Larry Ryan: Tunnel vision in fight against the melee
ONE TUNNEL, TWO TRIBES: Armagh and Galway players finish up their melee in last Sunday’s All-Ireland quarter-final clash at Croke Park .
Hasn’t it been a proper summer sporting week, observing all the rich traditions?
An 11th-hour raid at a team hotel before the Tour de France.
Inquests and introspection at Wimbledon, with the English deep in slightly creepy psychoanalysis of a fallen favourite.
The downbeat phrase ‘best of the Irish’ introduced early at the Irish Open and lads we have never heard of ‘stealing the show’.
Veteran members of the Formula 1 fraternity causing upset with offensive remarks.
A politician making a comical sporting gaffe, betraying zero knowledge of the subject they are holding court at length about.
Bantz in the dock, this time at Dundee United, where there are investigations into a ‘culture of banter’.
Somewhere rumbling in the background, talk of rain delays at the cricket and controvassy over ‘the light’.
A raft of learnings after the rugby. And work-ons.
David Moyes stepping up interest in Jesse Lingaard and sundry other transfer sagas, audacious swoops, come and get me pleas, and clubs ‘joining the race’.
The Sacrifices and The Demands associated with playing for the county itemised in great detail by the GPA.
Word dropping of a media blackout.
‘Liam’ reenters our lives as we begin regarding the All-Ireland trophies as human beings again while they loom large in view.
The giddy anticipation brings whispers, rumours, and loose talk, with solid word someone is very unlikely to feature and someone else is flying it altogether in training — as usual it’s Richie Hogan.
And, of course, there is the fallout from a melee.
Incidentally, in a quiet moment this week, over a magical slice of Aldi lemon drizzle cake, I pondered again the age-old question: What would I do on meeting the Queen? Since Nicola Sturgeon was copping some grief, in certain quarters, for failing to curtsy.
Would I observe the protocols, whatever bending of the knee and doffing of the cap is demanded? Would I give it the full ‘Ma'am' — pronounced with a short 'a,' as in 'jam', according to instruction?
Every rational instinct would suggest no; you’d greet this lady politely, throwing in the kind of solemnity required for any foreign dignitary, or hospital consultant. But no elaborate routine just because she inherited some notional supremacy over the neighbours.
But then, it’s an elderly woman, who’s just going about her daily business. You don’t really want to offend or contribute to raising her blood pressure.
Maybe I’d end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons, whichever way you look at this one.
Which is probably what happens to some lads faced with an escalating melee in Gaelic football. Every instinct tells them to leave it off, to stay well out of this craziness, but they end up overruling their saner selves. And just go with the done thing.
We must have sympathy for these young men — this business seems to be the preserve of the lads — obliged by tradition to make a show of themselves in front of the nation.
After all, we already lament day and night the other great imposition now placed upon these guys — that they might have to take a penalty following a match that ends in a draw.
By now, they have likely heard in Geneva of this huge affront to human dignity, that these innocent victims — having given everything for their counties, possibly including a few slaps — must engage in this bizarre ritual of kicking a football towards a goal, something so alien to their natural skillsets, and with all the risks of embarrassment and trauma it entails.
There’s probably a neglected article somewhere in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says they should be allowed to handpass these over the bar.
This is the one break from summer tradition we now endure, that cribbing about the GAA’s fondness for the replay has been replaced by cribbing about the GAA’s abandonment of the replay.
But back to the melee. We appear to have tried everything on this front, to help out the reluctant participant, to make sure it is not the done thing to join in. Everything bar, I suppose, adequate punishment.
For a while there was a great focus on the third man to get involved, but that may only have inadvertently granted greater license to the fourth, fifth and 16th lads to join proceedings, not to mind numbers one and two.
The vague offence ‘contributing to a melee’ has grown in prominence, without any obvious means of measuring these donations.
There have been efforts also to properly define the melee. It was suggested that at least five pugilists should be involved for this meeting of minds to be upgraded from a schemozzle. That didn’t make it past Congress, possibly in case it only encouraged the more cynical offenders to break off into a series of four-man tag-team bouts.
Several initiatives have attempted to restrict access to a melee to those not togged out for footballing action, it deemed crucial that melees should only involve lads properly warmed up for fighting. And of course there is an honour code to rival the Queensbury Rules that applies only to ‘players on the 26’.
Somehow, none of these endeaours has worked the oracle, nor, you sense, will the latest solution proposed in many quarters this week.
Many see the way forward now in tighter segregation, in moves to keep the two teams apart as much as possible. A ball each may not be practical, but there has been loud demand for at least a two-tunnel approach to escaping the coliseum.
Is it entirely wise, you wonder, to essentially jettison any pretence that these are civilised people able to keep a lid on their revulsion for one another?
Or is that not basically acceptance that fighting is the done thing?
