Laois in racism row

Armagh County Board last night expressed concern at the "partitionist provocation" they claim has been directed at their players and has gone unpunished by the GAA.

It comes just 48 hours after their captain Ciaran McKeever was sent off for allegedly kicking a Laois opponent in the tunnel in O'Moore Park, Portlaoise at half-time in Sunday's league defeat.

McKeever faces a two-match ban for the alleged incident, which he has vehemently denied to Armagh officials.

The GAA's Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) acted on referee Michael Duffy's report, which reported McKeever for the alleged kick and also proposed that Armagh assistant manager Paul Grimley should serve a three-month suspension for his angry confrontation with the match official after the game.

Duffy had red carded McKeever just before the second half restarted when the teams came back out on to the field. McKeever initially refused to leave the field, adamant he had done nothing wrong.

They claim that "alleged racist and personal abuse directed at our players is apparently going unpunished" and is contrary to GAA rule.

An Armagh statement last night said: "The chanting of 'God Save the Queen' and malign taunting of 'British B*****d' has no place either on or off the field of play. This is provocation in the extreme and at variance with Rule 1.2 that 'the Association is a national organisation which has as its basic aim the strengthening of the national identity in a 32-county Ireland through the preservation and promotion of Gaelic games and pastimes. This partitionist mindset is contrary to the preamble in the Treori (Rules)."

They also claim that such abuse is in direct contravention of Rule 1.12 that "the Association is anti-sectarian and anti-racist. Any conduct by deed, word or gesture of a sectarian or racist nature against any player, official, spectator or anyone else, in the course of activities organised by the Association, shall be deemed to have discredited the Association".

Armagh officials have already indicated that they will vigorously defend McKeever, who was banned for one match earlier in the league for his part in the altercation between Armagh and Cork players on the opening weekend of action.

Laois chairman Brian Allen revealed last night that his County Board had conducted an investigation into incidents that took place during the interval in Sunday's game and found no evidence of any racial abuse directed by any of their players.

"We have looked into and we have no evidence to say whether it happened or not," he said.

Bad form if true and they should be severly punished if proven to be true. They have form for this too though as outlined by Joe kernan in his autobiography.


North-South divide cast shadow over 70s and 80s

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Being a Gaelic footballer or hurler wasn't easy in the '70s and '80s in the Six Counties. We were automatically associated with trouble by the security forces, who had their own ways of making life as difficult as possible.
The most common form of harassment was the 'boot and bonnet' routine. You would be asked where you were going and once you mentioned Gaelic football or hurling you were told to pull the bonnet, open the boot and stand on the side of the road for as long as they deemed fit. The checkpoints were annoying, but there were more sinister forces at work too. The threat from loyalist paramilitary organisations was constantly there.

One particular incident scared the hell out of me. I was driving out of Lurgan after training one night when a car came right up behind me. It was so close that I sensed something wasn't right. I knew it wasn't a police car, so I decided that under no circumstances would I allow it to overtake me. If I let it get ahead, it might block the road and I could be forced out of the car. After that, who knows?

It followed me for several miles, trying to get past at every opportunity, but I held my ground.
I was terrified, but felt that my best chance was to stay ahead, which I managed to do until we came closer to Crossmaglen, at which stage my pursuers veered off on another road at high speed.

I told the county board what happened and it was decided to split up training for a while. The boys from the south of the county trained in Carrickcruppin, while the rest went to Lurgan or Armagh.

It was a tough time being a GAA man in the Six Counties, which made Armagh's advance to the All-Ireland final in 1977 such a newsworthy event. We saw ourselves as being the same as every other county and never sought to play the victim card. For all that, a lot of people in the South didn't understand us.

Very few county teams from the South overnighted north of the border when they came up for League matches, instead staying in Monaghan or Dundalk and driving north on Sunday morning. It was understandable, I suppose, but it did tend to create a 'them and us' situation. Attitudes changed over the years, but the North-South divide didn't disappear for everybody. One of the few times as Armagh manager I really lost my temper as manager was in a league game against Laois in Portlaoise.

A bit of a scuffle broke out near the sideline with players and officials becoming involved. It wasn't anything too serious and ended fairly quickly, but not before one Laois man, who was part of the official party, had a right go at us.

He squared up to John Rafferty and called us 'orange b*****ds'. Now, on a league table of stupidity that would take some beating and, while I should have laughed at it, I was infuriated. I felt like laying him out with a punch, but managed to restrain myself.
In fairness to Liam Kearns, who was managing Laois at the time, he came to me afterwards and apologised. He didn't have to, because he hadn't done or said anything wrong and could hardly be blamed for someone else's stupidity.
It was an isolated incident, but it showed that even in a new century there are still people who have no real grasp of the relationship between North and South.
- Joe Kernan

Two things....

1. I've seen a few of our lads chatting a lot during matches. I wouldn't be rushing to point the finger at other counties.

2. Some northern teams are well able to chat too, so they can't complain when they get it back.

this sort of thing is creeping in for a while now, its not what the gaa is about and i think it needs high profile players coming out and disowning fans who behave in this way. refs also will have to crack down on players who have made careers out of verbally abusing players.unless something is done soon we'l end up with fans segregated like soccer and thats a road we don't want to travel. banter is fine and enjoyable but there has to be a line not crossed

its something i have noticed among supporters from the south giving verbal abuse to those from the north because of from where they were from and vice versa. it was particulary bad in the all ireland semi vs down. while the country may be politically divided, the gaa brought all gaa suppourters together as one and hopefully this sort of abuse does not become common and should be met with punishment.

To be honest I have found from expereince that the Northern teams give worse than they receive, have heard the free state comments many a time. The Antrim supporters in Newbridge in 2010 were just awful.

Shows you how thick some laois footballers can be. I mean come on...calling an Armagh man an "Orange b*****d" is stupid when the jerseys are quite clearly Saffron.

I called an ellistown man a yellow b*****d one day, was heat of the moment, I wasnt insinuating anything it was just the jersey. Armagh are playing the poor me card here and I for one am sick of that, its just a means to try and divert the media and reduce suspensions, get some sympathy. Nothin wrong with kickin a laois man though(free state B*****d), so just take your punishment like everyone else.

its ok so to repeatedly call an armagh player a british ba****d and an orange ba****d? i personally think this is very provocative considering what the gaa had to put up with up there.

fat full forward wrote:

its something i have noticed among supporters from the south giving verbal abuse to those from the north because of from where they were from and vice versa. it was particulary bad in the all ireland semi vs down. while the country may be politically divided, the gaa brought all gaa suppourters together as one and hopefully this sort of abuse does not become common and should be met with punishment.

Have to agree with you FFF there is no place in our Game for this stupid immature behaviour look at what happened in th premier league a few weeks back we are all 1 in the GAA family I dont want this to creep in and show kids that this type of bulls***t behaviour is condoned or tollerated

Dont be looking too far from home lads. Bolton, Conway, Flanagan, Flynn, Mac and a few others are some of the biggest mouthpieces on a pitch that you will find.

This being a Laois/Armagh problem, I couldnt really careless what happens them. But it does happen in the game all the time. Just go back to last year and the treatment JD got from Donegal.

Should be some craic next time Laois have to play up in Armagh!!

Mouthing creeping into the game? Jaysus lads, ye must have had some cossetted football. I'm 40 and it's always been there when I played at club level and I've always been told it was way worse at inter-county. You hear stories of it going on in the days of Paddy Bawn Brosnan and Christy Ring so it's not "creeping" into the game.

The problem with the British bastard stuff, as Paul Grimley rightly pointed out, is that you could be saying it to someone who had a relative that was killed in the Troubles. So it's very dodgy territory.

It should be remembered that this is an allegation though and there is no proof or acknowledgement that anything of the like has been said.

Stupid alleged comment by the Laois player but equally stupid of McKeever to react to it. I recall one Kildare player who was an army man getting dogs abuse up the north in a league match during Micko's first term in charge during the early nineties. He simply laughed it off and gave a simple army salute to the section of the crowd concerned after kicking a point.

I'm not even a little impressed by this Armagh attempt to buy sympathy.

Watched Oisin, the saint from Cross, after kicking over frees, run over and get in the face of a Garrycastle player a few times on Club Finals Day. You could see his mouth moving so it seems he was talking and I doubt it was prayers he was saying.

Few years back a "Ladies Footballer" from an Ulster County, marking a player from the "Free State" who happened to be a Garda , as the ref was trowing in the ball made a very rude and deragatory commen to the Garda. After the game I noticed that the Northie had a shiner !!!!

They seem to think that its OK for them to make comments about "Free State" and worse to members of the Republic Of Ireland Gardai and Defence Forces but we are not supposed to reply in kind. Get off the stage lads !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stuff like this has been going on for a long time. I certainly believe the WE are no angles and ever since the Geezer took over we have got a lot worse. He seems to encourage a lot of off the ball tugging and foul play althought I dont think that is the same as verbal abuse. As a poster said. We can all name a lot of the Kildare lads who are very vocal during games. McCeever is no angel himself and has a reputation for it too. Maybe for once he could not handle and lashed out it so he should take his punishment. The GAA need to clamp down on this carry on as it embedded in out game.

There has been a lot of abuse in recent years, that I have noticed , being hurled at certain players. As said before we are no angels ourselves, but I must also agree about some of the ulster fans. If any of ye remember correctly, in 2010 the day Dermot Earley snr was buried, we played antrim in the first round qualifier in newbridge. on the barracks side of the pitch there was a large antrim following and they were very loud and abusive. One man approached an elderly woman from Kildare and Shouted at her saying that she was a " Free state W*****." Armagh are also quite good at giving the abuse as well.

It seems the oul sectarianism is a way of life in Laois. I seem to recall Kevin Cassidy saying in his book that Billy Sheehan called him a British bastard last year.

There will always be a minority of jack asses playing for and supporting every county.. I was at the Antrim game in newbridge and seen the disgraceful behaviour of a group of drunk lads mouthing off at all and sundry but there were a few Antrim supportes near me who apologised to the Kildare crowd for their fellow county mens behaviour..You get good and bad everywhere.
I am sure the Armagh lads gave as good as they got in the abuse stakes,, and are probably just pissed off that one of their lads got sent off,, Calling it racism is a bit over the top,

Talk about cry babies. Surely they have spent years getting and giving abuse and amazing they suddenly have a problem when a man is sent off and they lose. Pretty pathetic, Stevie McDonnell admitted in interview he used to slag Gallagher the Fermanagh keeper free after free about the size of his sister's breasts, although not in those words. Get over it and man up Armagh. Really one of most pathetic claims I've heard in a long time.

yeah gone bit to far maybe,still people should have more cop on...sudnt have been reported by armagh....mcKeever is gonna get even more abuse now cause people no it will get to him..sillly man

Haha Stevie McDonnell just went up a notch...
Any one know the goalies sisters name?? We'll get a look at her on Facebook

TommyKeegan wrote:

Talk about cry babies. Surely they have spent years getting and giving abuse and amazing they suddenly have a problem when a man is sent off and they lose. Pretty pathetic, Stevie McDonnell admitted in interview he used to slag Gallagher the Fermanagh keeper free after free about the size of his sister's breasts, although not in those words. Get over it and man up Armagh. Really one of most pathetic claims I've heard in a long time.

well if i was an armagh player and was called an orange bast**d and british bast**d etc I wouldnt take too kindly too it and esp if I was a crossmaglen supporter, it shows an unbeleivable level of ignorance on our behalf down here towards what gaa people up the north had to endure at the hands of the british authorities.
look people dish out abuse,slagging which i dont mind but this is very different imo.

Spot on there FFF. If I were an Armagh player and some thick Laois prick who can barely speak English called me a British Bastard etc, I'd turn him up with a box aswell. Same would apply for for anybody else.

Its all well and good for the holier than thou in here to say that Armagh are just whingers etc. We have no idea what those guys had to endure to play the sport that they loved. Why should they sit back and have some ignorant basatards belittle them??

With regard to TK accusing them of whinging. I would say they are merely making a case for McKeever. As do every county when it comes to their players being suspended. Have we all forgotten the recent schmozzle with Monaghan? How quickly we jumped to defend Flanagan??
Has TK forgotten how many of these current Kildare players spend as much time talking on the pitch as they do playing?? Yet we were up in arms the last few years when Johnny was singled out for special treatement from various counties.

Bit of a difference BTA between being constantly taken out of the ball to the extent your body can take no more and you can't play as was Johnny, than a few words don't you think? And you are getting confused, I have no problem with talking on the pitch so why would I have a problem with Kildare players doing it. PJ Ward summed it up brilliantly.

""I got stick because Ward is seen as a Traveller surname and I was called an inbred and told that there was a smell of burning sticks off me. But those were things that rallied me up on the field. They never got me to react and never bothered me.There was no need for Ciaran to bring this up. If you take everything so personally, where do you go? The GAA isn't going to be able to sort this out because referees can't hear everything that's said on a football field. And 99 per cent of lads have things said about their mothers, sisters, aunts."

Here, here. And I am stunned that Armagh people are so insecure, if this is how they go on. A Laois footballer says something that works out because a man gets sent off and they have an identity crisis. Trust me, having spent a lot of time up there they are well able to take it and give it, so surprised by this. Besides, it just shows up the Laois player because as I keep pointing out, it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland so no matter what side of the divide you are on, you technically are not British.

Some serious fools on here. If anyone called me this I'd punch them and box them and so on. Shouldn't these posters be studying for their junior certs or something?

so you dont agree with somebodys point of view you try to insult them by the saying they should be studying for the junior cert! very juvenile tommy k! and seen as you never played football how do you know how you would react on the pitch.