Sportspeople: Be careful what you wish for
MJ Tierney has a media degree and though he didn’t see his one-word tweet emblazoned across the famous broad sheets of the ‘Gray Old Lady’ on Monday morning, he will certainly have learned a few more lessons about how this industry works in the past seven days.
The talented Laois senior footballer was dropped from the county’s starting XV as the side prepared to face Dublin on Sunday afternoon.
The summer was hard underfoot, the Hill was blue and the television on-air studio light was red. This is the reason why a talented young player like Tierney went to bed early, ate what he was told and lifted what was put at his feet. When he was dropped, he had every right to feel disillusioned.
When he sent a tweet and updated his Facebook page with that very word however, he broke new ground.
The bullet that killed Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 was the shot that launched the world into World War I and ultimately modernity. Will this seemingly innocuous tweet, fired out absent-mindedly by an upset footballer, do the same for the GAA? As Pat Shortt once said: “One bullet; Bang, bang.”
The Association is, if not rocked, at least a little rattled by this technology. Column inches were devoted to the issue, the Sunday Game discussed it after Des Cahill read out the succinct message and Tierney was compelled to defend himself off-line.
Tony Davis and Kevin McStay ran the usual route of a lot of those in the media — in Ireland and beyond — of playing the I-don’t-get-it card. They’d want to start trying to and not revel in any perceived Old School superiority. Maybe things were better back in the day, in many respects, but those times are not coming back. I have a hunch: this internet thing isn’t going away.
“There are ways of taking bad news or tough medicine on the chin,” said the former Mayo star McStay on the Montrose couch.
“I would suggest that tweeting to the GAA public is not one of them. It doesn’t show a lot in the sense of teamwork or what you’re about,” he added.
“Why bother bringing it up?” Tierney argued, “They were making something out of nothing. It says more about the quality of The Sunday Game that they have to talk about a tweet by me. That’s the stupidest part of it. Obviously, they haven’t much to be talking about and that’s the truth of it.”
Like cash-strapped fans picking their battles this year though – Tierney should’ve realised he was fighting a losing one. He wrote something publicly – you can’t complain when people comment on it.
GAA chiefs met to discuss Twitter this week we’re told – though they’ve already furnished players with guidelines. On Wednesday, Tierney, admirably fought his corner against similar opposition on RTÉ’s Committee Room (which is really good in my opinion, by the way). He sounded pretty sensible to me.
Marty Morrissey and Vincent Hogan however made reference to a more sinister thread of online discourse: anonymous chat rooms. Earlier in the day, Down’s John Clarke threw his hat at his inter-county career, citing pressure and criticism. Let there be no mistake that those in the shadows who belch anonymous vitriol onto the internet add considerably to that stress which is on an inter-county player.
It reminds me of those shouting obscenities through a windscreen at fellow drivers in traffic. Put those commuters on a crowded footpath and they don’t as easily swear abuse.
Honestly, if someone offered me a magical capsule which would transform me into an inter-county player instantly, I think I’d refuse. Why would I want to sacrifice freedom, privacy, time and energy for what the modern player expects in return? The prospect of a hip replacement, a strained personal life and servers full of online abuse.
Tierney, tellingly, alluded casually to the amateur status of the association. Or as he put it when asked if he hadn’t learned the lessons of English soccer stars like Giggs and Rooney: “They get paid for it, that’s the difference.”
It certainly is. Though as Daily Mirror reporter Oliver Holt learned when he opened his twitter account this week, Rio Ferdinand – a man who is paid handsomely — should also realise what you write online, will end up in the public domain.
“You fat p***k. U got something to say about me missing a drugs test say it when u see me,” the Manchester United man had written to Holt in a private Twitter message. The Mirror had no hesitation putting it on their front page.
* Adrian@thescore.ie; Twitter: @adrianrussell
