Fog not issue for first fixture

HE will surely go down in history as the only man to have been appointed to referee three Wicklow Cup finals in one season but that’s exactly what happened to Arklow’s Richie Hall back in 1994 and the man in the middle for the meeting of Enniskerry YC and Little Bray United has disputed reports that fog caused the cancellation of the first game at the Carlisle Grounds.

‘I went out to inspect the pitch and the grass was very long,’ says Richie 26 years after the event. ‘The two teams were there as well but the grass was long and the pitch wasn’t marked. I had a walk around the pitch with the groundsman and he said there was some kind of dispute going on that time. I said to him that the ‘pitch is playable but it’s not marked, and I’ll just report it when the match is over that the grass was long, it was playable but it wasn’t marked.’

‘I went into the dressing room to change and the next thing I got a knock on the door and the Wicklow League wanted to see me in the office. I went in and they asked me was I going to play the match, I said I was. I said the pitch is not marked but I’ll report that. You can play the match without the pitch being marked. I said that the grass was very long but I said ‘I’m going to play it’.

‘A member of the League said to me that ‘we don’t want you to play it.’ I said, ‘that’s entirely up to you – it’s your competition. And if you don’t want to play it, I won’t play, but you take the responsibility.’

‘I went and I told the two teams and the two captains and I think they kind of agreed on it. They knew as well that the pitch was playable although the grass was long but that wouldn’t have made any difference,’ he said.

Headlines in the Wicklow and Bray People on Friday, May 20, suggest different reasons had been given for the cancellation of the original game with ‘Cup final falls victim to fog’ written above a photo of Ciaran Bishop, the then Chairman of the Wicklow League, and the groundsman at the Carlisle at the time, Ger Mahony.

There was also a photo of Wicklow League secretary Larry Looby standing outside the Carlisle Grounds with the heading ‘Doom and Gloom’ written above it.

Regardless of the reason for the postponement, the game went ahead the following Sunday and finished 0-0 after extra-time and the replay was fixed for the following Thursday evening with Richie Hall being called on for the third time.

‘It was fixed for the Sunday after that and it ended up 1-1. On account of it being the first game there was no extra-time, so it went to a replay on the Thursday night.

‘The first match after the Sunday when I didn’t play it was a great match, a fantastic match. And the one on the Thursday night was a fantastic match. Two great games with two very good teams. I have to say – you know when you’re a referee I wouldn’t care who won it, it didn’t matter to me who won it. I thought that Enniskerry were brilliant, a very good team.

‘I never got any complaints after either game. I didn’t think after the first game that I would have got the replay, because usually what happens is if the first game was drawn, they might change the referee for the replay but they didn’t.

‘Tommy Earls was doing the fixtures at the time, Lord have mercy on him, and he said to me, ‘are you available on Thursday night?’ And I was working away at the time, I sued to work on a Thursday, and I said, ‘I’ll make myself available.’ Two very good games.

‘All I know is it’s the first time that the Wicklow Cup was down to be played three times,’ he said.

And what did Richie think when he picked up the paper the following Friday after the game that was postponed due to ‘fog’.

‘It really had nothing to do with me. The Wicklow League called me into their office. There was some kind of dispute going on between the Wicklow League and something to do with the Carlisle. I was ready to go out and I was called into their office and told that they would prefer if I didn’t play the match.

‘I told them that the pitch was playable. It’s not marked but if it’s not marked, I just report it at the end of the game. The grass being too long, that has nothing whatsoever to do with me but I said, ‘all I’ll do is play the game and report after the game that the pitch wasn’t marked’.

‘He said to me that, ‘we would prefer if you didn’t play the match, and I said to him that that is ‘entirely up to you.’

‘Our two inspectors at the time came down, I waited in the dressing room for them to come down, and they said to me, ‘what are you doing here?’

And I told them the story – Jimmy Kelly an Peter Kelly - I told them exactly what I’m after telling you and they said you were bang on.’

And was fog an issue at all? ‘No.’

Richie enjoyed a long and successful career in refereeing, even taking charge of a game on the day his daughter Melinda was born.