Tom Humphries

Started by bottlethrower7, January 29, 2007, 09:35:03 AM

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Hound

Nope, "keeping private" in this context does not mean keeping quiet, it means keeping it within GAA circles, i.e. if you have a complaint to make about proper procedure, then use the proper procedure yourself to air those grievances, rather than giving press conferences about it in Dubai - the primary purpose of which was clearly self promotion.  

AZOffaly

My word as in that's how I read his sentence.

That is not my opinion, rather my reading of his.

J70

Some of you are very easily offended.

bottlethrower7

Quote from: Hound on January 29, 2007, 01:03:26 PM
Nope, "keeping private" in this context does not mean keeping quiet, it means keeping it within GAA circles, i.e. if you have a complaint to make about proper procedure, then use the proper procedure yourself to air those grievances, rather than giving press conferences about it in Dubai - the primary purpose of which was clearly self promotion. 

well no, it couldn't mean that given that he says that some of these people are not within the GAA.

bottlethrower7

Quote from: AZOffaly on January 29, 2007, 01:07:48 PM
My word as in that's how I read his sentence.

That is not my opinion, rather my reading of his.

fair enough, but that doesn't improve things any. In fact it worsens them.

highorlow

They get momentum, they go mad, here they go

INDIANA

just on  a point of reference
"One would think that Tom is the died-in-the-wool ground-roots GAA man that we should all aspire to be. Other than going to watch a few under-14 camogie matches and regularly being in attendance at club and county games that he probably gets in free for, I'd like to know what makes him so special that he feels he has the right to diss me and tell me to keep my opinions to myself. Is he in the fields on a saturday morning with a gaggle of kids setting up drills, carrying water, offerring pearls of wisdom from his vast exposure to our games over the years? Is he putting up nets, putting down flags, ringing players, ringing the opposition to arrange games, organising lifts, washing jerseys?"

tom did that with the camogie team he trained not that in my view it's relevent to the argument because i don't think it is. tom writes his own column and to be fair he's entitledto his views - and i'm not saying everyone has to agree with them.

bottlethrower7

Quote from: INDIANA on January 29, 2007, 01:31:33 PM
tom writes his own column and to be fair he's entitledto his views - and i'm not saying everyone has to agree with them.

agreed, but you think he'd afford others that courtesy too.

Hound

Quote from: bottlethrower7 on January 29, 2007, 01:15:42 PM
Quote from: Hound on January 29, 2007, 01:03:26 PM
Nope, "keeping private" in this context does not mean keeping quiet, it means keeping it within GAA circles, i.e. if you have a complaint to make about proper procedure, then use the proper procedure yourself to air those grievances, rather than giving press conferences about it in Dubai - the primary purpose of which was clearly self promotion. 

well no, it couldn't mean that given that he says that some of these people are not within the GAA.
One of us is getting mixed up. He mentioned in passing the people outside the GAA who love to see us arguing with each other. He didnt mention anything about them keeping quiet. It was the GAA people he said should keep things within the private world of the GAA rather than hold press conferences.

The Bottom Brick

QuoteI am amazed he has held down a writing job so long. My opinion.

You're an idiot. My opinion.
33, 35, 47, 48, 52, 07!

guy crouchback

Quoteust on  a point of reference
"One would think that Tom is the died-in-the-wool ground-roots GAA man that we should all aspire to be. Other than going to watch a few under-14 camogie matches and regularly being in attendance at club and county games that he probably gets in free for, I'd like to know what makes him so special that he feels he has the right to diss me and tell me to keep my opinions to myself. Is he in the fields on a saturday morning with a gaggle of kids setting up drills, carrying water, offerring pearls of wisdom from his vast exposure to our games over the years? Is he putting up nets, putting down flags, ringing players, ringing the opposition to arrange games, organising lifts, washing jerseys?"

tom did that with the camogie team he trained not that in my view it's relevent to the argument because i don't think it is. tom writes his own column and to be fair he's entitledto his views - and i'm not saying everyone has to agree with them.

Tom?

on a relataed issue did anyone hear Ray Silke on the last word on friday evening. it seems he was at a wedding on friday and i got the distinct impression he had a few on him during the interview.
now while Ray talk pure drival at the best of times on friday he was just rambling on with utter horse shit.

thewobbler

Was thinking the same Guy Crouchbank. He rolled more than a few words together and seemed to be sort of itching for pub-style row about nothing.

AbbeySider

Quote from: thewobbler on January 29, 2007, 02:43:43 PM
Was thinking the same Guy Crouchbank. He rolled more than a few words together and seemed to be sort of itching for pub-style row about nothing.

He did sound rantish. He went on a major rant when Matt Cooper said that the GAA was in a healthy state if it can fill Croke Park in early February.

Silke seemed to flip and made the point that tickets were very cheap (Matt and Carney said they were not that cheap etc) Then he said that they were very cheap compared to how much the IRFU are charging.  And that it is no reflection on the state of the GAA just because people are playing 15 euro for tickets and filling Croker in February.... kinda funny listening to him  ;D

Mayo4Sam

An excellent retort from an spailin fanach

Take That, Backwoodsman!

An Spailpín's little head is ringing this morning. The Backwoodsmen of the GAA, those people that are deeply unhappy to see Croke Park turned over to competing codes, got a very severe lash of Tom Humphries' crozier in the Irish Times this morning and, as your faithful correspondent is a card-carrying member of that strange church, he too is withered under the blow.

Big Tom sums up his argument in two paragraphs in about the middle of this morning's Locker-Room column. (The rest of the column is shadow-boxing and pontificating about Dublin's chances of winning the All-Ireland, which makes An Spailpín less guilty about blathering on about Mayo all the time in this forum – after all, An Spailpín Fánach is only a weblog, whereas The Irish Times is, famously, the Paper of Record). Anyway, Tom sums up the pro-opening argument:

The rest of us (barring the iconic Michael Greenan) are just happy to see the back of that dark period of time and to be on the cusp of an era where the GAA's achievement at Croke Park is highlighted and talked about and welcomed and respected.

For the next few months we might still be backward-looking, swamp-dwelling stickballing Neanderthals but we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends. Only a churl would be, well, churlish about it.


Now your diligent quillsman does not number "psychologist" under his many titles and banners of honour, but even to an amateur opinion do those pars suggest to you that someone may be nursing an inferiority complex?

"We might still be backward-looking, swamp-dwelling stickballing Neanderthals."

As well as not being a psychologist, your constant chronicler does not consider himself a Neanderthal either, neither the swamp-dwelling nor backward-looking variety. And even if things were so low that he did, it'd take more than a pat on the head from Nige and Darren, over in Dublin to support the English rugger XV, to change my status. An Spailpín Fánach is an Irishman. You can take him or leave him, but you' won't change him. It's up to you how you deal with that.

This notion about Croke Park being "highlighted and talked about and welcomed and respected" – what's going on there, exactly? Does anybody really think that Pierre or Freddie give a rooty-toot-toot about any of the stadia in which games are played? How many people came back from the World Cup talking about the stadia? Let's play a little game – which stadium was considered so gosh-darned wonderful in the last World Cup that FIFA would have given it six stars, rather than the regular five, if only they could?

Exactly. The answer is at the bottom, as your steadfast scrivener hates leaving people guessing. But anyone that thinks anybody is coming for those two rugby games to hear about Michaels Hogan or Cusack would want to think again. If Big Tom and his ilk are looking for some sort of legitimacy from the visitors they'll be waiting. Maybe the soccer boys will be more grateful. Let's hope so.

Finally, unpleasant as it is, An Spailpín can't help but worry about what may be another Freudian slip – what rich pickings those two paragraphs are! The phrase that concerns is "we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends."

If you make one substitution in that sentence you will realise instantly why we benighted backwoodsmen, we knuckle-dragging, shirt-under-geansaí wearing, Smithwick-drinking, country-loving hicks, are so desperately concerned about competing codes in Croke Park. Read "we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends" again, this time substituting the word "wife" for "house," and you'll see in all its sordid glory just what Seán Kelly and the other appeasers, from the innocent to the ignorant to the downright cynical, have wrought.

The German stadium? Gelsenkirchen, of course. Where else?
Excuse me for talking while you're trying to interrupt me

GalwayBayBoy

Quote from: Mayo4Sam on January 29, 2007, 04:02:07 PM
An excellent retort from an spailin fanach

Take That, Backwoodsman!

An Spailpín's little head is ringing this morning. The Backwoodsmen of the GAA, those people that are deeply unhappy to see Croke Park turned over to competing codes, got a very severe lash of Tom Humphries' crozier in the Irish Times this morning and, as your faithful correspondent is a card-carrying member of that strange church, he too is withered under the blow.

Big Tom sums up his argument in two paragraphs in about the middle of this morning's Locker-Room column. (The rest of the column is shadow-boxing and pontificating about Dublin's chances of winning the All-Ireland, which makes An Spailpín less guilty about blathering on about Mayo all the time in this forum – after all, An Spailpín Fánach is only a weblog, whereas The Irish Times is, famously, the Paper of Record). Anyway, Tom sums up the pro-opening argument:

The rest of us (barring the iconic Michael Greenan) are just happy to see the back of that dark period of time and to be on the cusp of an era where the GAA's achievement at Croke Park is highlighted and talked about and welcomed and respected.

For the next few months we might still be backward-looking, swamp-dwelling stickballing Neanderthals but we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends. Only a churl would be, well, churlish about it.


Now your diligent quillsman does not number "psychologist" under his many titles and banners of honour, but even to an amateur opinion do those pars suggest to you that someone may be nursing an inferiority complex?

"We might still be backward-looking, swamp-dwelling stickballing Neanderthals."

As well as not being a psychologist, your constant chronicler does not consider himself a Neanderthal either, neither the swamp-dwelling nor backward-looking variety. And even if things were so low that he did, it'd take more than a pat on the head from Nige and Darren, over in Dublin to support the English rugger XV, to change my status. An Spailpín Fánach is an Irishman. You can take him or leave him, but you' won't change him. It's up to you how you deal with that.

This notion about Croke Park being "highlighted and talked about and welcomed and respected" – what's going on there, exactly? Does anybody really think that Pierre or Freddie give a rooty-toot-toot about any of the stadia in which games are played? How many people came back from the World Cup talking about the stadia? Let's play a little game – which stadium was considered so gosh-darned wonderful in the last World Cup that FIFA would have given it six stars, rather than the regular five, if only they could?

Exactly. The answer is at the bottom, as your steadfast scrivener hates leaving people guessing. But anyone that thinks anybody is coming for those two rugby games to hear about Michaels Hogan or Cusack would want to think again. If Big Tom and his ilk are looking for some sort of legitimacy from the visitors they'll be waiting. Maybe the soccer boys will be more grateful. Let's hope so.

Finally, unpleasant as it is, An Spailpín can't help but worry about what may be another Freudian slip – what rich pickings those two paragraphs are! The phrase that concerns is "we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends."

If you make one substitution in that sentence you will realise instantly why we benighted backwoodsmen, we knuckle-dragging, shirt-under-geansaí wearing, Smithwick-drinking, country-loving hicks, are so desperately concerned about competing codes in Croke Park. Read "we are the ones opening up the grand house and taking the rent from our professional friends" again, this time substituting the word "wife" for "house," and you'll see in all its sordid glory just what Seán Kelly and the other appeasers, from the innocent to the ignorant to the downright cynical, have wrought.

The German stadium? Gelsenkirchen, of course. Where else?


Hard to take anything seriously from anyone who refers to themself in the third person. ;D