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Dublin Live
Dublin Live
National
Dan Grennan

Man gets tattoo of Marty Whelan after losing bet

A man has gotten a tattoo of legendary RTE broadcaster Marty Whelan after he lost a bet with a friend.

Phil O'Kelly and his friend Coleman Hudson made a wager on who would get the most amount of points in their fantasy football league. The loser would have to get a tattoo - at least the size of a €2 coin - and the winner would chose the design.

There was strong debate over what tattoos the friends would chose for each other but they eventually decided Coleman would get a lion and Phil would get Marty Whelan's face. It took a while to decide on which particular snap of the Dubliner, but eventually they went for the classic pic of the broadcaster.

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The fantasy football league was "unbelievably tight" with Phil cutting down a 38 point lead in February to taking the lead in late March. But Coleman fought back and was just one point down with two games left.

Then disaster struck for Phil as he picked Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heunhg-min as his captain - this player gets double points - just before he had an awful game. Suddenly Phil was up 32 points with one game left and effectively lost the bet.

Phil originally wanted to get Marty's likeness on his ass but the tattoo artist in Temple Bar's Live Fast Tattoos warned him against it. He also urged him to make it much bigger than a €2 coin as a portrait would not work that small.

After three and a half hours, the tattoo was complete and Phil was delighted with the result.

He wrote on Twitter: "At the start I told him [the tattoo artist] the most important thing was to capture his smile (I definitely didn't want a grumpy Marty on my leg forever more), and Kit absolutely nailed it. The pic will only get better as it settles down to."

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