Ulster’s image problem is of their own making

THAT sound you heard at around twenty to five on Sunday afternoon? A collective sigh of smug self satisfaction from twenty one of the country’s thirty two counties. There was that and then in the background a round of ‘won’t somebody please think of the children’, Maud Flanders-esque, tut-tutting.

They’d let themselves down again hadn’t they? They’d played into every negative stereotype we have of Ulster football and they’d done so in the very first televised championship game of the summer with the entire country looking on intently.

Before that we’d have gone as far as to declare the opening thirty five minutes of Ulster championship football a resounding success. That’s what we should have been talking about, not a petty little brawl as the teams made their way to the dressing rooms.

Donegal, we’ve since been informed, had right of way to the tunnel at half-time. Tyrone hadn’t got the memo – or simply chose to ignore it – and muscled in on Donegal’s turf with predictable results.

Part of us wants to chide the players and officials from both sides who got involved, for what on its face is petty and childish behaviour, the other part of us sees it as the inevitable result of adrenaline addled-bodies clashing in a competitive environment.

If it were a one off that’s where we’d come down. As we all know it wasn’t a one off. Last year there was the brawl before the match had even thrown-in between Armagh and Cavan.

It was a brawl during a parade, over a flag, in Ulster.. somebody send for a representative of the Parades’ Commission please. Again more farcical than anything else, but damaging nevertheless.

Ulster football has an image problem. A problem of its own making in so many respects, a rod for its own back gleefully embraced by the province’s detractors south of the border. Sometimes with some degree of justification.

There’s long been a feeling that the sledging culture which exists in Ulster goes too far, gets too personal, gets too far out of hand. To our mind that’s much more damaging than any bout of semi-farcical handbags.

It looks like exactly what it is, mean-spirited and downright nasty. When you have veterans of the game like Seán Cavanagh coming out after an Ulster championship match saying that some of the abuse levelled at players is “very, very personal” then you know you’ve got a massive problem.

The prevailing culture for GAA players has long been that when happens on the pitch stays on the pitch, Cavanagh’s comments this week have breached that unspoken (or maybe not so unspoken) omerta.

It’s a bold move by Cavanagh, a move that won’t be universally welcomed by all his colleagues we can safely assume and that’s what makes it all the more valuable and necessary.

From reading what he had to say it’s clear that he felt he had to make a stand and knowing what we know about the instances of suicide in this country we can only heartily agree with what the Tyrone captain had to say.

“There is so much on mental health now and there are players in dark places,” he commented.

“You would hope that it wouldn’t come to a stage that some players tries to do something silly if he has been abused or had a bad game and people have really gotten on his case.”

If comments like that don’t result in a large and audible intake of breath from everybody who hears them then we really do have a problem. The first step towards finding a solution to a problem is admitting you have one and for that Cavanagh deserves our thanks.

The manic drive for that all elusive edge has brought us to this point. We’re not going to make the claim that it’s only a game, we know as well as you do that it’s more than just a game. It’s professional in all but name, yaddy, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth.

That can all be true – and it is – but it’s equally true that none of that is worth your mental health. It also speaks to how fun seems to have stripped out of the game at the top level, who could truly enjoy their football in that type of environment?

You’d even have to wonder about the players carrying out the sledging. Is this really what they got into the game for? Is this what they want to do? Do they leave the pitch feeling empty inside following their attempts at character assassination?

We suspect it’s almost as damaging to the sledgers as the sledgees. Nor should we fool ourselves into believing this is a case of good guys against bad guys. Those who give will take, those who take will give, in a vicious cycle of abuse where nobody emerges a winner.

You’ll hear plenty of talk this week about what referees and linesmen and umpires could do to stamp out the problem. That’s to miss the point. What’s needed here is a change in culture, not a police action.

It’s the players themselves who need to shout stop and with Cavanagh’s comments we’re getting our first sign that it might just be about to happen.

Not before time.