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Was in Dublin for a gig a couple of weeks ago - the cheapest place for a pint of stout was the Conrad Hotel - Toners and Hartigans were 7.20. The Conrad was 7 euro plus I got complementary nuts and olives.

I think I hit the sweetspot when it came to the pensions. Worked in UK until I was 50 so had about 32 years so only 3 more to buy and then started working in the Republic so need to work 15 out of 16 years left in order to get the full Irish pension.

Joe's pen picture from the 1989 Sigerson program

Loved  Going for Gold back in the day.

He was a journalist in the North in the early 70s. You saw a whole different side of him on an episode of After Dark.

Garth Hudson, all-round musician extraordinaire from The Band.

Hard to believe I saw him play in the Spirit Store in Dundalk. The band had finished their set and were going to play an encore but before they started about 5 OAP hippies raced the stage looking for autographs off Garth.

Maghera always had that non-academic path as well didn't they. Academy will never go down that road I wouldn't think no matter how much they fall behind.

That's a good one about Fintona, absolutely flying that club. To be fair it was maybe years of underachieving I wouldn't call Fintona that small of a place when you look at some of the other clubs that were stuck in junior forever

Don't think I was ever in Fintona.

Is it a mixed town?

It's about 70-30 nationalist

A query - My lads play football with a club and are members of that club. The club provides hurling up to Go-Games. Next year the lads are u12 and will have to play hurling with another neighbouring club. For insurance purposes would the membership of the football club cover the hurling or would we have to pay membership to the second club which plays football and hurling.

Well done to Allenwood and also to Milltown for winning Junior - both clubs are in the same parish

When was the last time Fintona were in Intermediate?

Fintona had an unbelievable period in late 70s.
They won JFC in 1975.They won the IFC in 1978 and were just beaten (1pt) by Carrickmore in SFC in 1979.
One of my first SFC finals, not sure where final was. Dessie Campbell and Dermot Mc Guigan stood out as key players

The great late Dessie Campbell explaining what is needed to win championship games
https://fb.watch/nLplVyqpDm/

i would say the Department of Transport - I had to regularly have to go between Dublin Airport and Dundalk about 20 years ago. It used to really get my goat seeing an Ulsterbus which would stop at Dundalk bus station to pick up people but was not allowed to drop off people solely down to partitionist regulations shite.

I was in the Gerry Arthurs that day. I've never experienced an atmosphere like it at any match I've been at before or since. It was just on the edge of boiling over. There was 2/3 pages of letters in the Irish News the next week about how bad it was.

Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman

https://youtu.be/ZJEwrw4VEls

This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but referees have been feeding this beast for years, by turning a blind eye during matches, and accepting post-match apologies deliberately feigned to ensure a more favourable report. And now they can no longer control the beast.

Now they need to take control again, which means getting together and forcing through a new code, along the lines of:

1. personal abuse from player or mentor - immediate red card.
2. more than two instances from the one side - match abandoned.
3. abuse from supporters - registered as a complaint with their CCCC.  Every second complaint sees the reversal of a home match, or a requirement to play with no spectators for a match.

And re no. 1, suspensions should work on a multiplier level and carried over two seasons. First offence, 1 match ban. Second instance, two match ban, and so on.

Perhaps more importantly, they need to police this from within. If they find tgat one of their own is being lenient on personal abuse, then sanction him.

One season of learning and heartache for players, mentors and supporters would clean up football forever.

I'd agree with The Wobbler on this. I've been to a good few DDSL (Dublin District Soccer League) matches and the refs who take no shit have the quietest matches. The worst matches (crowd wise) have been were the refs have been debating with players and the sideline. The Sideline mentors have the biggest effect on the atmosphere in a match and the ref needs to shut them down quickly before the atmosphere heats up. I was at one U14 game where the referee sent one player off after 10 minutes and we couldn't figure out what for. I spoke to the ref after the game and asked him why he was sent off and he told me that after he'd blown for a foul the lad had said 'for f**k sake ref'. He'd told both teams that he was not going to take any abuse and send the lad off on a red card. There was not a word said to the ref from players and sideline after that.

Jesus! Does Fionntamhnach still post here?

Make not be posting for a while....

Is it one and the same?

Yes

Bushwhacker Butch Miller aged 78