Conscription mightn’t be such a bad call

THERE’S nothing better than a good idea, and I must admit that I’ve had some absolute clinkers in my time.

Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t even be writing this column. Truth to told, I should really be a multi-millionaire.

Let me explain. Back in 1992, I was at Jordanstown. A leading business figure visited us one day to give us a talk on creative thinking. At the end of his lecture, he asked us if we had any original business ideas, which I thought was an odd request for a creative thinker.

Anyway, even though he was a shyster, I gave him my grand plan.

Due to growing up with three sisters, I had noticed their devotion to women’s magazines, which I too read avidly, particularly the problem pages which helped women understand men.

I had often wondered why there wasn’t a similar publication for fellas, a weekly glossy mag that focused on male things: sport, cars, gadgets, fitness and a problem page to help men understand women.

The suit dismissed it fairly quickly. With the smugness smacking from his lips, he said: “A magazine that would help men to understand women? To do that, you’d have to find a man who purports to understand them.” Then he laughed at the hilarity of his pithy reply.

James Brown was laughing too when a couple of years later he launched Loaded, a young man’s magazine complete with its own damned problem page. Everyone associated with it promptly became zillionaires.

The idea for a young man’s magazine was probably my finest light bulb moment until recently when I got an idea that will solve the single greatest controversy facing the GAA – its referees.

Everyone knows that referees are the storm clouds that will not go away. Every year, it’s the same old story as the men in black create division and discord with their little whistles.

Until my Eureka moment, the main reason the GAA had failed to solve the perennial refereeing crisis is because they failed to identify the real problem.

Referees are actually unpopular because they choose to be referees. How can you trust someone who wants to take charge of a game where the rules are open to such varying degrees of interpretation? Their insatiable thirst for power plunges them into a world where abuse and controversy are the only guarantees. The main issue surrounding referees is actually one of credibility. We struggle to respect men who willingly invite such damnation upon themselves.

The second major problem affecting referees is related to the first. To put it in a nutshell, most of them are too ‘wee’.

If refereeing is about the exertion of power and the job happens to attract a lot of small men, then it’s understandable why supporters believe our games have become a major casualty of ‘small man syndrome’.

My idea for the GAA addresses the problems of credibility and size and provides a rather brilliant solution.

The answer to our ills is: conscription. Men will no longer choose to be referees. Instead, the GAA will choose them. Preference will be given to ex-county footballers and anyone drafted will need to be at least six foot tall.

Think about it. Consider how your attitude to a referee would be transformed if you realised the poor sod was being forced to do it. But how could the GAA make them do it, I hear you ask? Again, the answer is simple. Croke Park would play on a man’s innate decency, his ambition, or his pocket.

Take the example of someone like Darragh Ó Sé (6ft 2’). Universally admired for his skills as a footballer, Ó Sé also knows every trick in the book, which is not surprising, given that he wrote the last three chapters of it.

However, in my grand plan, inter-county referees would be sponsored. Branding would be allowed on their jerseys, socks, whistles and boots. The referees would take their very generous ‘expenses’ from the sponsorship revenue.

Bigger games would attract larger ‘expenses’, thus providing referees with an incentive to perform well.

A representative from Croke Park would ring the Kerry legend and say: “Darragh, I know you hate this punditry lark. All that talk, talk, talk. How about refereeing a few games for us? No talking. You just have to blow the whistle.

“And by the way, the sponsors have agreed a mileage rate of two punts per mile.” (By the time Darragh gets the call, Ireland will have left the eurozone).

“That’s a brilliant idea,” Darragh will say.

“Hard to believe that the man who came up with it was a journalist,” the Croke Park official will respond.

“What ever became of him?” Darragh will ask.

“He wound up a broken man,” the Croke Park official will answer.

“It was the daftest idea you ever heard. He tried to launch a magazine for referees.”

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