How to mark the living and the dead
But just before the game the crowd did the right thing.
The players of both Swansea City and Aston Villa bowed their heads solemnly for a minute’s silence to mark the tragic passing of Gary Speed only for the eerie silence to be broken by a heart warming and heart-stirring wave of applause to ring out right around the whole stadium.
Rather than just mourn Speed, the crowd chose to also celebrate him, and though it had been triggered by a life taken away far too prematurely, the gesture was hugely life-affirming too.
There were similar scenes in Molineux in March last year when the players and fans of Tottenham and Wolves duly honoured the shocking death of their former player Dean Richards at the age of just 36. We recall too Alan Ball being similarly honoured by the fans of both Everton and Arsenal when he passed away in 2007.
In the GAA, you don’t get that. Silence is golden, or at least it’s meant to be, before the deceased are inevitably disrespected by some yobbo in the terrace divulging both his colours and his bad manners with a roar of Up wherever he’s from himself. Even when the minute is fully respected, it’s still compromised by the threat of potential embarrassment or the prolonging of mounting tension.
We distinctly remember the 2004 Munster final. We regret to say we forget who had passed away but we’ll never forget the silent tribute going over the allotted minute and the agitation that was in the air, with everyone, especially the players, just wanting to get on with the game itself.
I don’t know about you, but if I were to pass away and the GAA kindly decided I was worthy of being honoured, I’d much rather be saluted by a round of warm applause than stone-faced silence. I’m guessing most people would feel the same. An initial silence, greeted by applause would be a lot more touching, especially when the deceased would be known to most on the field or in the crowd.
There’s a few things the GAA could also learn from other sports in how to mark the living as well as the dead. It’s been a welcome development in recent years that a number of GAA organisations such as the Gaelic Writers Association and Munster Council have started a Hall of Fame scheme but there’s more the organisation as a whole could be doing without elevating any Hall of Fame scheme to remotely like the scale or stature which the American sports afford to their sports.
There’s one thing the GAA do that the Americans don’t but ought to — name stands or even stadia after deceased stalwarts. But we’d be of the view that the GAA should go a lot further and extend such an honour to those who are still alive. As a rule, you have to be gone before you have a cup or facility named after you.
We’re thinking of someone like Ger Loughnane. He has given so much to the GAA, and thankfully he’s still with us, but Clare GAA or hurling itself shouldn’t wait before he has a stand or pitch or cup named after him. If Manchester United can name a stand after Alex Ferguson, the least Clare can do is name one after Loughnane.
It brings us back to a story we recalled when the Clare team in which Loughnane won a couple of national league titles with saw their 25th anniversary come and go without any reunion or function to honour the county’s first national title in over 40 years. It was triggered by the death in 2004 of Tom Crowe, who scored the decisive goal in the team’s 1977 league final win over Kilkenny. That win would inspire the Davy Fitzgerald and Anthony Daly generation to hurl and win for Clare themselves, but by the end of their careers they would have been playing with team-mates who would have no idea of who Tom Crowe was, largely because Clare GAA, typical perhaps of boom-time Ireland, looked down upon those “underachievers” for not going all the way like Loughnane’s Army did.
The Clare County Board’s oversight of the 70s team prompted this writer to recall a story Terry Prone of all people told on The Late Late Show. She was recounting her radio days when one of her producers momentarily dropped his hard-nosed demeanour. “You’re great to work with,” he declared. “I want you to know that.”
A bemused Prone asked why.
“Because people die,” she was told, and too often they go to the grave not knowing how highly they were regarded.
It’s a shame Gary Speed didn’t get to know how highly he was regarded; who knows, maybe he wouldn’t have ended his lifetime if he had known.
The GAA should see to it that more Ger Loughnanes know in their own lifetime too.
