Marking my card on the black peril
Certainly the first half wasn’t an essay in cynicism.
After seven minutes, ref Padraig Hughes spotted an off-the-ball foul for Mayo, which Alan Freeman, right, pointed.
Two minutes later Jason Gibbons might have picked up a black card when he collided with an opponent, and Hughes seemed ready to sanction Lee Keegan 10 minutes after that, but that was about it for the first quarter.
True, Fergal Doherty was sent off for the classic coming-from-20-yards-away-but-fatally-mistimed shoulder-charge, but that was a clumsy transgression rather than calculated cynicism.
Five minutes before the break, Hughes gave Mayo an advantage before pulling play back for a long-range free which Freeman didn’t convert, and in general the game ranged freely from end to end (side to side when Derry had the ball).
The second half produced more of the same, with Hughes keeping a light hand on the tiller, helped by two teams playing in the right spirit. It was surprising, then, to hear the views of Derry selector Paul McIver afterwards: “A lot of people are questioning what is this black card, what is not the black card. We looked at the stats at half-time and Enda Lynn had been fouled personally 12 or 13 times in the first half and we wanted him to keep getting on the ball in the second half. We did and he received a number of personal fouls.”
Clearly no matter what the disciplinary initiative is, kennel blindness can affect us all.
I took the train to Dublin yesterday from Cork for the NFL semi-finals.
You know the line-up: long-time All-Ireland contenders Mayo, trailing plenty of backstory, against an up and coming Derry side who beat Kerry in Killarney.
Reinvented Cork, with new manager and exciting attack, against Dublin, most people’s fancy for the All-Ireland and head of most people’s list of exciting teams to watch.
A lot of quality on offer in a competitive environment, and no Saturday-night scramble for a decent seat in Croke Park either.
Why was it so easy to get a seat on the train, then?
Every now and again as a columnist you feel the need to shake the snow off the wings and loosen a bellow from the pulpit: in this case you’re probably expecting a hoarse exhortation to go follow your team, to get out and support them.
Not quite, though. Given the geographical spread of yesterday’s semi-finalists, you wouldn’t have expected many from Mayo, Derry or Dublin to be on the 10.20am from Kent Station (though there was a sprinkling in the green above the red, in fairness, including a couple of lost-looking souls who joined us in Thurles).
Yet the surprising thing for this traveller wasn’t the lack of Cork support but its strength.
Having read for years about the poverty of the fan base in the deep south (and pontificated about it on a few uneventful Monday mornings) there were plenty of people travelling yesterday.
I counted six Chill and/or O2 jerseys in our carriage alone, and judging by the conversations I overheard, there may have been a couple of less demonstrative supporters as well, though I presume those ladies who were talking about watching War Horse weren’t talking about Michael Shields or Bernard Brogan.
Even if there had been God-help-us-two-men-and-a-boy going to support Brian Cuthbert’s team I doubt I’d be dishing out criticism this morning, though.
Without wishing to dip another toe in the Sky-GAA debate, and in particular the sub-argument raging about the poor aul’ lads down the boreen, the economic imperative is a strong one when it comes to attending games.
On that score, taking instruction about the etiquette of attendance from someone whose job it is to go to those games — like yours truly — is something designed with German-engineering precision to get on people’s nerves. Casting aspersions on those reluctant to shell out a lot of money for a journey and game likely to swallow up an entire Sunday is a dangerous game when you’re being paid to do exactly the same.
Salting your outbursts about attendance with that kind of caveat would do no harm at all. That’s why I decided to take the broad view this morning.
Of course, if the NHL semi-finals aren’t well attended next weekend and I’m without something to give out about, I reserve the right to adopt a default position of utter hypocrisy and rail about the fickle fan of the modern age.
Call it the narrow view if you like.
I see there’s a good deal of talk about Louis Van Gaal taking over as manager at Manchester United from David Moyes today, this week, or at some point in the near future.
I always get mixed up between Van Gaal and Guus Hiddink — I think it’s the double-vowels in their names — and when I Googled their pictures, I was glad to see they conform to a picture of doughy middle age.
This is important to me because I flicked through a magazine spread recently of pundits like Adrian Chiles and so forth who were ‘made over’ fashion-wise, and it made for a weary read.
I enjoy those kinds of picture spreads because of the hilarious details in the tiny print at the bottom of the page (‘Adrian wears lambs-wool socks from screwyourwallet.com, cost £919’).
There’s a push-pull effect because you can’t help envying the vast improvement to your appearance wrought by a suit which costs twice as much as the last car you bought. That’s why I’d applaud the arrival of Mr Van Gaal. I’m sick of Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola and snazzily-dressed touchline maestros. I want a man who’ll dress his age, and dress my weight while he’s at it.
Is there anything to be said for the Masters? I enjoyed tracking the tournament’s progress on social media over a few days on the basis that few of the contributions centred on the golf being played and most were (virtual) head-shaking about the antiquated attitudes, the fawning coverage, the dyed water in the ponds (really?).
You get the idea.
However, you can’t help but wonder if the interest in the Masters and all its works and pomps is somehow linked to the uniqueness of its attitude.
The golf itself I leave to those qualified to discuss it, but the Masters seems different because it doesn’t seem to care very much what you think of it, and at some level that appeals to people.
Much as we’d all like to consider ourselves as rugged individualists, compromise is the way all of us accommodate the modern world; I strongly suspect that while the manifest unfairness of some of the Masters’ rules and practices are repellent to most people, its refusal to acknowledge the opinions and beliefs of others has a sneaking appeal for many.
