Sickened and saddened by Davy’s slurs
You are the manager of the Clare senior hurling team, you have led them to an All-Ireland title. Concentrate on that, on winning it again, and stop lashing out at the world.
His comments, about former teammates, earlier this week: “my feeling was that Clare was a social team. I know some of them were even taking harder stuff than drink,” has dominated the headlines in the intervening days and has also left a sour taste for many.
To do what Davy did this week is wrong, very wrong; to point the finger generally at a group of players is to leave every one of them open to accusation, just as to tell the world he was bullied on the bus to school leaves all those who were on that bus with him from Sixmilebridge open to accusation.
If I were a Clare player of the 2000s, or if I had been one of those who went to school on the bus from Sixmilebridge at around the time Davy Fitzgerald was going to school, I wouldn’t be happy.
If you’re going to make accusations as serious as this then you must be fair, you must name the people involved and not leave the entire group open to suspicion, which is what this has done.
Where is all this going to end? When is it all going to end?
As a player, then as a manager or selector, I’ve been involved in hurling for over 40 years. In that period I’ve seen people drinking and celebrating. It’s not just part of GAA culture, it’s not just part of sporting culture generally, it’s part of Irish life. While I was in charge of teams though, and I’m going back to 1984 when I trained Inagh to win the Clare junior county title, I never tolerated players abusing alcohol in the run-up to games. I insisted on discipline, and I got it. This doesn’t mean I didn’t allow fellas have a few drinks but there’s a big difference between that and alcohol abuse.
Alcohol abuse — to me — is the fella who drinks the wages, then maybe comes home and wrecks the house, bullies his wife and kids, maybe does all three.
Certainly it suggests someone who can’t and won’t train properly, and in the process is letting down the whole setup, the players and the management. I would have no time for that.
I saw no signs of alcohol abuse in ANY of the Clare players from 1995 right up to my own time as Clare manager, and certainly not any drug abuse.
There was the odd lazy trainer, there was the odd guy who went for a few pints when maybe he shouldn’t have, but you’ll hear stories in every sport of the fella who sneaked away for a night.
I look at rugby, even professional rugby, and I see fellas are still allowed to let their hair down, even in season.
In my time in management it’s been my privilege to have worked with some of hurling’s greatest players of the last few decades; those players were also quality people, good role models for this or any other generation.
I ask you, how would they have survived at the top level if they were abusing themselves, any of them?
I don’t drink, never have, and at 60 I’m unlikely to start now. But I’ve spent many a good night in a pub joining fellas in celebration, whether at club level or with Clare in the 90s and there is nothing at all wrong with that.
I DO see something wrong, however, in blanket accusations.
For Davy to say what he said doesn’t just cast aspersions on the players of the 2000s, it casts aspersions on the managers who preceded him, and on the management teams.
To be honest, I was sickened and saddened to hear the accusations. Those guys who wore that jersey with Davy Fitzgerald did it a great service, brought honour to it and passed it on to the current generation in good shape. Likewise I think those who managed the Clare teams from the time Davy himself was a player also passed it on in good shape, did the best they could in what is a voluntary position, just as Davy will one day pass on the baton to someone else. To hear accusations as serious as this then flung around is a real pity. I hope we’ve heard the end of it.
I would ask Davy now to get back to what you’re good at. Bring another All-Ireland to Clare, that will be job enough.
