Another bitter twist mars a great football rivalry

We’ll get to the Kerry-Tyrone rivalry in a moment but first things first: a second spitting controversy involving Tyrone in the space of a few weeks does nothing but raise more questions about discipline in the county.

As we know, Karl Lacey was spat on by a Tyrone supporter during their Division One game against Donegal last Sunday week.

To their credit, chairman Ciaran McLaughlin and manager Mickey Harte went to the Donegal dressing room afterwards to apologise. We’ve been told the individual in question has since been reprimanded.

Based solely on the 33-second clip from the Cookstown-Finuge game and Galvin’s word, the Kerry footballer is owed an apology too.

Owen Mulligan’s allegations of sectarian abuse during the game are serious ones but they appear reactionary to the video footage and will be a lot more difficult to prove than what can be seen on YouTube.

Along with the videotape and inadvertently Galvin’s statement, they have only copper-fastened the existing tensions between Kerry and Tyrone.

As Galvin emphasises: “The path that the Kerry/Tyrone rivalry has taken of late disappoints me. Both counties are better than the bitterness and rancour that currently exists.”

Kerry travel to Omagh next month for their last round game in Division One. Should they still have a chance of staying in the top flight by the time April 7 comes around, Tyrone will love nothing better than to send them down. Schadenfreude lives and breeds between the pair.

In many Tyrone people’s view, Kerry are a county who can’t take their beating. This latest controversy has already being filed alongside the Derrytresk-Dromid Pearses debacle last year as an example of Kerry as bad losers.

Bad winners too, it seems, if you go by Tyrone secretary Dominic McCaughey’s annual report last November when he expressed shock at the elation of Kerry players beating Tyrone in their July qualifier in Killarney.

It always takes two to tango but this is the second time Galvin, we’re mindful that he is no angel, has been the victim of an alleged or real assault in a game against a Tyrone team. In their 2009 league game, Ryan McMenamin grabbed him by the genitals for which the Tyrone defender received an eight-week ban.

McMenamin recently spoke of it, admitting his regret and his wife’s reaction: “I think maybe after the Galvin incident she says ‘enough’s enough’.”

You’ll find Tyrone players are more inclined to speak openly about the rivalry with Kerry. After he was sent off in last July’s ill-tempered game, Brian McGuigan claimed Declan O’Sullivan feigned injury.

Last month, McGuigan angered Kerry fans further saying Kerry should forget about winning an All-Ireland for the next six or seven years. McGuigan is entitled to his belief but his words dropped like missiles in Kerry.

Will there ever be peace? Can there ever be peace? Undoubtedly, yes. On the Sunday evening after Páidí Ó Sé passed away, Harte pulled into Ard an Bhóthair, a return road journey of over 12 hours, to express his condolences with the Kerry great’s family. As Ó Sé’s son Pádraig revealed at the funeral mass, it was the Tyrone manager’s words that gave him most comfort.

Respect between the two greatest football counties in the last decade is easier to attain than some in each county would believe. But just how much do they want to believe it? This latest development would suggest not enough and not any time soon.