Championship

Meath goal against Louth should have been disallowed

July 13th, 2010
by Weeshie Fogarty

I must say I smiled to myself as I watched events unfolding in extra time in Croke Park last Sunday.  Meath's Joe Sheridan diving over the line with the ball as both umpires and the referee looked on. The appropriate word here is diving, and then to see a posse of defenders including the goalkeeper attempting to halt his dive brought back to me memories of an incident exactly the same which occurred many years ago. And it proves one thing for me after all these years and that is there are many umpires out there standing at posts in big championship games and they simply are not up to the job. But first back to my own experience of an occurrence something very similar. It was August 2nd 1959. I was in goal for the Kerry minor footballers against Cork in the Munster final being played as usual before the senior final.  Killarney was the venue and late in the first half as we defended the entrance goal in Fitzgerald stadium a high ball dropped into the square.  Patsy Harte was the Cork full forward that day. A big strong young man he later went on to play with the Cork senior footballers and hurlers. He fielded the ball well inside the small square (there was no big square back then) and launched himself ball and all over the goal line. Now my full back Alan Conway and corner back Tommy o Connor from Sneem both now sadly deceased were simply hanging off of him in a vain attempt to halt his gallop and as I did like wise he just took me with him over the line. So there we were all in a heap in the back of the net.  Looking up from the tangle of bodies the first thing I saw was this big burly umpire wearing a cap standing in the middle of the goal happily waving the green flag. Alan Conway a great John Mitchels man and playing his third year as a Kerry minor was quick to respond shouting to the man in the white coat, "that can't be a goal, it's a foul, you must play the ball over the line, and he fouled it". Towering over us as we lay sprawled on the ground in the back of the net the response from the umpire was a classic in many ways. He said, "It might be a foul down here in Kerry but where I came from there's nothing wrong with it".  The goal stood and his words have remained with me ever since. It was the turning point of the match, Cork won and I firmly believe only for that incident we would have gone on and captured the All Ireland.  The umpires and referee were from Clare. 

And so the morale of the story is. If you had umpires that knew their stuff and had the courage of their convictions that goal last Sunday would not have been allowed. They should have called the referee behind the goal and following a brief discussion insisted that the flags be crossed and then Louth would have been worthy winners. That was their call.  It was all so simple. Ihave never seen such incmpenent men since that day in 1959. They had the perfect view of what transpired and in my opinion they were just not capable of doing their job properly and the sooner the authorities appoint highly experienced inter county referees, are men who have retired from that job to umpire at all championship matches then these problems will end. There is no need for video technology. I will return to this topic at a later date as there is so much to discuss.
When East Kerry manager James Sheehan gathered his troops together last Wednesday in Fossa to under go final preparations for their weekend county championship game a sad picture emerged. Circumstances had developed which would necessitate that his team would be unable to fulfill their fixture. Following a head count only twelve players from his original panel were available to play. The decision was stark and simple. Field a very under strength team suffer a demoralizing defeat or simply pull out. So following consultations with the board officers the team management decided on the latter. For the very first time in my memory East Kerry would be unable to fulfill a fixture. Dermot Griffin is the exemplary and extremely hard working chairman of this very effecient board and when I spoke to him during the week he was understandably very upset at what had transpired.  "Everything had gone very well for our first game" he said, '' and despite the fact that we lost we were in high hopes of progressing further in the championship. However fixture problems developed. Both Gneeveguilla and Glenflesk were down to play their Intermediate games next week-end and the Gneeveguilla club was reluctant to let their players tog out or train for East Kerry. I contacted county secretary Peter Twiss and asked for a review of those games and he said he couldn't help me".  

Dermot was under no illusions where the problems lay. "Since the All Irelands were introduced for junior and intermediate teams some clubs and understandably so have their sights firmly fixed in winning these competitions in Kerry and the big ambition is winning the All Ireland in Croke Park. This is quite understandable.  I would like to see the county board taking this into consideration when making fixtures". "Nevertheless", he added, "the clubs too have a responsibility and I told this to the Gneeveguilla chairman and said it was a pity that we had not known this would be their approach when we sat down earlier in the year and laid our plans for the championship".  The East Kerry board has a proud history in the county championship. It is comprised of thirteen clubs. Five play on their own, three with St Kieran's and the remainder make up the divisional side. And having very strong intermediate and junior sides is now causing these unfortunate problems. The county board in my opinion has the ultimate responsibility to assure that when ever possible fixtures will be switched around to prevent clashes and demands on our players. Of course competitions must be finished before certain dates to comply with Munster fixtures. However I have never yet seen a problem in this county that can't be over come. The old adage "where there's a will there's a way" was never more apt that in situations such as this. The divisional boards have been one of the main back bones of Kerry success down through the decades. They must be facilitated in every way possible.



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