Ebbs the hero as Enniskerry win Fog not issue for first fixture
First ever Wicklow Cup for ’Youth Club
BRENDAN LAWRENCE Sports Editor
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.