Pitch invasion ‘tradition’ has had its day
The general view seems to be that this is a Bad Thing, because it denies us all the chance to run around on the playing field in Dublin 3 at the final whistle after the All-Ireland is decided.
That’s part of what we are, you know. We’re like nobody else. Running out onto the field is what makes us Irish.
Furthermore, we’re GAA fans and we do no harm to anyone anyway when we do that. The fence would be terrible and we wouldn’t be able to see over it.
Why can’t we celebrate out on the pitch when that’s what we’ve always done?
Nobody ever gets hurt, so why stop this essential Part Of What We Are?
RUBBISH, of course. Start with the last point above and work your way backwards.
The argument that nobody you know or have heard of has ever been hurt in a Croke Park pitch invasion is irrelevant. Nobody with an ounce of common sense thinks that having thousands of people surge suddenly down a terrace is safe. It’s fair to say that if this practice continues, then somebody may eventually be seriously hurt or killed as a result.
You could go further in fact, and say that such a serious event is inevitable. Those arguing that it has never happened in the past seem to miss the point: that doesn’t prove it will never happen in the future.
Nobody expects to crash their car, for instance, right up to the moment that it happens. But if you were to listen to some of the protests in favour pitch invasions in Croke Park, then you wouldn’t need to worry about pranging your motor. If it’s never happened to you in the past, you don’t have to worry about it happening in the future.
As for the tradition argument, leaving aside its intrinsic, eye-rolling stupidity, consider this: other traditions have been abandoned in the GAA as outdated.
In the nineties one All-Ireland-winning manager told his men after they’d collected the Liam MacCarthy Cup that the victory wouldn’t be worthwhile if any of them turned into alcoholics as a result of over-exuberant celebrations.
If you went ten years further back in the GAA’s history that comment would have been laughed at. No longer.
There was a time when non-stop drinking was the necessary accompaniment to any kind of GAA success, and while it may still be part of the background music to any hurling or football triumph, people are at least aware of the consequences, including top players.
Why else would the GPA offer a counselling service to its members which covers possible problems with alcohol?
If you doubt that there has been a change in attitudes, then carry out a simple thought experiment: if an All-Ireland-winning hurler or footballer did what Darren Clarke did after the 2006 Ryder Cup, sinking a pint in front of a large crowd, would anyone think that was appropriate?
As for the suggestions that that’s what makes GAA supporters unique – lepping over a hoarding and side-stepping a Garda to get out across the sideline, intending no harm to anyone – well, those make up one of the more flawed arguments you could imagine. People are seriously hurt and killed in every walk of life on a daily basis with no harm meant.
What consolation is lack of intent in those cases?
To a certain extent you can point to people’s antipathy to the plan to keep the grass untrampled in Croke Park as a jab to the GAA hierarchy – a touch of ‘whatever they’re for, then I’m agin it’.
A recurring theme in criticism of the upper reaches of GAA officialdom is remoteness – the general charge laid is that those in the offices in Jones’ Road don’t understand what’s happening at the grassroots of the Association. The specific suggestion here is that this plan is yet another example of the disconnect between corporate Croke Park and the Plain People of Ireland and their need to have grass under their feet.
Maybe it is. It’s not our brief to explain or support the pronouncements of the GAA and its management committee, and if we had our way the people responsible for holding the Munster senior hurling final replay at seven o’clock on a Saturday night would be punished. Slowly and at considerable length.
But they’re not wrong on this one. It’s an unpopular call but those who disagree haven’t a leg to stand on, which would be the case for quite a lot of people if their beloved pitch invasions continue.
Maybe nobody wants to puncture the myth and acknowledge that, contrary to general belief, not every GAA supporter at a given game is a salt-of-the-earth fair-minded decent skin who’ll applaud the opposition scores almost as loudly as his own crowd’s and that you will find an amount of boors and caubogues on the terraces which is proportionate to the general population.
To be continued, believe me. But not out on the field of play.
* michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
