We can’t run from the problem
But that’s exactly what Crokes club chairman Vincent Casey has called for when his side take on Armagh champions Crossmaglen at Portlaoise in the All-Ireland club senior football semi-final by calling for separate blocks of tickets for the respective supporters.
He cites the fact that when the clubs last met, in the 2007 All-Ireland final replay, they complained of receiving verbal abuse from their northern counterparts. Citing the disgraceful scenes during the Derrytresk (Tyrone) and Dromid Pearses (Kerry) junior club semi-final last Sunday, Vincent reckons the two sets of supporters should be kept apart, free to roar and shout to their hearts’ content without fear of being attacked.
Vincent is wrong. Well-meaning and all as they are, the GAA should resist his urgings. Take that step and it will be setting a precedent, a bad precedent — how long then before we see supporters being herded to and from games?
This doesn’t mean the GAA should take no action. Let’s get one thing straight; this kind of crowd trouble isn’t new to the GAA, isn’t new to any sport. For as long as teams have engaged in passionate competition it has been accompanied with violence, on and off the field.
It reached epidemic proportions in some sports, most often highlighted in soccer, but then that’s understandable. Soccer is a global game and everything that happens around it resonates globally. But crowd violence at sporting events is something that happens all over the world; the challenge is to contain it, minimise it, and this is where the GAA must act.
Anyone who provokes violence at a GAA game, no matter how small the occasion, should be reported and given a long ban. I’m talking here about the person who starts trouble, not the person who finishes it, unless of course that person too was provocative. Anyone who engages in serious verbal abuse should be reported and again, given a ban, this ban to increase for repeated offences. These measures will require an increase in off-field stewarding, security around the teams entering and exiting the pitch, a far more defined separation of players and spectators — and so be it.
Most of all, however, it will require a change in attitude by the majority to those who engage in this kind of abuse and violence on the terraces and stands, a zero tolerance attitude by all of us. Many times over the years I’ve challenged people in those kind of situations; not confronted them, because that can lead to escalation, but used a little diplomacy, appealed to their common decency. Many of those who are ‘losing the head’ are doing just that — losing it.
If challenged in a reasonable way, if it’s pointed out to them that there are kids present, or that no-one on the pitch is deliberately playing badly, or that people on all sides deserve a bit of respect, they will often very quickly come to their senses, situation defused. That’s what needs to be done, and we can all play a part. But this suggestion, this proposed separation of supporters — that’s simply running away from the problem. It’s a form of surrender, giving in to the minority.
It should not be done.
