Getting Grudgey for the Gaah

19th May 2008

Getting Grudgey for the GAA
Finbarr Barry

As well as listening to mass in the car on the way to a big championship game in the hope that the Man above will see it fit for that dropping ball to fall into your full-forward's hand in injury time, there are a range of sports programmes to get you excited and/or nervous on the way to a big match.

Nicky Rackard: the simple man's hurling championship

This is very useful for motivation for fans as any suggestion that your team may come off second best is to be treated with the utmost distain. An interviewee's comments, regardless of how mild, will be ample reason for supporters to roar on their team even more and possibly contribute to one or two extra points by roaring on a particular players.

Grudge Up
In the long term, proper GAA fans take all sports writers' previews and TV pundits comments personally if they are not fully complimentary to their county. A simple comment suggesting that your "midfield partnership simply isn't firing this season" for most patriotic match goers is the GAA equivalent of a Danish cartoon of the Islamic prophet.

Grudges must be revived every year, even decades after a negative comment was made so that the minute a pundit's voice is heard on the airwaves obscenities can be shouted to drown him out.

Don't Mention Rackard

Faggy slaps: Dubs and some nordies flap it out

In recent years, RTE pundit and now Galway hurling manager Ger Loughnane caused social disorder in Wexford by suggesting on the Sunday Game, after the county's annihilation by Kilkenny, that the county was in such decline that they might be looking at dropping down to the Nicky Rackard Cup (the hurling equivalent of foundation level English in the leaving cert).

Despite the simple statement of fact (Wexford looked like clueless cavemen with sticks that day), Loughnane's comments provoked outrage and almost melted the RTE switchboard with already embittered Wexford fans looking for somewhere to vent their frustration.

With grudges seamlessly passed from one generation to the next it's estimated that decaying radioactive waste in Sellafield will become naturally safe before the hurling fatwa in the Model County is lifted on Loughnane.

Taking the Soup
Quite often bitterness from outside the world of sport can be brought onto the terraces and used as a last ditch attempt to save face. If required, blood lines, especially in rural areas can still be traced back to the civil war and even famine times, to discredit people.

The actions of a misfortunate wing-back being side-stepped by his marker, can often be attributed to the fact that his ancestors "took the soup" or that his lack of pace is attributable to the gene inherited from his lazy blue-shirt grandfather who preferred putting his feet up at the Free State barracks than to be out tearing strips off the Brits.

Unsuspecting Kilkenny fans are regularly informed by devious Leinster rivals that they were the ones who allegedly urinated on the gun powder (in slightly more colourful language of course) in the rebellion of 1798 to stop their fellow countrymen driving their oppressor's armies back.

GAA and the Premiership

Right lads, everyone's written us off so lets play above average.

While republican sentiment and related historic events still provide taunts, the suggestion that you and your compatriots might be "West Brits" still presses volatile buttons for GAA fans.

Time and time again on radio stations and on various internet discussion forums during the debates about the Cork players strike, the taunt of "Premiership Lovers" or similar equivalent was used by those vehemently against the player's position.

We received several vociferous emails during the strike accusing us of pushing the "premiership agenda" despite the fact that we've never written a word about it on our website.

This strange accusation is worth investigating however, and appears to have its roots in three interrelated GAA obsessions. Firstly, as a torch bearer of Irish culture, the GAA is seen as a local force against the globalisation of soccer. Therefore, the extremists' logic dictates that to be a real GAA person you've got to be anti other sports. Complacency is heresy.

Secondly, the opening of Croke Park to foreign games, or more accurately those games invented by the Brits, (there were no protests over American football games being held there) embittered and partly isolated those with more entrenched views that overlapped with their political notions on the northern border.

Loughnane: the source of over 32% of all GAA grudges

Thirdly, the visit of Roy Keane to the Cork hurler's dressing room in 2006 would have been seen by certain elements who are hugely protective of their sport, as treason.

Ancedotes from Brian Corcoran's book about certain Cork stars asking Roy to sign their Celtic jerseys proved, in the begrudgers ' minds, that the players were weak for foreign sports themselves and were therefore not true diehard GAA men like themselves despite their lack of All Ireland medals.

In the minds of some, it's not possible to be a dedicated GAA man (read: true republican and Irish man) and at the same time be aware of Sunderland's premiership position, understand rugby ruck rules or God forbid own a sports jersey without Cumann Luthcleas Gael on it.

So when the players stood up to the County Board, those hardcore elements put two-and-two together and came up with five. Forget your small print and detail. Persons likely to commit treason were guilty without trial.

While using the premiership taunt as a way to rile other GAA fans is childish, simplistic and a sign of profound insecurity, there is substance to the concern regarding the globalisation of English soccer.

The league's recent proposal to hold premiership games in foreign countries (with Dublin high on the agenda) along with the cynical signing of certain Asian players to boost revenues from their country of origin leaves purveyors of other sports nervous and vulnerable as well as deeply cynical.

It is a pity however, that this energy isn't channelled in a positive way to promote Irish sports further rather than turning on your county men and would-be comrades.

Dressing Room
The grudge can be used as a positive too. The classic post-match interview with a winning player or manager is not complete without the triumphant 'everyone wrote us off' back-at-ya celebratory jibe.

Quite often the "everyone" amounts to a single well known sports writer making a reasoned assessment of past performances and using them to make an unfavourable guess at a game's outcome.

Articles are pinned on dressing room walls and their harshest words roared at players before a game to ward off any complacency or affection for the enemy. This builds the ultimate psychological tool - what Loughnane himself did so well for Clare in the mid 1990s - the siege mentality.