Disgraceful Reporting Mars Row
Talking Balls Comments
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The papers this morning are full of bluster about the ‘disgraceful scenes’ that marred the Moorefield and Dromard second replay. ‘Appalling Scenes as Second Replay Descends into Violence’ screamed the indo – obviously they’ve been watching Noel Thompson too much.
In true gaelic and athletic style, the row broke out towards the end of the game with both benches emptying as people who should have known better got involved and added their h’pennyworth. This we might add is not an unusual event in club championship matches this time of year as you will know – take note Clontibret v Crossmaglen a few weeks back and the infamous Ballymacnab v Stewartstown fracas in Ulster last year.
Yesterday’s hanlin’ had all the usual ingredients for a successful row and – even better – for a po-faced response from the media and the PTB. All it needs is a BBC camera or a Belfast Telegraph photographer and we’ll be home and hosed.
‘Worryingly,’ Cliona Foley of the Indo piously tells us ’some small children who had got inside the perimeter also ran into the middle of the chaos.’ No doubt the children can expect a lengthy ban.
Actually all this nonsense about children and rows at matches – remember Thurlesgate, the crime wasn’t the belts but the weans that were watching – reveals Ms Foley mustn’t be too close to a real GAA club. In Talking Balls‘ experience youngsters love nothing better than to see a good melee, in fact they will invariably be seen loitering about the fringes and can relate chapter and verse about who hit who – y’know the sort. Seamus got kicked in the nuts by their number six and then Bernard came in a busted his nose – there was blood everywhere – I could see his brains.
Like, it’s not as if one of the pugilists will burst one of the Óg supporters is it? ‘That wee fecker’s wearing a Dromard hoodie so I’m gonna bust his jaw with this oul handbag I have here.’
No, kids are much too sprightly and agile for the average club player. The nearest Talking Balls has been to kids getting injured at a match was after an Intermediate Championship Final in Derry when Derry player Jane Carey deliberately collapsed the team line-up for the victorious Eoghan Rua team and a wee two year old fella called Peter ended up stuck under someone’s skort. A scary thought. Yes, youngsters love all the brouhaha round matches – keeps them talking for, oh twenty minutes at least. Talking Balls nephews used to regularly hang round the periphery of half-time team talks to hear the bad language – they could write a litany of teamtalks. Disgraceful altogether.
Oh, and by the way no-one was even booked after the hostilities finished yesterday. Sure it was all a bit of a shemozzle.
