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ULSTER GAA HAS just launched a groundbreaking road safety initiative targeting young GAA players. Too often in recent years GAA communities across the country have been devastated by the death of young players in a road accident.

Now, with the help of some of Ulster highest profile players, Ulster officials are urging young people to ‘Live to Play’ emphasising the need for safety on the roads. The campaign, which was launched at the McKenna Cup final, points out that ‘A mistake on the pitch might cost you the game. A mistake on the road can cost you your life.’

Before the ball was thrown in, a minute’s silence was observed for all those who have lost their lives on the roads and the players wore black arm bands as a mark of respect.

Ulster GAA also launched their specially commissioned jersey on the night, with Tyrone’s Brian Dooher and Donegal’s Karl Lacey (pictured) lending their support to the Campaign.

The jersey uses the traditional Ulster colours of black and amber, but the design has been amended to include a black stripe across the chest – promoting the concept of wearing a seatbelt. One of a number of road safety messages which will be endorsed throughout the Campaign.

Ulster GAA president Tom Daly said “This is a campaign which is very close to our hearts. Virtually every GAA Club in Ulster has suffered the loss of a member through a collision on the roads and if this initiative helps to prevent further deaths then we are more than happy to lead on this. The backing which has been given by our Counties, players and managers has allowed us to demonstrate to our members that this is something which we, in the GAA, believe in passionately and want to make a difference”.

Ulster GAA Road Safety Campaign is being promoted online on Facebook and YouTube in an effort to communicate this message to a young audience.

The events which took place at the match were the first in a series of promotional initiatives which will roll out across Ulster in the coming months. Profile player and managers from across Ulster are expected to back the initiative by lending their support at events and in the media. A poster campaign will be launched using the ‘Live to Play’ theme and there will be a section of Ulster GAA website devoted to educating members.

In early spring a series of workshops will take place at Club level to provide thorough education for members, particularly young drivers who are most at risk of being involved in an incident.

NOT CONTENT WITH banning wearers of GAA tops from its stores as reported in an earlier edition of Talking Balls, British mega store chain TESCO, now the sponsor of the Ladies Football Club Championships, has enraged a further section of the community by banning the wearing of pyjamas in its shops. How this will go down with GAA moms in West Belfast, Derry, Limerick, Cork, Waterford we can only imagine. If you like to go to TESCO in your jammies, we want to hear from you, you lazy hoors.

And what about all the lovely ladies who are in for a double dunter so to speak by wearing GAA themed pyjamas? Yous have been warned girls, this won’t be tolerated.

The new signs, headed Tesco Dress Code Policy, read: “To avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others, we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted).”

A spokeswoman for Tesco said: “We’re not a nightclub with a strict dress code, and jeans and trainers are of course more than welcome. We do, however, request that customers do not shop in their PJs or nightgowns.”

“This is to avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others.”

She added: “This is in response to other customers. We would never dictate to people. But we have listened to customer feedback that it makes them uncomfortable and embarrassed.”

So then, when you’re in your night-time attire, if you feel like some pork sausage, a hot takeaway from the deli counter, or a few new batteries for those handy handheld household appliances, then don’t head over to Tesco until you’ve changed. Or you’re likely to be escorted off the premises like. . . well just like one of them underage GAA players up in Antrim. Whatever next?

Remember, TESCO – Every Idiot Helps, Annoying You More Everyday.

THIS ARTICLE has the potential to be considered tasteless, but we have a point. In the last few days an earthquake has been reported in some newspapers. Ah, now I know you’re thinking Haiti. But I’m not, no not yet.

Talking Balls was shocked to learn that an earthquake measuring 1.6 on the Richter scale struck Donegal a week ago. The epicentre located at Bridgend in the south of the Inishowen peninsula, and the tremor was felt in Buncrana in Inishowen and westwards across Lough Swilly in the Fanad peninsula. Reports said that a number of people fled their homes in terror fearing the worst before they realised the threat had passed.

A couple of thousand miles away an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale had devastated Port au Prince in Haiti. The deathtoll is estimated at 200,000 people with tens of thousands more homeless or maimed for life.

By way of comparison, the last time an earthquake marked at 7.0 on the Richter scale struck San Francisco 75 people died. The difference? One country is the most powerful in the world with proper housing, infrastructure, resources and riches to burn. The other is a third world country, one of the weakest and most vulnerable in the world, with little going for it.

If a minor earth tremor in Donegal terrified people and caused them to flee their homes, just imagine the impact of a quake many times more powerful in Haiti? A place few of us will ever visit, let alone have heard much of other than their soccer team played in the World Cup in 1974 and their former leader Papa Doc Duvalier was a fearsome dictator. Now it will forever be associated with this catastrophe. How does this affect Talking Balls?

Well the PtB in the GAA has already reached out to give financially to Haiti with a €50,000 donation across the four provincial councils to GOAL.

Former Birr and Offaly hurler Darren Hanniffy is leading GOAL’s relief operation in Haiti.?

Upon arrival Darren said: “We were met with chaotic scenes. . . the destruction is catastrophic, almost every house has been either totally destroyed or collapsed.”

If you can, find the time and the money to help the relief effort. www.goal.ie .

No more Talking Balls, let’s see if we can all do something about it no matter how small.

THE TINKERMEN in Croke Park (not the one parked up outside we emphasise) have ruffled the feathers again with ill-considered rule changes that don’t addres the real problems in our games.

Forget about introducing that abomination from Aussie Rules, ‘The Mark’, or fartin’ about with the penalty spot, the latest wheezes emanating from someone’s backside is a ban on the Maor Uisce. No more can a squad member, stout and proud clubman or the manager’s youngest son tear onto the field with gay abandon to administer uisce out of one of them iconic O’Neills water bottles or a Bulmers cidona bottle.

Often the uisce was source of a bit of trampish when a fella might maybe refuse a teammate a drink out of the same bottle or even hose the hoor down for something he said. Anyway, Trouble No More, as the Allman Brothers sang.

The other rule change? That na bainisteori must stand a metre back from the touchline. Now I dunno about the G-A-A, camogie or ladies fudball wherever the f*** you hail from, but round these parts it’s an article of faith that the manager, the trainer, the coach, the wife’s sister and that useless hoor that hangs round every team because no-one has the courage to tell him away te f***. . . All of them, yes ev’ry one of the hoors louchely gather about fifteen yards in from the touchline, in the middle of the field of play, fag in mouth, wellies worn, maybe a hurley in hand if the game demands it.

Often as not if the goalie directs his kickout or puck well enough the hoors have to scamper off the pitch lest the opposition ball winner should flatten them in his pursuit of the pigskin. It is a particular curse in underage where the presence of some grizzled oul bastards scares the crap out of the other team’s wing forward as well as his own wing back so the two play as auxiliary centre backs or midfielders (some tacticians would have this as the real origin of the third midfielder) despite repeated entreaties from the self same bainisteoir to ‘get te f*** out to the f***in wing where ye were putt.’

Will it all make a blind hate of difference. Damn the bit. There’s too many gobshites involved in the GAA managing local teams to pay attention to something as important as a rule change.

But, if you’re reading this, all you hoors that I’ve told to get off the pitch over the years then THIS RULE APPLIES TO YOU TOO YOU MORON, so don’t stand there asking me who the f*** I think I am or telling me the ref never said nothing. Just get te f*** off the pitch and behind the powdered white line.

Rant over for this week.

LET US SHARE with you the alleged tale of Frances ‘Smokie’ Larkin, described in some scurrilous media outlets as a drunken unemployed plasterer. He may be all of that, but he is also apparently a hero of Ireland, a patriot, and a man who is clearly not prepared to take an insult to his nation laying down. No indeed, he’s not. Some claim this episode did not happen at all. If it didn’t it should.

Munster Rugby have what they call ‘the bitterness bank’ where they deposit slights, real or imagined, to be resurrected and reused on a later date. But that isn’t a patch on this Smokie Larkin character, if such as he exists at all. His tale is a metaphor for the nation as we stands at this time. Raging, raging against the dying of the light.

Affronted he was at Thierry Henry’s froggy cheatin’ handball that knocked Ireland out of the soccer World Cup, so much so that he was apprehended by disbelieving staff as he was urinating on the French loaves section of Maher’s ValueStore supermarket, Killareagh, in an ‘I piss all over your country’ one man protest. You’ve heard of the ballot box in one hand and the armalite in the other as a declaration of Irishness. This time it was a baguette in one hand and his coq sportif in the other. All of this in Killareagh, if such a place exists.

The story goes that staff found the 46-year-old triumphantly having a slash on the Cuisine de France section of the bread shelves in Maher’s, shouting “this will teach ye, ye cheating French bastards.” Not surprisingly he was arrested and led away by the gardai in the process pissing off local housewives who looking after a bit of fresh crusty, as they do.

The Court apparently heard from Gardai Anthony Flanagan who was called to the store at 11.15 on the morning of November 25.

“When I reached the shop, I was informed that Mr Larkin was causing a disturbance in the bread section and when I got there, he was urinating on the French bread section and stamping on a loaf. I later ascertained that the loaves were brioches, a sort of French bread.

“When he saw me, he tried to run away but I apprehended him and grabbed him by the arm. He said ‘that’s for Thierry Henry, guard. If you have any pride in your country, you’ll let me go.”

Smokie’s lawyer pleaded the case for the patriot, who addressed the court a la Robert Emmet. He advised that he had no axe to grind with the employees in the shop but that they had got caught up in ‘friendly fire’. He added that he wanted to make a grand gesture gesture to show that the Irish were not going to take the controversial incident lying down.

“The French loaf is the symbol of France’ he said “and so by doing what I did, I was standing up for Irish pride.”

His lawyer pleaded that Smokie, who was a wearing a “I shot Thierry Henry” tee shirt when he was apprehended isn’t a bad fella after all: “It is when he mixes alcohol with his passion for sport that he gets himself into situations like this,” she said.

Accordingly we are told that Judge Fegrus O’Halloran took a dim view of his activity, stating that what Mr Larkin had done was despicable and a threat to public hygiene. “You did this without any thought to the consquences for the unfortunate shoppers who had to buy that bread” he admonised.

“We cannot have louts like yourself with half-baked ideas about national pride carrying out acts like this,” he said, before sentencing Larkin to six months in jail, suspended on condition he does not breach the peace for one year, fining €500 and ordering him to pay €1,000 to Michael Maher for the clean up of the bread shelf areas.

So did it happen or didn’t it? When you read this here or elsewhere did you heart rise up in pride, tears welling at this one man 1798. Or did you think that this is the sort of pathetic and ridiculous depths we’ve plumbed when we think an overpaid arrogant and over exposed f***er might cause a real or imaginary hero of Ireland to hose down the Cuisine de France.

Or is it all entirely made up, a salutory tale where the symbols of France are a piece of damp crusty bread that’s made in Ireland and a footballer who gets paid to score goals however best he can.

And the symbol of Ireland c2010 is a plastered plasterer who’s most effective form of protest is when he’s on the piss.

A TALKING BALLS INVESTIGATION.

Everytime we hear of the latest ’scandal’ dogging English soccer we raise our head skywards, gaze into the clouds and praise and give thanks for the GAA.

That’s not to say that our beloved players aren’t fond of a bit but at least we don’t have to put up with endless nonsense about the Leitrim captain running off with the fullback’s wife or the Cork keeper eyeing up one of the opposition’s forwards with a view to asking them out. That’s not to say that sort of thing doesn’t go on. I’m sure most of our intercounty players have perfectly enjoyable and normal sex lives, they might; some may not and I’m pretty confident that some of the miserable bastards definitely don’t (mentioning no names) judging by their typical demeanor, but that’s to be praised and given thanks for, not demeaned.

What’s a bit worrying is that half of our club Under 8 team run about with Chelsea soccer jerseys on, idolising these overpaid morons who get paid a Klondyke every week and have no class or morals whatsoever.

You can hear the question at the dinner table: “Dad, why is John Terry not going to be England captain in the World Cup. Is it because he slipped and missed that penalty in the Champions League final?”

The oul boy’s thinking “No son, it’s because he slipped another one in with that chancy underwear yoke. . .” but he has to reply “Eat up your pasta son, there’s an indoor hurling blitz this evening and you need to focus on your game.”

The chancy French underwear model appears to have had more Chelsea players than she’s had hot dinners if you take even cursory notice of the British red tops. They suggest the level of morality amongst the soccer fraternity is non existent – and if the more lurid accounts are to be believed they get about like rabbits on viagra. Certainly adds new meaning to the idea of the box to box player. What would Bobby Moore say I ask you?

But yer man Terry seems a boorish f***er in every way. He offended Americans by his behaviour at Heathrow at the time of 9/11; he pissed into a pint glass in the middle of some night club and he’s already been the subject of a tabloid exposé for what he gets up to in his Landrover with another lady that’s not his wife. Off road driving we might call it. That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Thank god then for the GAA players we have who get drunk and talk shite about football all night, or the extremists like McGeeney and Cusack whose idea of a mad night out is a trip to a matinee showing in the cinema followed by a feed of egg yolk omelette, wheatgrass smoothie and a quick protein shake.

As for Terry? He wouldn’t last ten minutes in the GAA and that’s a fact.

So the answer to our original question is, Yes!

JOHN DELANEY of the FAI is some boy. Certainly his grasp on historical effects leaves something to be desired following his claim that had the FAI known that Croke Park would be available to them in the longer term, they would not have gone ahead with the redevelopment of Lansdowne. This follows on his farcical and embarrassing attempts to have Ireland’s match against France replayed because Thierry Henry soloed the ball.

Goes without saying that John obviously forgot that the conditions under which the IRFU and the FAI were granted access to Croker was that it would only be for the duration of the redevelopment of Lansdowne.

It remains to be seen whether or not that was a factor in the Republic of Ireland’s forthcoming international against Brazil being played at Arsenal’s home ground in North London rather than GAA headquarters.

Delaney is of course the same guy that recently told Roy Keane to ‘move on’ saying “It’s time for him now, in my opinion, to learn from the past, not live with it. ”

Talking Balls says take your own advice John and move on, you seem to have forgotten the reasons why you were in Croker in the first place.

Croker Official Fergal McGill told him as much saying:

“Go back to the start of all this. Croke Park was only opened on a temporary basis once the FAI and IRFU confirmed that Lansdowne was closed for redevelopment.

“So regardless of what they say now, the FAI was always rebuilding and pressing ahead for their own stadium. So why is he criticising Croke Park and the GAA?”

“We’re not responsible for the running of the FAI’s affairs. Lansdowne was only ever closed for redevelopment; it was always going to reopen. And we only opened Croke Park to other sports when they started rebuilding Lansdowne. They were always going to return.”
“Why they are saying they might not have gone back there is beyond me. Why were they planning on building a new stadium so? And what about their much-heralded desire for Ireland to have its own soccer stadium?”

Enough said. Sounds like an empty vessel making the most noise.

ARD STIÚRTHÓIR of the PTB Padraic Duffy, speaking last week, as he does, raised the spectre of intercounty teams lining out with each player’s name prominently displayed on the back of his shirt.

Sounds straightforward in theory, but there would be a host of practical, ethical and team issues with doing this. Talking Balls as usual has all the angles covered.

Since it currently takes most well-known GAA gear suppliers an excessively long period of time to provide even a basic set of shirts, imagine the delay if the shirt was further complicated with individual names.

No, the only way in which this would work would be the introduction of squad numbers unless of course each county team employed some oul doll to iron vinyl letters onto the shirt in the dressing room before the start of the game. That in itself would present a host of difficulties. For example if the mercurial centre forward, lining out at no 11 slipped in the bog and sustained a nasty injury, the selectors would have to make a last minute alteration to the starting fifteen. Would they hastily remove the name from the no 11 shirt?

And what then if the oul doll with responsibility for ironing was dyslexic for example or made a balls of the spelling of a player’s name? It would add greatly to the pre match confusion (and craic) but would not aid team preparation. Also, the added health and safety risk of an older lady in the dressing room with a hot steam iron and all those virile young men about, Jaze you never know what might happen, especially if her name was Iris. God knows someone might get badly singed.

The introduction of players’ names would also likely herald the cult of the personality shirt number arriving in the GAA. Similar to what has been the case in American Football and Basketball. Those wannabees in soccer of course adopted this a few years back along with the self indulgent practice of ‘retiring’ the shirt in the case of players like AC Milan’s no 6 Franco Baresi.

Highly respected basketball coach John Wooden – by whom Mickey Harte has been strongly influenced – preached the sanctity of the team and elevated that above all other factors. ‘Ten hands to score a basket’ he proclaimed and he refused to get into the practice of retiring shirts since it elevated one individual above the team. Harte has a similar view on the sanctity of the team with ritual handing our of shirts and the egalitarian practice of numbering subs in alphabetical order.

In the GAA however the names on shirts may also militate against the age old practice of a shirt or two being nicked. Club teams and county underage teams the length and breadth of the country are plagued by lads trying to make off with their shirt. In one club of our acquaintance, the only numbered shirts were those used for matches and were kept in the bag. One moron ‘borrowed’ the number 8 shirt – itself a ridiculous exercise since the individual concerned was a frequently anonymous corner forward who spent most of the time on the bench. He blew his own cover by ostentatiously wearing the shirt to Mass on the Sunday and compounded his crime by confidently striding up the main aisle to receive communion.

But we all know the ritual whereby the dressing room door is locked until all the shorts and socks are returned to the pile not to mention the shirts. Inevitably there then ensues a row with the one or two conscientous lads who, maybe due to a nasty fungal foot or crotch infection or an odour problem, bring and wear their own shorts and socks and are then accused of stealing until the gear is all counted again for the umpteenth time.

If it helps the commentators then named shirts may help. Even the likes of the BBC Mark Sidebottom who sometimes has difficulty knowing the name of the ground he’s at. Likewise it would help in the case of a melee to identify the perptrators or even the referee when he wants to card some hoor.

Sounds like it needs a special congress. We’ll not be there.

GALWAY GAELS have run into repeated difficulties over the last few years in trying to get planning permission for floodlights at Pearse Stadium. Now it has emerged that someone may have forged the signature on part of the application, which never helps.

According to the Irish Independent, a senior Garda has asked the GAA and Galway City Council to investigate the matter. Now surely that should be the other way around? Or maybe Ireland has slipped so far backwards that the national police force will ask a sports organisation and a public body to investigate a matter that could have legal repercussions not to mention fraud. Is it not their job?

Superintendent Noel Kelly of Salthill Garda Station has advised Galway City Council that the signature is not his nor that of his inspector or sergeant, and has asked them to establish who signed the document.
The document was submitted as an attachment to another official letter from the Garda which, it has been established, was genuinely signed by a garda.

The signature at the centre of the investigation is believed to be on the end of an official document from Pearse Stadium regarding transport and traffic arrangements during big games and concerts and it reads ‘Garda Micheal Cusack, his mark, X.’

Pearse Stadium Development Committee chairman Frank Burke said that he was “extremely shocked” by the allegation and denied any knowledge of the document in question. He added:

“I have absolutely no knowledge of this document and can say, certainly, that nobody was authorised by our committee to interfere with any document. . . ‘”

Now, just before Talking Balls could ask (with incredulity of course) whether his committee occasionally does authorise people to interfere with any documents, he had added:

“. . .nor would we ever countenance such an action under any circumstances,” he said.

Still, it was a strange statement to make. Anyway, anyone here watch Father Ted?