Squareball, gaa shop, gaa gear, gaa tshirts, clothing, merchandise.

Visitors to Omagh over the coming weekend will notice major tailbacks on the Derry road. The reason is the opening of the new Squareball Showroom, the first of its kind.

If you are in Tyrone it’s well worth a call in to see us. Alongside throngs of customers, you will see the team conceiving, developing and designing every possible sort of Squareball garment. Between Fehin keeping us all on our toes with his rapier wit, we have Collette there cracking the whip making sure we are all doing what we’re supposed to. We have Lairdo in the corner feverishly doodling away on his sketchpad (just wait til’ he gets the iPad!) coming up with next year’s line of gear.

We have a constant stream of calls and enquiries from GAA people the length and breadth of the country to deal with, gossip, rumour, innuendo, teams announced, teams changed, programmes being designed ready for the big day in the Ulster Championship.

And above all we have rack upon rack of specially designed Squareball garments. All ready and waiting for your inspection. . .

Be there and be Square. . .

You’ve all seen it in the championship. Last Sunday it was Tommy Freeman’s turn again. It’s the ultimate in the GAA goal celebration. . . McManus or Hanratty or whoever it was cuts in along the endline, a trail of Armagh defenders in his wake. . .

The carefully weighted pass across the goal that has Brolly and Jarlath stroking themselves and everyone else in pleasure. . .  Tommy Freeman gathers the ball and hammers it low into the net. A decisive chapter in the story of the game.

And what does Tommy do? Does he slide kneewise towards the adoring faithful from Magheracloone, Scotstown, Clones and Emyvale and elsewhere gathered on the Andytown Road end terrace; does he rip off  his skin tight O’Neills shirt to reveal a heartfelt message to that other Easy Rider Dennis Hopper; does he embark on a  bewildering routine of somersaults and back flips that Greg Louganis would be proud of? Does he dance like Roger Milla or pout like Cantona?

No, Tommy does what all self respecting forwards who have just rattled the onion bag do. . . he takes it all in his stride, running back out to his position, but most of all he’s pointing and gesticulating at real or imaginary positional deficiencies among his teammates. “Mark up there Finlay, get beside Mallon; McManus ye hoor ye, did ye see that finish; Rory ye big melder, mark that fecker Vernon; emptied the tank there boyz, our fella drop off, over there!”

Not for him a loud ‘Gwan ye f*******er ye.’ No stony-faced he wheels off, the only sign of emotion maybe a cursory handclap for the delivery of the killer pass. Nothing but the pointing, the signalling, the reorganisation. The poker face. A fortnight earlier, Owen Mulligan, a man who knows how to celebrate if needs be, the same. He reorganised the whole Tyrone forward unit that day, pointing and directing like an Italian traffic cop up Cookstown main street.

The next time some bollix sets off on a celebration a la foreign games, let us all remind him that the GAA way is stoic, sober, full of stern faced pointing and directing, lest any spectators should believe scoring a goal is an excuse for un-Irish and un-Gaelic behaviour. It isn’t. Up with Tommy Freeman and boys like him and down with somersaulting, fist waving, shirt twirling, message wearing, arse wiggling show offs. Feck off.

If you happen to turn on the television over the course of the next couple of weeks and see nothing but wall to wall groundball, don’t be alarmed. It is merely an international competition of groundball. With the advent of digitial television and the likes of SKY+ more than ever there is the possibility that in some of the more remote rural strongholds of the GAA that groundball, soccer, garrison games, whatever you like to call it may gain a foothold.

In one bar we visited at the weekend in West Kerry four elderly gentlemen sat nursing half’uns of Jameson and semi drunk pints of stout as they sat silently watching footage of Argentina against Canada that the publican had somehow managed to beam onto a black and white television.

“Yerra” one oul hoor pointed a nicotine stained finger at that fella Lionel Messi: “Galvin would flatten him ten seconds.”

‘Musha Dan Óg,’ declared another old scrote after three or four minutes contemplation, “You know, I would drop Mike Mac back to pick him up.”

Another oul bollix of the name Seamus Bán Leithreas started suddenly as asked “Whisht, why in name of bejaysus won’t these fellas lift the ball and kick it. Is this the latest to come from those bastard West Brits in Ulster?”

At that point we sloughed down the last of our bottle of designer Smithwicks Ale and bade a hasty retreat lest the locals discover that not only were we from Ulster,but that we knew a bit about these foreign games. As we drove northwards through Gaeltacht after Gaeltacht, each one breathtaking in its gealdom, isolation, poverty and the glowing happiness of the native people, we were asked repeatedly ‘who is this Terry Henry.  .  .?

So, for all you people out there used with the GAA, here is a brief guide to the World Cup.

It is a groundball competition played by national teams made up from the best players from their clubs. It is a bit like the Railway Cup used to be when you cycled to it on your bicycle, before Christy Cooney abolished it.

The matches are played in a different country every four years. It’s a bit like the time the All Ireland Final was played in the Polo Grounds in America and it took your uncle Micheal a month to get there on the coffin ship and fifty two years to come home, five times heavier, a million times wealthier and nowhere near as likeable.

Some teams are good at the World Cup, some aren’t. Them English hoors are a bit like Armagh, they only won it the once but never shut up about it and everyone hopes they never win it again because bit they’re hard to listen to. To put it mildly.

Uruguay are a bit like the Dubs, they wear the same colours, share a ruthless streak earned years back. Yes they are a bit dirty but for all of that, they haven’t won it in ages either. They still live in hope.

The Germans would be a bit like Cork circa Larry Tompkins vintage – ultra-strong, well-organised, hard to break down and hard to listen to as well. They have East and West too, they have the confidence that every time they turn up they’ll win. Once they get the wind in their back they’re kinda irresistable and they have the arrogance to think everyone else should bow down before them.

Italy would be a bit like Meath, they’re fierce dirty altogether and know all the tricks to win games. They’re usually managed by a wizened fella looks like Sean Boylan except about fifty years older. They would have more fashion sense than yer average Meath person though, but then that wouldn’t be hard. the Burkina Faso team would beat Meath on that account too.

Argentina would be a bit like Tyrone, anti-British over the Malvinas in the same way Tyrone hates everyone else. Both teams are managed by a small former player with a beard. They combine flair with the dirt and you either love them or hate them. With ArgenTyrone you’ll get forwards slaloming through defences crashing the ball into the goal spectacular style. You’ll have opposition forwards hitting the decks in agony as an angelic but unshaven ArgenTyrone player looks on, the picture of innocence arms outstretched like a cherub. You will see diving, players sent off. The old guard in ArgenTyrone are like a military junta, humourless, impassive, set in their ways. But you can’t argue with their football when they get going.

And then you have the Brazilians? (That’s not what sme of you oul fellas are thinking, just you stick to cutting the turf.) Brazil are the artisans of the game breathtaking in their skill, expecting to win, usually winning. They sometimes try to mix physical strength, cutehoorism and pure ignorance with their traditional skill but they believe they have a God given right to win. Who else but the Kingdom themselves. The yellow and gold influence is obvious.

What of the rest? Holland are like Derry, skilful but riven with internal division and over inflated egos; Spain like Galway, skilful cerebral, some great footballers but again question marks remain on the biggest stage, some recent success but can they recreate that?; United States are like Antrim, brash outspoken, uber confident but for no good reason; Wicklow and the Ivory Coast share similarities, a blow in outside manager that can engineer the odd good result.

And you may hear chat of WAGS, they aren’t something the dog does, but something you might meet round the back of the parish hall after a hefty jorum of jameson, knees a trembling and fingers crossed.

That’s the World Cup for ye!

It’s not often in the GAA that someone admits they’re wrong. . . certainly there has been little evidence in recent years that the higher echelons have any sort of feet of clay. Certainly whatever sort of feet they have their adept at landing them somewhere in their own mouth but continuing regardless.

And so we have had Padraic Duffy show some sort of bewilderment that there was any sort of difficulty over the issue of the underhand hand pass and the underhand manner of its introduction. Now, slaves as we are to the bloody rulebook, we are stuck with the implications of this decision for the conceivable future.

Added to that has been the inability of the referees of Ireland to apply the rule consistently, even the rule we already had that worked perfectly well. And so we have a troupe of these referee fellas going about, each one with their own little bugbear.

One has a thing about lifting the ball of the ground – maybe he got blown up in the final minute of an Under 12 Final fifty years ago and vowed revenge on the GAA ever since. Get over it already will you?

Another man has a bee in his bonnet about over-carrying the ball. He too was blown up as a minor about to burst the net in an Under 16 C final in darkest Tipp years ago. Ever since, he was vowed death to the over-carrier.

Another. Players stealing yards at frees has been his crutch ever since his beloved St Lughnasa’s were beaten with the last kick of a game when the hoor taking the last minute free stole some extra yards. ‘I’ll show them bastards’ he vowed before embarking on a career fuelled by revenge.

Another man loved to hop the ball at every opportunity, wracked as he was by indecision. Another foible has come back to haunt the same lad with the change to the line ball rule and where it can be taken from.He now is fixated and addicted to white lines.

These freelance referees are wreaking havoc with and without the rulebook. But for those who think this is a problem, you are mistaken. Paddy Heaney of the Irish News had the temerity to question the whole matter of refereeing and where it was going. For his trouble Paddy received an admonitory call from Croke Park and received a slap on the wrists. It’s a case of we’re right, you’re wrong and woe betide anyone says different.

So it was with some bemusement that we read today that the Uachtarán admitted that the GAA had got something wrong. Apparently he accepts that playing a Munster Championship Hurling semi-final on a wet Bank Holiday Monday wasn’t a good idea. But when we went on we breathed a sigh of relief, normal service resumed. It wasn’t Christy’s fauly after all, he didn’t get it wrong, that would be a step too far. Munster had got it wrong.

And up north, in the meantime we have the situation whereby through no fault of their own other than winning a match London are being asked to field for two championship matches on consecutive days. But according to the various PTBs this is no one fault only London’s (now how whoever suggested that one can operate that sort of logic defies us but whatever. Was it the Down manager?). Would Kilkenny be asked to present themselves for two championship matches in two days? Or Cork? Or Tyrone, Or Dublin. Bloody sure they wouldn’t. And is anything being done to sort it out?

For all these situations it’s time the GAA decided to start looking at what’s right and not who’s right. One road leads to the continued success and progress. The other leads backwards to the darks ages with grown men playing chicken with each other, neither prepared to budge. Time to move on lads. You’re becoming a laughing stock.

When one of the country’s leading footballers says he wouldn’t watch a match he wasn’t playing in. . . we have a problem Houston.

Talking Balls has announced it is to Launch an Investigation into the number of Investigations that the GAA has Launched. Our investigation will be Launched in the usual way, with a bottle of champagne cracked against the side of a ship or maybe something being cracked against the side of someone’s head.

It has emerged over a period of time that the GAA are wild men for launching investigations. But is there ever an outcome at all, or are all these investigations launched onto an unsuspecting public and then left to float about like the Marie Celeste with no-one on board and no-one sure what happened? Let’s examine some facts.

In May an investigation was launched by the Laois County Board into an incident during a league hurling match in which a player was knocked unconscious.

An April an investigation was launched into an attack on a referee in Tipperary with a hurling stick.

In September 2007 Dublin GAA chiefs were set to launch an investigation into incidents after a SFC match in the county which ended up with an official being reportedly knocked unconscious.

In January 2010 what was launched, only an investigation into the brawl that ruined the O’Byrne Cup quarter-final between Kildare and Laois when seven players were red carded in Portlaoise.

Today it was announced that the Leinster Council will launch an investigation into the events which led to the start of last Sunday’s Leinster SFC quarter-final between Westmeath and Wicklow in O’Connor Park being delayed by 15 minutes.

We have had investigations launched into the use of GAA pitches by Republicans; investigations into under the table payments to managers, investigations into the Cork Players Strike.

We’ve had internal investigations, oral investigations, independent investigations. And all for what? Well we’ve had enough so we’re going ahead with Launching our own Investigation into the Launching of Investigations. We’ll be calling witnesses soon, so be prepared as Japeth the Goat might say.

The things people do to sell a few jerseys. . . Those clever fellas down at Champion Sports have decided that in order to help shift a few units of new Dublin jerseys ahead of the Championship, they will offer a scrappage scheme offering money off in return for any old Dublin shirts  offered as a makeweight in the deal.

Already we have heard tales of Jimmy Keaveny rooting about in the cupboard for his old kitbag. Such was Jimmy’s girth that one shirt of his would get you enough discount to buy two or three of the funky new Vodafone variety.

Other oul fellas about Dublin haven’’t got an old county shirt but have been rooting out pairs of Y fronts, socks, jock straps, string vests and support garments of varying vintages to see what if any deal they can strike with Champion. One oul lad in Crumlin has a unique medical appendage that was developed in the fifties to help him continue to work on the roads, moonlighting as a groundsman, despite a burgeoning hernia that alarmed other workers, ladies and the general public in equal amounts. Women have been dyeing oul bras and corsets light blue in the hope of convincing Champion they were official issue supporters garments,

Champion haven’t been available to comment on what exactly they will take in exchange but the details suggest all these schemes will be in vain. We can reveal that the new Scrappage deal will see €20 slashed off the current €60 price of the new 2010 Dublin Home Jersey for fans who bring their old jersey into Champion branches across Dublin and in Carlow, Newbridge and Drogheda

The move was welcomed by Dublin players today at the launch of the deal. Football star and All Ireland U-21 final man-of-the-match Rory O’Carroll said, “The feedback on the jersey has been extremely positive and it is great that this jersey trade-in deal has been launched before the championship starts as fans can get their hands on it at a discount.”

So then the message coming loud and clear is, calling all you Dubs, time to move on and sell off the Charlie Redmond replice you bought after your stole Sam off Tyrone in 1995.

In an exclusive, Talking Balls can reveal that France legend Zinedine Zidane has claimed that had he played gaelic games as a youngster, he would have been better able to deal with the sledging that led to his headbutt on Italy’s Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup Final and his subsequent sending off in disgrace.

Although Zidane declined to say at the time what had gone on, a team of expert lip readers from Talking Balls were able to decipher some of the foul mouthed tirade from Materazzi that led to one of the greats of the game ending his career in ignominy. We were able to pick out the phrases ‘You’re shite [undecipherable comment] yer ma. [undecipherable comment] yer sister you baldy [undecipherable comment].

As Zidane buried his head in Materazzi’s chest we can reveal he roared: ‘Your tattoos look like shite you f***in Everton reject.’

Readers will recall that the sporting world was aghast at the time at Zidane’s actions. I some quarters he was hailed as the ultimate family man for sticking up for his sister and mother and pilloried in others as some sort of pure bollix who let himself down badly in the Championship.

He toul Talking Balls with the help of a translator: “I often go on holiday in the North of Ireland and I go to ze club matches there wearing a hoodie and a false ginger wig and beard so no-one recognises me. The goings on at Irish hand football games make Materazzi’s comments like that of an innocent child. One time I was asked to play a reserve game in Donegal. I liked it very much and I although I couldn’t understand what the little fellow was saying he had a crazed look in his eye and he muttered a lot. This mutterazzi reminded me of Materazzi.”

He went on to sympathise with the Irish nation over its grievous treatment at the hand of Thierry Henry.

“I would have expected it from some of the other players, indeed other countries. . . in fact anyone but Thierry Henry, and anyone but France.”

Funnily enough, an entire nation agrees.

A number of property developers whose elaborate, grandiose and ultimately ill fated building plans are now snarled up in NAMA, are believed to among the long shortlist of punters signed up to participate in the latest foreign games invasion to take place at Croker.

The Powers That Be have revealed that pretty soon, anyone with €100 burning a hole in their pocket, or burned by €100 million and now sitting on their hole, can head on down Jones’s Road to Croker to sign up for a walk across the stadium roof similar to the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk. This should be no problem to some of these guys who previously thought they could walk on water and onwards all over the country’s financial regulations, whatever they were.

Norwegian daredevil Eskil Ronningsbakken showed the way, teetering on the brink above Croke Park in a way that would have had Anglo Irish execs sick with vertigo. Like Eskil, anyone that wishes can brazen it out in a remarkable show of nimble footwork and balance under pressure. However the presence of a few safety nets tends to limit the damage these days doesn’t it?

The new tours offer visitors panoramic views over the capital, with all its imperfections, infidelities and unfinished developments. The tours are believed to be marketed under the slogan, ‘One Day, All of this Could Have Been Yours.’

A walkway will be built on the roof of the stadium and tours will be offered from next January, costing in the region of €100. Anyone who has done the Sydney harbour walk will know that punters are breathalysed so that rules out the premium and corporate box clientele.

According to the Croker spoker:

“The walkway will be around the entire stadium. . . there’s fairly stringent safety measures, so they have to be gone through, which will take about 30 minutes. They will have to make sure people are fit and able to do it. There will be five platforms with views of Dublin and one pitchside viewing platform.

Marks a far cry from the old days when anyone on the roof of a stand was guaranteed to be drunk and likely to be arrested when they come down.

Hell hath no fury like women scorned, and when the opportunity to play with the big balls is removed from them, the perpetrators can expect nothing only a whole load of trouble.

Ladies from Mayo  have been causing bother since Granuaile first plied her trade off the coast of Mayo. Unlike Galway hookers, Granuaile’s was a ship of solid reputation that took it and gave it back to the English every way it could.

So it is in the proud tradition of fiery Mayo women, that Ladies football legend Cora Staunton has imploded with rage. The cause of her ire? The Mayo Ladies County Board have voted 26-5 to withdraw the team from the Connacht Championship clash with Sligo on 19 June, a move that means Mayo are effectively out of the Ladies Football Championship. This a competition which they have graced, and won several times, with the aforementioned Cora a multiple All Ireland medal winner and seven time All Star.

The cause of this splinter of discontent follows the resignation of long term team manager Pat Costello who stood down after the end of the National League last month, describing his position as ‘untenable’ having been ‘constantly undermined by certain players within the panel’ he says.

Cora has responded accusing the county board of “putting us back years”. She has rejected any criticisms of the players by their former manager:

“After being beaten by Cork (by 20 points) in the league, we held a players’ meeting and we compiled, on a flip chart, 15 things that needed to change? Twelve of those related to ourselves as players, just three of them related to management.”

Hold on, hold on, hold on now. . . Flipcharts? Jaysus, that Mickey Harte has a lot to answer for! She must have been reading The Book.

“We didn’t want him to go but Eamonn Ryan (Cork manager) doesn’t do everything himself. He has a big backroom team and we felt bringing in a physical trainer would allow Pat to concentrate on other aspects. We felt it was constructive feedback and that he took it very well, but when he met the panel next he stood down and we were all shocked.”

A case of greener grass. . . Cora maybe has to realise that some men get involved in coaching for different reasons: interest, vanity, money, the attention of young women, the company of young women, a hatred of young women and an overwhelming desire to chase them round a field, whatever. . . Another reason is that many coaches want to get out of the house away from the wife and her nagging. . . maybe she tells him what to do all the time and points out what he’s not doing about the house and in the bedroom.

One coach we know that would be familiar with women’s teams will tell you the only thing worse than the wife nagging is twenty or thirty young things telling you what they want. Wears you out.  They only see it their way. And talking about what the Cork girls are doing. . . that’s like them all seeing a new pair of shoes, a handbag or a new dress that they all want. Never mind what poor oul Pat is doing.

We have sent a special team of mediators led by Ger Manas to sort the whole thing out. Take it from the horse’s ass, it will be sorted.