive these moments.
Both Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche have books detailing all their ups and downs on the bike throughout their period of dominance.
Both riders also have DVDs documenting their life stories.
Sean Kelly even had a board game.
And in 1987, as he was on his way to winning the Tour de France, Stephen Roche had a song. It was written by Dermot Morgan of Father Ted fame for the radio show Scrap Saturday. And thanks to a very kind girl called Sinead, here ’tis resurrected from an old magnetic piece of tape housed in plastic, reborn as a living breathing digital sequence of numbers.
Get outta that saddle Stephen!
[mp3j track=”irishpeloton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Get-Outta-That-Saddle-Stephen.mp3″]
Paul Kelly - November 26, 2011 @ 10:54 am
Brilliant!
Iarfhlaith - November 26, 2011 @ 11:13 am
Great job finding that! Amazing to think there was probably no digital copy of it until now. I’m sure Dermot won’t mind 🙂
Irish Peloton - November 26, 2011 @ 12:12 pm
Yeah it was on an album that Dermot Morgan released, but only on tape. Plenty more stuff out there that existed before the internet did!
Stephen Salmon - November 26, 2011 @ 8:18 pm
Aww man I was only looking for that song everywhere a few weeks back to post on Facebook with my new bike!! haha! I never heard of it until i read it in Nicolas Roche’s book. Far out! Great article once again! Joe Loughman of Bray Wheeler’s got my Agony & Ecstasy book signed by Roche all those years ago too. I don’t remember a board game wither but i have to be 100% honest, if i had one, I would still be playing it today!! Cheers Ciaran!
Stephen Salmon - November 26, 2011 @ 8:19 pm
is there no way we can d/l it?
Michael Dempsey - November 28, 2011 @ 3:28 pm
that’s a bit special cillian, thanks!
Michael - November 30, 2011 @ 5:37 pm
I have known there were cycling board games from that era, but never knew Kelly had his own, and as has already been said, Get Out of That Saddle Stephen is brilliant. I would download that if there was a way. Great finds.
Anonymous - December 18, 2011 @ 12:16 am
ah superb Wud love lyrics too
Anonymous - December 18, 2011 @ 12:17 am
can it be made downloadable?
David Tuttle - January 7, 2012 @ 10:13 pm
if it’s available somewhere for download I would too like to know.
Owenp - January 10, 2012 @ 10:45 pm
Just fantastic! We need Billy Connolly to record a Scottish version along these lines. “Git ootay that saddle Robert! Git ootay that saddle son!”
Irish Peloton - January 11, 2012 @ 10:45 am
Glad you like it Owen.
@Stephen, @Anonymous, @David… I’d be reluctant to make it available for download due to copyright and all that. I’m not sure who owns the copyright, probably RTE, but somebody owns it!
But if you email me we might be able to work something out 😉
Mark - February 10, 2012 @ 3:35 pm
Would love to get a copy of it too, Any chance?