Carrickmore, Dromore hit with heavy punishments

THE Tyrone County Board’s Central Competition Committee (CCC) have dished out heavy punishments to Carrickmore and Dromore for the brawl which marred their Division One league final.

Suspensions totalling 452 weeks were handed out to players and spectators involved in fighting, along with fines and restrictions on the playing activities of both clubs for next season.

Four people from each club involved in fighting in the stand at Dunmoyle have been banned from the GAA for a year, while lengthy suspensions were also handed down to three Carrickmore players. The clubs have also been fined £300 (€348.50) each, the maximum fine under Tyrone bye-laws, with the money going to charity. Carrickmore and Dromore will have to play their next two competitive fixtures against each other at neutral venues. Both clubs have also been banned from taking part in the league play-offs next season. It’s understood both clubs are considering appealing certain aspects of the penalties, and they have three days in which to do so.

Carrickmore goalkeeper Plunkett McCallan, defender Colm McGurk and substitute Gabriel McCallan were handed suspensions totalling 72 weeks. No punishment was handed out to any Dromore player but on Twitter club and Tyrone footballer Cathal McCarron furious.

“Tyrone county board is a joke... Absolute disgrace what punishment they have handed out to #dromoreGFC #farce,” he tweeted before adding later, ““4 supporters got 1 year bans. £300 fine, and threw out of the league play-offs next year which is a f****n joke.. Players never lifted a hand.”

Tyrone PRO Damien Harvey said it’s important lessons are learned from the events of the past two weeks.

“There’s a lot of lessons to be learned, and we would hope that those lessons are being learned and will continued to be learned for some time, because those scenes were unacceptable, and the Association in Tyrone and wider afield doesn’t need them,” he said.

“Everybody goes out to be competitive and to play the game in as good a spirit as possible. Those scenes were unacceptable and we can’t hide from that. We need to also realise that there a lot of good people out there working very hard for the Association and I suppose they can become deflated when these things happen.”

Harvey praised the Dromore and Carrickmore clubs for the manner they co-operated into the investigation launched less than 24 hours after the ill-fated game.

“Both clubs co-operated fully, which is good. We thank both clubs for their support in the investigation and are confident that lessons have and will be learnt from the unacceptable scenes in Dunmoyle. The sanctions proposed by the Tyrone CCC are amongst the most severe ever issued by Tyrone GAA.”

And the Tyrone official said it was important that there were no delays in investigating the events at Dunmoyle, and the probe was completed and sanctions handed out in the space of 10 days.

“It was handled quickly, that was important, and while there may be some people who believe it should have been in a shorter period of time, the Tyrone CCC needed to review absolutely everything and make sure we made the right decision. They have issued proposed sanctions, and it’s now up to the clubs to consider those sanctions.”

The league final, at Dunmoyle on November 13, erupted into violence with just four minutes of normal time left in the game. Fighting among the players on the pitch spread to the stand, with a number of spectators sustaining injuries. Footage of the incidents, from the official Tyrone Co Board video, was central to the investigation.