croker - waste of money

[laoislad]

Argeed lads...I have nothing against a healthy even heated discussion nor do i mind being told im wrong but when it starts coming to insults like a few posters are more than willing to do it makes it a joke
If someone wants to hurl insults at people as J70 said start your own board or feck off to Bebo just don't bother posting on this board coz it's not welcomed or wanted

[Evil Genius]

It's not a sport that could my any stretch of the imagination be considered as in competition with the GAA for facilities, players and funding.

Disingenuous (and I think you know that). The ban was originally on all "non-native" sports; it was conveniently ignored for some sports, whilst being rigourously upheld for "Brit" sports. These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park, so that the match had to be played at the much smaller St. Julien's Road (Omagh Town FC), where the extra costs of staging the game meant only a very small profit was made.

* - Unless, of course, you feel that the staging of a one-off charity soccer match posed an unanswerable competitive challenge to GAA in Tyrone...

[pintsofguinness]

It's not a sport that could my any stretch of the imagination be considered as in competition with the GAA for facilities, players and funding.

Disingenuous (and I think you know that). The ban was originally on all "non-native" sports; it was conveniently ignored for some sports, whilst being rigourously upheld for "Brit" sports. These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park, so that the match had to be played at the much smaller St. Julien's Road (Omagh Town FC), where the extra costs of staging the game meant only a very small profit was made.

* - Unless, of course, you feel that the staging of a one-off charity soccer match posed an unanswerable competitive challenge to GAA in Tyrone...

There you go again, (like the Ervine thread) just can't stop yourself. 

[Fionntamhnach]

These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park

If you're going to raise a point at least be accurate. The Tyrone County Board did not refuse Omagh Town FC Healy Park, OTFC instead declined the Tyrone County Board any pre-emptive offer. Around the time there was talk about holding the charity games in Healy Park to fundraise but Central Council reiterated the rule forbidding this. Tyrone were at one point considering this with the possibility of consequences (which I doubt would have happened as the GAA would have received a s*itload of negative PR in doing so that would take a long time to recover) before OTFC intervened.

As for "Freedom of Speech", I support what J70 said. Also under Irish or British law, there is no such thing as Freedom of speech.

Edit: Just checking online, it would have been the St.Enda's GAA club that would have taken the fall and not the Tyrone county board directly.

[Evil Genius]

Also, Evil Genius, I believe that the admin warned Flameboy several times about various comments (he mentions it on that other thread). That purile stuff brings down the whole board. Any homophobic ramblings on the new board that have not been censored or triggered a warning is probably due to the Admin missing it, but sure lets ask him/her and see what they say. gaaboard is the administrator, and has been logged on here several times. (appears in red at the bottom of the screen).

In my opinion, and this is just MY opinion, racism, sectarianism, homophobia, libel and outright personal insults are just not bringing anything positive to the board.

AZ, I'm not proposing, defending or condoning racism, sectarianism or homophobia, nor (to the best of my knowledge) have I ever posted anything of such a nature myself.
Personally, I am of the view that provided no laws are broken, freedom of speech should be paramount - even where such speech may be offensive.
However, I accept that on a Board like this, the Administrators are perfectly entitled to censor such contributions which incur their displeasure, without reference to me or any other poster.

My problem in this case is that such a policy is not being applied equally.
When one new poster (TMT) makes a comment offensive for its xenophobia*, it is censored immediately it is brought to the attention of the Moderators and the offender is threatened with a ban.
Whereas, other more seasoned posters - Flameboy and Fearon spring to mind - consistently make equally offensive comments of a homophobic nature, these are allowed to remain on the record, with only an off-the-record warning given.
There was another example of where a regular poster baldly stated an offensive opinion of a clearly sectarian nature i.e. that the Kingsmill Massacre of 10 innocent civilians was "justified", as part of the "armed struggle" in South Armagh.
No-one from amongst the Administrators thought to take action in this case, either, which was very disappointing, to say the least, in the light of TMT's crass, but generalised inveighing against "foreigners".

* - To complain about "foreigners" as TMT did is xenophobic, not racist (though hardly any more acceptable for all that)

[Evil Genius]

There you go again, (like the Ervine thread) just can't stop yourself. 

And there you go again, attacking the messenger, rather than the message. Contrast that with Fionntamhnach (above), who did me the simple courtesy of addressing what I actually posted.

[Evil Genius]

These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park

If you're going to raise a point at least be accurate. The Tyrone County Board did not refuse Omagh Town FC Healy Park, OTFC instead declined the Tyrone County Board any pre-emptive offer. Around the time there was talk about holding the charity games in Healy Park to fundraise but Central Council reiterated the rule forbidding this. Tyrone were at one point considering this with the possibility of consequences (which I doubt would have happened as the GAA would have received a s*itload of negative PR in doing so that would take a long time to recover) before OTFC intervened.

As for "Freedom of Speech", I support what J70 said. Also under Irish or British law, there is no such thing as Freedom of speech.

Edit: Just checking online, it would have been the St.Enda's GAA club that would have taken the fall and not the Tyrone county board directly.

I stand corrected, Fionntamhnach and apologies to St. Enda's (and Tyrone).

However, whilst my account of the mechanism of the ban was clearly wrong, nonetheless, the principle remains i.e. that the Omagh Bomb Appeal would have liked to have used Healy Park, in order to raise the maximum amount, but use of the ground was denied to them by the GAA for the "non-native sports" reason, whilst other non-native sports were being allowed elsewhere on GAA-owned premises.

[As for your point about Freedom of Speech, the general principle in the UK and Ireland is that everything is allowed that is not proscribed and merely expressing opinions which may be offensive to minorities (e.g. racism, homophobia, sectarianism etc) is not illegal in itself. And in any case, this is a Private, member-operated Message Board, not a Court of Law!]

[dublinfella]

These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park

If you're going to raise a point at least be accurate. The Tyrone County Board did not refuse Omagh Town FC Healy Park, OTFC instead declined the Tyrone County Board any pre-emptive offer. Around the time there was talk about holding the charity games in Healy Park to fundraise but Central Council reiterated the rule forbidding this. Tyrone were at one point considering this with the possibility of consequences (which I doubt would have happened as the GAA would have received a s*itload of negative PR in doing so that would take a long time to recover) before OTFC intervened.

As for "Freedom of Speech", I support what J70 said. Also under Irish or British law, there is no such thing as Freedom of speech.

Edit: Just checking online, it would have been the St.Enda's GAA club that would have taken the fall and not the Tyrone county board directly.

his point stands. the GAA as an entity refused to allow a charity soccer game be played in omagh to raise funds for the medical bills of the victims of the bomb. the rule could have been suspended or ignored. but being anti-soccer means more to some of us than helping children get expensive burn treatment.

it was was not a high point for the organisation.

didnt a Dublin game scheduled for the RDS on the same day as a Rovers Bohs game as a charity double header get pulled by the association too?

[fitzroy]

When one new poster (TMT) makes a comment offensive for its xenophobia*, it is censored immediately it is brought to the attention of the Moderators and the offender is threatened with a ban.

Just to clarify, TMT was in fact banned this afternoon as I do know him. He rejoined as "Abair Amach", the poster who was responsible for some outlandish posts over the last few hours. This was just a protest by TMT at the earlier censorship and his banning. "Abair Amach" is now also banned.

All very amusing, I thought.

[pintsofguinness]

Evil

And there you go again, attacking the messenger, rather than the message. Contrast that with Fionntamhnach (above), who did me the simple courtesy of addressing what I actually posted.

Aye we don't know how lucky we are to have you and dublinfella here to teach us the error of our ways 

[dublinfella]

Evil

And there you go again, attacking the messenger, rather than the message. Contrast that with Fionntamhnach (above), who did me the simple courtesy of addressing what I actually posted.

Aye we don't know how lucky we are to have you and dublinfella here to teach us the error of our ways 

our ways?

because i dont swallow it hook line and sinker im an outsider? 

feel free to tackle any of the points made

[Fionntamhnach]

These double standards* reached their nadir after the Omagh bombing, when a Charity Soccer match to raise funds for the Victims Appeal was turned down by Tyrone at Healy Park

If you're going to raise a point at least be accurate. The Tyrone County Board did not refuse Omagh Town FC Healy Park, OTFC instead declined the Tyrone County Board any pre-emptive offer. Around the time there was talk about holding the charity games in Healy Park to fundraise but Central Council reiterated the rule forbidding this. Tyrone were at one point considering this with the possibility of consequences (which I doubt would have happened as the GAA would have received a s*itload of negative PR in doing so that would take a long time to recover) before OTFC intervened.

As for "Freedom of Speech", I support what J70 said. Also under Irish or British law, there is no such thing as Freedom of speech.

Edit: Just checking online, it would have been the St.Enda's GAA club that would have taken the fall and not the Tyrone county board directly.

his point stands. the GAA as an entity refused to allow a charity soccer game be played in omagh to raise funds for the medical bills of the victims of the bomb. the rule could have been suspended or ignored. but being anti-soccer means more to some of us than helping children get expensive burn treatment.

it was was not a high point for the organisation.

didnt a Dublin game scheduled for the RDS on the same day as a Rovers Bohs game as a charity double header get pulled by the association too?

He accused the Tyrone county board (which he has now retracted), not the Central Council. The GAA Central Council PR was wrong, certainly for the time it was, a very emotive one. OTFC withdrew looking for permission for Healy Park because of this, despite the likelyhood of the local GAA club prepared to break the associations own rules to allow this. In the long term the GAA ended up being AFAIK being the single biggest contributor to the Omagh fund, £450,000 or around that - it was presented by then GAA president Joe McDonagh in Healy Park. The three friendlies that Omagh Town FC had took place at St.Julian's road with an attendance of over 7000 each against Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea which in turn raised over £200,000 but it ended up that only £15,000 of it went towards the fund.

[deiseach]

The three friendlies that Omagh Town FC had took place at St.Julian's road with an attendance of over 7000 each against Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea which in turn raised over £200,000 but it ended up that only £15,000 of it went towards the fund.

The Beeb did a big splash about how much of the money ended up paying for this that or the other expense. Now THAT was funny

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die" - Mel Brooks

[dublinfella]

The three friendlies that Omagh Town FC had took place at St.Julian's road with an attendance of over 7000 each against Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea which in turn raised over £200,000 but it ended up that only £15,000 of it went towards the fund.

The Beeb did a big splash about how much of the money ended up paying for this that or the other expense. Now THAT was funny

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die" - Mel Brooks

Im glad money not getting to a worthy charity amuses you 

3 x accomodation for the visiting sides 3 x insurance 3 x stewarding costs etc while a suitable venue was closed to them down the road, despite the locals wanting it opened to soccer on an exceptional basis, because of the pettyness of the GAA leadership.

hilarious

[deiseach]

Im glad money not getting to a worthy charity amuses you 

3 x accomodation for the visiting sides 3 x insurance 3 x stewarding costs etc while a suitable venue was closed to them down the road, despite the locals wanting it opened to soccer on an exceptional basis, because of the pettyness of the GAA leadership.

hilarious

Well, the allegation made by the BBC was that the money did not go on paying for Ales Ferguson's digs but on clearing Omagh Town's debt. And yet, as this thread demonstrates, the GAA still gets the flak. You couldn't make it up.