"Croke is made to put lumps in rugby throats" - Frank Keating, The Guardian

Started by AbbeySider, February 07, 2007, 02:31:44 PM

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AbbeySider

Croke is made to put lumps in rugby throats

There couldn't be a finer venue than Croke Park to host Ireland's rugby matches, but the founders of Gaelic football would beg to differ.
Frank Keating


February 6, 2007 12:10 AM

Early in this inordinate span of mine here in the back basement of the toy department I would waste, enchanted, no end of time inhaling the aura (and the whiff of liniment) in that sweaty emporium of wham-bam, snort and shuffle down London's Old Kent Road, namely the Thomas à Becket gymnasium where such decent flat-nosed prizefighters as Henry Cooper and Joe Lucy would sock it, in turn, to the heavy bag and brother pros. It was the first sporting haunt I frequented named after an archbishop. Second time was more than a quarter of a century ago when I watched a European football qualifier in Cyprus at Nicosia's low-slung sun-baked Archbishop Makarios Stadium.

Third and most auspicious occasion at a sports centre dedicated to a Right Rev ecclesiastical Eminence was in 1984 when I was detailed to Dublin to report on the Gaelic football All-Ireland final - the very centenary match of the sport itself, no less - contested by the classic them-and-us rivals Dublin and Kerry. The Dubs v The Kingdom. Even then it was vast, roomy, sheer-faced Croke Park which most took the breath away, used as I had been to watching rugby across town at rickety, rackety, run-down old Lansdowne Road. Ireland should play its rugby here, I remember saying - a sacrilege met with freezy silence; and you don't get many of those over there.

But so it has come to pass: Ireland v France this Sunday; and glory be, in even more of a primeval convulsion, Ireland v England two Saturdays later. Yer man, that eminently good soul in heaven, I fancy, won't be tickled over-pink about it - ie the Rt Rev Dr Tom Croke, the late Archbishop of Cashel, onlie begetter and fidei defensor himself of the two great games of the Gaels.

The Gaelic Athletic Association was born out of the lamentable British colonial philosophy which banned indigenous sports in conquered lands on the assumption they were cover for freedom fighters' training. In 1884 two Fenian patriots, the champion Tipperary athlete Maurice Davin and political firebrand from Clare, Michael Cusack, called a clandestine meeting in Thurles, Tipperary, to demand restoration of native Irish sports. Only five turned up, including two local journalists, and when the Archbish read their reports he preached an ardent sermon of support.

Propelled by such passion from the pontifical pulpit, the fledgling GAA at once gathered an ever larger and bonny following all over. By 1913 it had bought the freehold of the north Dublin field where All-Ireland finals had been staged since 1895. Obviously it christened the field after its late holy father inspiration Archbishop Tom.

History will pervade every pore of Croke on Sunday. Can there possibly be a more clamorously dramatic lifting of "The Ban"? We shall read in all the public prints this week how a GAA battalion fought shoulder to shoulder with rebel-poet Patrick Pearse at the Dublin GPO over Easter 1916; how rubble from that fight built Croke's northern terrace (sacred Hill 16); and how, five Novembers later on Bloody Sunday, vengeful Black and Tans machine-gunned a dozen innocents in the crowd (including the visiting captain Mick Hogan) when the Dubs played Tipperary. The Hogan Stand is still a shrine at Croke; there's another, too, named for 1884's founding father Cusack.

A century later, on the eve of my first Croke experience, Dublin's latest famed poet and sport, Ulick O'Connor, took me to a select party at Scruffy Murphy's upstairs bar just off Mount Street. Simply everyone was there, my dears, all up for the match: JP Donleavy, Con Houlihan, Norman Rodway, Cyril Cusack, green-eyed Abbey actresses, the captains and the kings and two past and future Taoiseachs, too: Jack Lynch, a true-great Gael of the 1940s (five All-Irelands, four of them for hurling), and raffish Charlie Haughey, who claimed he'd been a dual demon at UCD.

It was one of the best parties I can ever (just about) remember. Out of the blue Lynch softly asked me: "Frank, are you by any chance related to 'Babs' Keating?" (Tipperary's "Babs", I later learned, was a dual-Gael luminary with three All-Ireland hurling medals in the 1960s, then a football one in 1972). "Most assuredly I am, sir," I blatantly lied in my convivial cups.

Ever since, down the years whenever I met O'Connor, Houlihan or Rodway, they'd reproachingly address me, to my shame, as "Babs." No one else knew why. Ah, no worries, to be sure, and I'll be proud to answer to "Babs" on either of these coming weekends.

*********************

This is exactly the sort of triumphant bullshit that I have mentioned in previous arguments opposing the opening of Croke Park. The GAA are inadvertently promoting other games; our biggest rivals. We will stand to lose the most out of all of this.

Did anybody stop to ask why the FA cup final is played in Cardiff and national team games all over England when they could be using the RFU home ground of Twickenham ? Because the RFU have more sense than to lets their biggest rivals compete in their stadium!

Rule 42 was put in place to protect the GAAs hard work and investments. GAA was protecting its own market, like any other business, and not too dissimilar to what FAI and Rugby Union do. With discrepancies and unknowns about the planning permission for Landsdown road and with no clear structure put in place as to when the FAI and IRFU will need Croke Park, the GAA has opened a floodgate that could well spell the end of Croke Park being uniquely GAA HQ.

I am not against the FAI or IRFU playing in Croke Park in the short to medium term. I am however very unhappy with the deal the GAA took in having no timelines in place for not promoting and protecting our "brand", for want of a better word.


By the way are the BBC or French television going to show highlights of Hurling and Gaelic before in their build up to their Internationals ?  ::)

Kerry Mike

QuoteTipperary's "Babs", I later learned, was a dual-Gael luminary with three All-Ireland hurling medals in the 1960s, then a football one in 1972

Babs won a football AI in 1972 ???
2011: McGrath Cup
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Shamrock Shore

He was a banger on the Offaly team. Nippy cnut of a corner forward.

Billys Boots

QuoteJack Lynch, a true-great Gael of the 1940s (five All-Irelands, four of them for hurling),

He got that wrong though!
My hands are stained with thistle milk ...