It’s all fun and games until someone is seriously hurt or killed in all-in fight
OU’VE probably seen the photograph of Sean Cavanagh’s smashed up face by now or watched the video footage of the mass brawl in the Tyrone IFC game between Strabane and Stewartstown last Friday and wondered if Gaelic football has finally gone to hell in a handcart?
Who or what caused Cavanagh to be hospitalised with a broken nose, concussion and lacerations to his face is still unclear, and in the absence of conclusive video or eye-witness evidence it would be wrong to jump to any conclusions as to what happened the All-Ireland winner and All Star when his club Moy played Edendork in the Tyrone SFC last Saturday night. The footage of players, mentors and supporters piling in and directing punches and kicks at each other in the Strabane versus Stewartstown match looks a lot more conclusive and considerably more disturbing for it. The scenes recorded look like they could have been captured outside a nightclub on a particularly fiery Saturday night instead of on a GAA pitch much earlier in the evening, and if that were the case the PSNI officers and police vans wouldn’t have been far behind.
Needless to say – though not particularly surprising – that among the condemnation of events in Tyrone last weekend there was more than one or two comments suggesting there was some sort of anti-Tyrone agenda, including Peter Canavan who said on Today FM on Monday: “I do believe that Tyrone are on the receiving end whenever there is negativity attached to Gaelic games. It appears to be pointed up in this direction pretty quickly. I would say there is an agenda going on in that regard.” Sometimes people just can’t see the wood for the trees.
Of course, this isn’t an anti-Tyrone thing at all and Canavan must know that. Had that massed brawl happened across his county’s border in Derry or Armagh or Donegal one wonders if Canavan would have been more pointed in his condemnation of those scenes in Omagh. The grim reality is that these fights have happened and will continue to happen in every county, and it would be unwise for anyone to think otherwise as they put the boot in, so to speak, into Tyrone GAA this week.
But therein lies the problem. People are too quick to see an agenda against their team or club or county or province, rather than see this for what it is: unabashed violence on a scale that would absolutely necessitate police intervention and possibly criminal charges if it happened on a concrete street rather than a grassy pitch.
The question is what are the GAA authorities going to do about it?
The grim reality is that some day someone will be permanently maimed or killed in one of these mass fights. It has happened on our streets where one punch has killed someone so it would be naive to think that a punch or kick aimed at a prone footballer or hurler couldn’t have the same fatal consequences. It’s only a matter of time before someone does die in one of these pitched battles and euphemisms such as melee or schemozzle or handbags simply won’t excuse it away.
It is almost impossible to foresee one of these massed fights coming and once they do kick off it’s almost impossible for a referee to do anything other than let it blow itself out and then take whatever action he can against whatever aggressors he can.
For someone caught with a blind punch or a cowardly kick it may well be too late by then, but there are still certain things County Boards can do. They can dish out extremely harsh punishments to offending players and teams in the hope that it will make others think for a moment before they go steaming in to a row, and they can take pre-emptive measures to reduce the number of people on the sideline at matches and to block easy passage for supporters to get on to the pitch.
Unfortunately that may well mean the return of high wire fences in venues where they have either been removed or are unfit for that purpose, but if people cannot restrain themselves from piling on to the pitch to join in with a rolling fight then it’s incumbent on the powers that be to act accordingly.
No county has been immune to serious incidents of on-field fighting that has spilled over to involve substitutes, mentors and even spectators, and no county board can afford to become complacent to the possibility of it happening again.
Go to any GAA game in Cork this weekend and you will see many more people inside the perimeter fence clogging up sidelines and adding to the general chaos along those sidelines than is necessary.
The authorities can do little if players decide to take matters into their own hands and start a fight, but allowing so many hangers-on in the close confines of the pitch is simply leaving a lit match beside a can of petrol: it’s asking for trouble.
Events in Tyrone last weekend are not unique to Tyrone; instead they should serve as a sharp reminder to everyone that sport is meant to be just that.