OUR MORAL COMPASS IS SERIOUSLY OUT OF KILTER
Far too many GAA people seek to excuse the violent incidents which occur on the pitch
IT MAY not be the most insightful medium, but few others offer the same viewing platform into paranoid mind-sets quite like Twitter. It dances to a manic rhythm, fuelled by spontaneity, sobriety, silliness and spite all of which are stripped naked to the human eye.
When we choose our stool at the bar counter it is usually at the furthest away point from the pest with a pint, who invented trolling long before social media was even a twinkle in Bebo’s eye.
Why, then, on God’s earth would we want to invite a saloon bar full of the deranged into the front room. Still, though, we engage with what a good friend of ours labels ‘voyeurism’ as we get our kicks peeking through the curtains into another world.
It fascinates too, not least in seeing how reason is reduced to irrationality in a blink of an eye. It is a three-phase process, you start with sense, you seek to manipulate it with context, and then you obliterate it with the ranting of the senseless.
Like last weekend, when the Armagh/Tyrone Under 20 Ulster semi-final at the Athletic Grounds went from a game of ball to this week’s clickbait porn in two minutes of frenzied madness at the end of the first period extra-time, which led to two players from each side being sent off.
Declan Bogue, a journalist with a deserved reputation for getting to the heart of matters, punched his key pad.
‘Ridiculous scenes in the Athletic Grounds tonight. There is a putrid attitude of young lads thinking it’s acceptable to thump the heads of each other. County boards should be given massive financial penalties until this s***e is stamped out.’
Therein lies reason, here comes the plea for context. The fighting in the Armagh/ Tyrone match got way out of hand last night for sure but don’t be hypocritical when commenting on it.
‘This has happened with each county at some point and not just the North, based on some of the tweets I have been reading,’ argued Armagh legend, Stephen McDonnell.
And now here comes the not so sweet irrational punchline.
‘Media and anti-northern bias couldn’t wait to jump on the story. Haven’t seen it publicised in many places that it was a great game going to two periods of extra time,’ said McDonnell.
In a match which produced 48 scores — Armagh won by 2-22 to 0-24 — there were people out there who actually believed the sport would have been served better had we received a blow by blow account of every one of them.
Some did just that, one online report on a Tyrone-friendly website offered a synopsis of play before informing that a ‘row broke out’ in the final paragraph.
So immune to the violence, you fear had they been on D-Day reporting duty they most likely would have informed it had been ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other.’
So the issue instead becomes about the one-eyed southern media who instead of focusing on a sublime angled point from 45 metres out make a big fuss about the fact that up to 60 people are involved in the kind of scenes which if they had occurred outside the gates would result in criminal prosecution.
If you haven’t been lured in already by the brawl porn peddlers, you should check it out, see how one isolated Tyrone player is attacked by a mob on the sideline, and hear the distress emanating from some of those watching from the stand.
But apparently to some, the only reason this was deemed newsworthy is that it serves a southern mind-set, rather than highlighting an affront to decency and civility.
As the week progressed it got better, of course, as Tyrone sought to profit from their disgrace, by appealing the result on a technicality — thankfully it was rejected. In chancing their arm in the first instance, it revealed an astonishing lack of morality.
But that has never been a huge issue.
A few years back, a number of their minor players were accused of ‘sledging’ a Donegal opponent by referencing his father’s passing.
Lest the Donegal complaint be confused for sour grapes, they actually won that match.
It prompted an investigation which concluded, understandably given the burden of proof required, that the charge had ‘not been proven.’
That is some distance from proof of innocence but, in defiance of Ulster Council wishes, that did not stop the Tyrone board trumpeting their vindication.
That the moral baseline can go so
That the moral baseline can go so low is an awful measure of the GAA’s value system
low is an appalling measure of where the GAA’s value system is at in 2018.
The right and sensible thing to do last week was for the referee to abandon the game and thereby invite the Ulster Council — who settled for suspending 10 Armagh players for next weekend’s final against Derry — to throw both teams out of the competition.
But that’s easily said when punching a keypad, but how difficult and dangerous would it be for a referee to do that when instead of a football match, he finds himself in the middle of a riot. After all, in a game where there is no morality, who is going to protect him? Last Sunday in this paper, my colleague Shane McGrath made the point that what the GAA needed was not technology to assist match officials, but the respect to protect them. That erudite observation was on its way to the printers when at pretty much the same time in Páirc Tailteann, the Meath player Cillian O’Sullivan was physically restraining his manager Andy McEntee as he sought to confront referee Paddy Neilan.
The Roscommon man needed three members of the Garda to ensure his safety as he left the pitch. That proved two things. The first is that there is no north/ south divide, but there is no comfort in that because we are unified in showcasing the very worst of ourselves.
The second is that you know you are in trouble when the spontaneity of madness is such that it is no longer confined to Twitter.
It looks like it is time to stay indoors and offline.