All over, bar the fighting
Pssst ,The GAA’s real crisis is not blanket defence or handpassing, pass it on
“I’ll make you a deal, if you stay here, I promise to stay here”.
One of the players I used to share a hurling field with had this very sage bit of strategy during a game when things ‘kicked off’. He would negotiate a détente with his opposite number, thereby ensuring the brawl/melée/schemozzle had at least 2 less participants, and less oxygen with which to feed the flames.
In the past few weeks, the powerful tool of social media has spread far and wide news and searing visual imagery of the real crisis that is tearing through the GAA — the conduct of players and spectators at the games. If swift action does not come, we are in real danger of a fatality, and the wholesome core of gaelic games being ripped out for good.
It is the unequivocal nature of user-filmed video that is making a difference. A match report can be biased. A first hand account can be skewed, a referee’s report can have the hard edges sanded off. But when you are filmed jumping over a fence into a crowd of fans and start pummelling whoever you can find with your fists, suddenly there is nowhere to hide. The viral nature of these videos is both part of the problem, and perhaps the Gaa’s best weapon in solving it.
Watching the latest episode of ‘Culchies gone wild’ coming from my own County, it was hard not to draw parallels with the world of MMA. Just a few hours earlier, I would wager many of the players in the Ballyholland Downpatrick game would have watched Conor McGregor’s MMA match descend into chaos in the post-fight commotion. The common elements were hard to ignore; players jumping out of the field of play, sucker punches and cowardly violence, innocent spectators suddenly thrust into the heart of the fray.
Where the sports differ, is that the McGregor incident will not damage his sport. Footage from the infamous bus attack in New York between the two fighter’s camps was actually used in promos for this latest contest. It is a sport borne out of violence, and all expressions of it are inherent to its nature and appeal, planned or otherwise. Despite the pious proclamations of the sport’s Oligarch Dana White, not many of those who paid €50 to watch Mc Gregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov will have been displeased with the evening’s entertainment.
The association can continue to sanction these unplanned riots with silence and sham disciplinary hearings, or it can make strong statements.
The GAA meanwhile, while being organically rooted in tribal battles and parish rivalries, has a decision to make if it wants to save the image of its’ games. The association can continue to sanction these unplanned riots with silence and sham disciplinary hearings, or it can make strong statements. Statements like long bans and ruthless ejections for teams who so violently tarnish the sport’s reputation as one based on family, thrilling athletic endeavour and respect. The sport must also seek and root out those who roared on the combatants in these melees, and offer them the choice of the games, or the gate.
I was at a Senior football championship match in Down recently and was taken aback at the level of animosity that now pervades the atmosphere of knockout football (pun intended).
Fan 1 “ Knock his fucking head off , the dirty tramp.”
Fan 2 “ Here you, would you mind your language.”
Fan 1 “ Fuck away off, I paid my twelve quid, I can say whatever the fuck I want you cheeky wee bitch.”
The above is a close to verbatim exchange between two groups of fans that night. I don’t expect everyone leaving holding hands and singing ‘ A Song for Ireland’, but I was shocked by the vicious attitude of some supporters. It appears that some now see paying the admission price as justification for uttering the most horrible of words towards the other team’s players, officials and supporters. There can be no place for behaviour like this. We should not excuse it as intensity, passion, or fervour. It is hatred and thuggery. And it is an untruth. Spectators in these stadia are bound by a code of conduct, just as players are. You can’t say whatever you like once you pass that turnstile, and supporters need to remember they are there to spectate, not to participate. It may be time for officials to keep a closer eye on the conduct in the stands as well as on the field.
That being said, it feels as though the game has taken on a darker lustre, due to the increasingly combative nature of the games. The slow movement of the ball leads to more contact, more tackles and less football. Hand fighting, tactical fouling and body blocking are as much a part of the game’s skills now as toe-tapping and kicking. It might have been just a few kids rough-housing, but at half time I was watching three or four young gaels on the field, and despite there being a ball there to kick, they were much more interested in pushing, shoving and wrestling.
In a similar vein to other dramatic events, it is hard to truly assess the scale of the problem and decipher whether these brawls are happening more, or less often, with social media a willing multiplier in this digital age. What should be beyond doubt is that is happening too often, and I hope the Down County Board show more courage than their counterparts in Tyrone in the aftermath of a mass brawl at Tyrone’s headquarters in Omagh between Stewartstown and Strabane. 24 hours after this travesty, they failed to see anything wrong in a game where 27 cards were handed out and Sean Cavanagh suffered severe facial injuries and a brain injury (that’s what a concussion is) in an exchange that resulted in no disciplinary action at all.
The fact that this game in Down that was played due to a previous abandonment related to another serious head injury shows how much the clubs have to answer for. Amateur officials should not have to deal with separating groups of 40 plus adult men in hand to hand combat. But the officials in control are duty and law bound to take punitive and discouraging retrospective action towards the clubs and individuals involved. For years GAA fans have jealously guarded the moral high ground over soccer fans, lauding the jovial behaviour of fans and the mixing of spectator groups in stadiums.
If they are not careful, that most precious asset could be lost, and an era of home and away terraces, CCTV cameras aimed at the stands and not the pitch could be upon us.
