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Yes, Galvin, breaking his rocks in the hot sun as the Kingdom continue their quest for 3-in-a Row. Did the crime so it looks like he’s doing the time.

For his petulant slap at Paddy Russell’s notebook last Sunday week, when the Kerry mist came down, Galvin is gazing over the precipice into a six months’ suspension as the Central Hearings Committee upheld the proposed six month ban.  The Appeals Committee showed no mercy, so as Al Pacino might say, ‘We’re in hell right now.’ This one looks like its going all the way to the DRA.

So if Paul Galvin does have to serve his six months, what can he look forward to? Will he play it canny like Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank, quietly biding his time before spectacularly turning the tables. Will he do a Cool Hand Luke, quietly hum that ditty Plastic Jesus, ate boiled eggs and rage, rage against the machine?

Whatever way he plays it, as we said last time around the summer will be a quieter place without Galvin. His last hope is that the likes of Feargal Logan can pull another rabbit out of the DRA Hat.

Let’s hear it now, Talking Balls says - Free the Kerry One!! Should he serve the time or should he be allowed to lead the line. All the bores, experts, pundits and bluffers have had their say - so let us know what you think. Do you think these fellas get away with too much? If he’d been a Leitrim sub would he have got the same punishment? Does he deserve every minute of his suspension? Do you feel sorry for him? Do you give a s***e? Get it off your chest here!

Michael Scullion - one of many local hurley makers reliant on native ash

As part of their support for the All Ireland Minor Football and Hurling Championships, ESB have greatly encourage local hurley makers by announcing at the compeitition launch that they will be growing 20,000 native ash trees along Liffey Forest near the Blessington Lakes by 2010 to assist the future supply of hurleys. An added benefit of the programme is the carbon-reduction achieved by tree-growing. 

In the week that Hibernia Insurance announced they were f***ing away off out of Ireland, and ESRI announced that its officially ‘now a Recession stupid,’ it is a relief to hear the trees aren’t being outsourced and grown in India or Thailand or somewhere else where production is cheaper and belts aren’t as tightened.

Approximately 75 percent of the planted trees should yield between 6 and 8 hurleys each after a growing period of approximately 25 to 30 years. At present Ireland imports 60 percent of the Ash required to meet hurlers’ annual needs. Participants in the “Cúl Green” partnership between ESB and the GAA, will be able to have an Ash tree planted.ESB already has several hundred acres of land under afforestation and will continue to investigate how the company can expand the Ash planting initiative.

Said ESB Chief Executive Padraig McManus, the programme was all part of ESB’s approach to sustainability: “ESB cannot grow sufficient numbers of Ash trees to meet the total requirement but this initiative will go some way towards offsetting the need to import the timber - as well as helping the environment. We will begin with over 20 acres and then assess how the programme can be rolled out in the future”, the Chief Executive said.

Fair play to him - if they keep this up it won’t be long before them Kilkenny fellas can go all the way to Croke Park without their feet ever touching the ground - the way it used to be all those years ago.

This Sunday evening at 7pm, RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary on One relives the excitement of 1998’s dramatic hurling season. Who Fears to Speak of ‘98 follows the events of the most famous season in the history of hurling, where the summers’ games became the national soap opera.

The documentary tells how Offaly lost the Leinster Final to Kilkenny and then embarked on an epic journey after their manager Babs Keating was sacked for calling them ‘a heap of sheep’.

Clare and Waterford drew in the Munster Final. It rained just before the ball was thrown in for the replay. Willie Barrett, the referee, delayed the throw in while he spoke with officials on the sideline. The summer erupted. Two players were sent off and Colin Lynch - Clare midfielder - eventually got a lengthy ban. The following night, RTÉ Radio 1’s programme, Sportscall was - to put it mildly - heated and Ger Loughnane gave a frank and controversial interview to Clare FM.

Following this, Clare met Offaly and the tense affair ended in a draw. Clare and Offaly met again and with Clare three points up, the referee ended the game three minutes early. The Offaly supporters sat down on the pitch in protest. The affair is named after the referee - Jimmy Cooney. Offaly defeated Kilkenny in the All Ireland Final.

Who fears to speak of ‘98 contains extraordinary archive interviews and recordings of the time. Interviews with Johnny Pilkington, Willie O’Connor, Paul Flynn, Fergie Touhey, Jimmy Cooney, Willie Barrett, Con Murphy, pieced together with extraordinary archive material and interviews going back to 1998 bring that summer back to life in its most detailed telling to date.
Exclusive unedited interviews with all the documentary interviewees will also be available online www.rte.ie/radio1/ from next week.

RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary on One: Who fears to speak of ‘98 is presented by Peter Woods and produced by Peter Woods and Liam O’Brien.

Listen back to the Documentary on One: Who fears to speak of ‘98? : http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/

Floor need scraped? Mugsy’s your man!

Tyrone double All Ireland winner Owen Mulligan has set up his new business-venture and he’s flat out and rarin’ to go.

Unfortunately, and this is typical of the man, he gets embroiled in controversy during his first call out. Must be that blonde hair of his.

Mugsy received an emergency call-out on Sunday evening to the Conway Inn in Cookstown. Apparently during an altercation some windows were broken and the main door to the Chapel street entrance busted. Well, who ya gonna call? Who else but Mugsy!

Mugsy was immediately on the scene, floor scraper in hand, ready to sort it all out. Unfortunately so were the PSNI. What happened next is a matter of some confusion but unfortunately Owen was detained by the boys in blue for a short period of time as they tried to establish just what had happened.

Remember, if you need a floor scraped, or maybe a window sorted out Mugsy’s your man. He’s got the specialist skills and equipment and now - after years as the apprentice - he’s now just the man to finish the job on his own.

If you’re looking a bit of work done, give Mugsy a shout. Competitive rates guaranteed!!  Discount this month only on wreckin’ and demolitions!! wwww.mugsy.com

Paul Galvin - Demonised or Deified?

This week Resident Expert Ger Manas casts an admiring glance southwards and reckons that the CCCC might get their way but the summer will be a quieter and more boring place with no Paul Galvin.

Now lads you know as well as I do that things happen in football matches that shouldn’t - fellas make a balls of things and maybe get the line or get subbed or whatever. How many times have ye been took off and toul the manager what an oul bollix he is on the way off the field. Or maybe the referee sends ye off, ye know rightly that you shouldn’t have punched yer man in the balls or grabbed that f***er by the hair but sure what’s done is done and what’s lost is gone for ever as that spacer Joe Brolly used to sing when he won anything which wasn’t that often thank f***. There’s nothin’ puts everything in the cold light of day than a lonely oul sit, on yer own on the bench or worse again in the dressing room. Gradually as the heart slows down and the blood cools you realise you’re a stupid bollix - every other man’s out there bustin’ his hole and you’re in with the wintergreen, spare socks and empty juice bottles looking down at your boots, maybe an oul tear tripping down onto the laces. What have I f***in done goin’ through the head.

Every team I ever was involved with needed a character in it. There’s men cruising about the place with ice in their veins and I have all the time in the world for the man like that. He’ll deliver the stiletto to the heart of another team time and again for you but you need the man with the volcano ragin’ inside to stir them up first. Some man who goes round with one of those jerseys marked heart on the sleeve. Brick walls, f***in concrete slabs, Ulster defence units - you name it you need a man who gets the ball where it’s good and dirty. Usually in a melee of men, a man who can tussle his way out and offload neatly and correctly. A man that breaks the tackle, sorts out the boyo on the other team throwing his weight around. This sort of fella’s usually the sort of fella that your team and supporters love but every other bollix man, woman and child hates the sight of. He might be the nicest  fella in his own right but they hate him because of what he does on the football pitch. But if he was on their team - he’d be their star man. That’s folks lads, that how fickle they are. But if you appreciate the finer things in football you’ll appreciate this sort of man.

Which brings me to that fella Paul Galvin. It seems for every manjack out there likes Paul, there’s thirty one hates him. By coincidence they’s mostly not from Kerry. Galvin was roughhousing himself round the field as usual last week, bustin’ a gut to get back at it after spending the winter getting’ over injury and managing that Sem crowd to the Hogan Cup Final. He was appointed captain of Kerry because Feale Rangers won the championship and he gets the honour to lead the lads out. They’re going for three in a row and for my money there’s no better man than Paul Galvin to have in the trenches if you’re after that. When I was down working thunder with Jack O’Connor he was glowin’ about Galvin and what he’d brought to the team. He reckoned he was an Ulster footballer transplanted to Kerry the way he went about his business. All snarling up in your face but by f*** he delivered the goods big style time and again. He went up to the All Ireland Junior with his club Finuge and bate Stewartstown. Fergal Logan toul me one day before me and him went into court one day I was up for using a bit of red in the car that Galvin was the difference that day. I got the grandson to watch it on that YourTube - Jaze there’s some quare good lookin oul yokes on YourTube if ye press the wrong button on the machine. I though the grandson was talking about his smarties before he showed me this video of Kelly the Nogue doing this thing with a buckin bronco horse. I gave him a good boot in the hole and told him to get me Paul Galvin.

So Galvin’s doin’ a bit of skelpin’ to Clare fellas that from what I saw were at the same themselves. Next thing Paddy Russell produces the book. Now I have to say Russell annoys me hole - ever since he done the dirty on Tyrone in 1995 in Croke Park I can’t stand the hoor. I’ve no love for Tyrone I’ll tell you but he got that decision wrong and as well as that he couldn’t even manage to send that gobshite Charlie Redmond off the field. Charlie kept poppin’ up like one of those fairground jobs ye hit with a mallet. Many’s the time I wished I’d a mallet when Russell was about but anyhow -  Galvin loses the oul head now and I honestly don’t think he meant to slap away the note book before he did the Johnny Cash.  As the man says he was remonstrating. Twas Paddy Russell’s own fault for being so close to him I think. And as for the proposed suspension - six months in me hole. There’ll be worse things done this summer and the hoors’ll get off scott free. There’ll be f***in DRAs and what not on the job. Course Galvin’s problem is he has previous. He had a run in with yer man John Toal when he was bringin water on the field in 2006. Well, Toal shouldn’t a been there and he deserved it. Armagh folks mightn’t see it that way since Toal’s a saint to them but he shouldn’t have been there. Paul Galvin’s getting the shit cos of who he is. And the way he plays his game.  Yer big lad Tom Humphries from the Irish Times done an interview with Galvin and he reported how youngsters from Tyrone with a megaphone chanted ‘Galvin is a wanker’ at him from the sidelines at the Hogan Final. Well I know number one who the wanker was that day, and it wasn’t Galvin; number two what I would do with the megaphone and number three where the surgeon would be extractin’ it from. But Galvin, did he do a Trevor Brennan and bust the lot of them? No, he’s a teacher and he didn’t. He says to me himself when he crosses the white line: “I’ve done things that have got me into trouble. I’ve got away with things too. I’ve had things done to me and I never go bitching. You take it. You give it. Is it deserved the reputation I have? It probably is, really.”

Paul Galvin would be one of the first names on my sheet if I was the manager. I hope he gets off because he’s a f***damn fine footballer and if his reputation is deserved it’s for that as much as the other shite. Will he get off? Probably not. He might get back for an All Ireland semi and d’ye know what? The rest of the country might have even more reason to hate that f***er Galvin cos I think he’ll be taking Sam home with him in September. He’ll have his regrets certainly but better to have lived like a lion for once in your life than to pockle about like an oul f***in sheep and get eaten. That’s what I think anyway.

Those of you who get out and about to matches this summer will have noticed Squareball advertising in programmes the length and breadth of the Country. Make sure you point Sqaureball out to the boyo standing beside you at the match so he can read it in his programme too. 

And, in a new departure for us we are delighted to announce we have teamed up with the Leinster Council to include Talking Balls articles in the programmes for the majority of matches in the Championship this summer. The plan is that this will introduce a new audience to Squareball and thanks to the Leinster council lads, particularly John Cotter for having us on board.

So if you’re at a match and there’s a lengthy break for an injury, or someone’s just slapped the ref’s notebook away, or the wife’s just asked you to explain why you can’t lift the ball directly off the ground for the tenth time, or if the boyfriend’s gazing longingly at the busty blonde in Row DD, take time out to read Talking Balls in the programme. It’ll make you laugh.

Joe Rabbitte, Nicky Joyce and Ollie Canning get cubed

Talking Balls is offering 20% off Squareball t-shirts for any teams entering the Guinness Hurling Cubed competitions that wish to wear our t-shirts. If you do, you’ll be the most stylish team in the Cube, that’s for sure. Check it out for yourself here. Our motto for the innovative Guinness competition - ‘Get cubed & then get tubed’. Give us a shout and we’ll sort you out.

The first of the much hyped and promoted Guinness Hurling Cubed events takes place this weekend in Salthill. The brewing giants have taken hurling off the field and into specially constructed 3D perspex cubes. Each match is due to last 3 minutes, involves three players and is settled either by the first team to score three scores or be in the lead at the end of regulation time. 

To take part in Guiness Hurling Cubed, simply log onto www.guinness.com and register your team . All those taking part must be over 18 years of age. Numbers are limited for each event and spaces are quickly filling up. Hurleys, sliotars, helmets and shinpads will be provided by Guinness. Those who want to get involved and play just need to bring down their ID, normal sports gear, shorts, t-shirt and trainers.

The game is  played using special 21” hurleys and a soft-touch sliotar so no-one gets written off by getting a size five in the Gonads. Galway has been selected as the first city to host a Guinness Hurling Cubed event, in Salthill Park, from Thursday 26th through to Saturday 28th June. This will be followed by similar events in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin, over the course of the summer months.

The Tommy Cooper - A Balls of a Competition

Leitrim manager Dessie Dolan has summed up the views of a goodly number of GAA people including Micko and a few of the Antrim footballers by dismissing the Tommy Murphy Cup:

“I’ve no interest in the Tommy Murphy Cup; it’s a balls of a competition. This thing about not having qualifiers is the greatest disaster and the GAA should be hung drawn and quartered for it and Nickey Brennan should be hung from his a*** up (for failing to rectify the system). County footballers want to be playing championship football. They aren’t one bit interested in the Tommy Murphy Cup and people know that if weaker counties have a second championship game it’s a big deal. Since the qualifiers came in, a few weaker counties got runs to the All-Ireland quarter-finals and that would be huge. Even some of the top teams who were beaten early on like Tyrone came back through the back door and won an All-Ireland. Anyone who says the qualifier system hasn’t worked is a fool.”

Meanwhile his county board immediately rushed to disassociate themselves from the comments saying “In relation to the remarks made about an Uachtarán Cumann Lúthchleas Gael, Nicky Brennan, Leitrim GAA feel that the remarks are very disrespectful of the president and in no way want to be associated with them. ”Any other remarks made are solely of a personal nature by Des Dolan and in no way reflect the thinking of Leitrim GAA.”

Two hands for hurling - the iconic Yellow Mikasa Glove

Years ago gaelic footballers hailed the appearance on the market of a new goalkeeper’s glove by Japanese manufacturer Mikasa. The glove featured a multitude of small black rubberised dimples embedded in the fabric - itself a good big thick yellow pile affair that carpeted and cushioned the hand. The benefits of the glove were manifold -  indeed you could wear it either way round so, if you lost one you could wear the other one on your preferred hand.

Many’s the fella headed out to play begloved only in one Mikasa as if to say ‘I can bate ye with one hand.’ And, yellow hand arching skywards he would rise to catch or break the ball - the glove a beacon in the Spring sky. The Mikasa gave a nasty oul scobe too if the boy you were boxin with happened to be wearing one or two of them when he gave you a chop off the ball. The downside was the elastic down round the base of the wrist often gave up the ghost - usually after the repeated turning the gloves inside out like an oul pair of socks.

And, as football technology developed and outfits like O’Neills and PFS brought out fancier models the Yellow Mikasa seemed destined for the scrap heap and oblivion. Stylistically, functionally, fashionably and footballingly - it was f***ed. 

That’s forgetting about one thing. The camogs that wear the Yellow Mikasa.

Yes, it has a cult following among the Camogie fraternity. The cushioned yellow pile protects delicate female hands from the real or imagined impact of the sliotar on flesh. The black dimples psychologically and possibly physically help your camog houl onto the ball. But it’s not any old camog will don the Yellow Mikasa. Nope, none of the fine young things competing in the All-Ireland series are Mikasa begloved - rumour has it that the likes of Fiona O’Driscoll, Stella Sinnot and Ger Manas banned the Yellow Mikasa from the dressing room as an abomination.

The Yellow Mikasa is now typically worn by the ‘legend’ approaching the twilight of her career who first obtained the glove when it was in its heyday. Or otherwise it’s the rugged slightly rotund growler that plays fullback, kitted out in bandana, Mikasa and maybe a strapping on the knee - legacy of some ancient injury for which she is still dispensing revenge.  The sliotar pucked in, our growler will dunt the opposing bright young thing outta the f***ing road, and clearing opposition hurls with her own, will drive through the forest of ash hand outstretched to gather the flying ball in its inevitable home in the Yellow Mikasa - before driving it like blue f*** out over the sideline - anywhere in fact but in her own square. But the Yellow Mikasa may be due a return. Some of the bright young things like their retro and so in homage to days gone by they are seeking out the Yellow Mikasa online, in e-bay, in the dad’s kitbags and their mother’s knicker drawer.

So, the next time you see a yellow hand reach skywards for a ball at a camogie match, pay homage. To the Yellow Mikasa glove.

Cork hurling brain - complex but misunderstood

Following their defeat down at the Pairc at the hands of traditional enemies Tipperary, their first loss to Tipp on home soil in eighty five years, there is much scratching of heads and wracking of brains down in the Rebel County. Despite that, the temporary blip to Tipp isn’t expected to cause too much trauma as folks down there still expect to be in the mix come September. Even though they would have to play five games to win the All Ireland.

Meanwhile, as the CCCC hands out fines to the Cork County Board for contravention of Match Regulations six and seven, what it is about Cork and the Cork hurlers that attracts admiration and antagonism in equal parts. Donal Óg Cusack still wants to use his own unapproved balls - we thought he’d got over that petulance when the strike ended. That infraction will cost the Co Board €1300 in total. Maybe Donal Óg does it on purpose just to annoy them.

Is it the arrogance of winning so many Munster and All Ireland titles? Is it the fact that they come from the self-declared People’s Republic of Cork - the navel of creation? It’s true to say that if Jesus had been born in Cork there would have been no shortage of self proclaimed wise men to tell him he was indeed the Saviour by birth, but Cork by the Grace of God.

For the rest of us mortals, we have to look on, watch, listen and put up with them. More to be pity than admired but sure they don’t care - after all they’re from Cork!