A LEADING member of Lucan Golf Club has denied he ever attended a meeting in a local hotel to “ready up” stories about a fight between two members in the club lavatories.
Joe McAuley, a member of the club’s governing committee, also denied he told Craig McEvoy to “stick to what you were told to say” about an earlier bar-room confrontation between the two men.
Mr McEvoy, who witnessed a betting dispute regarding Manchester United between Alan Holmes and Martin Curtis in the club bar seven years ago, also told the Circuit Civil Court an alleged deal with Mr McAuley on what he would say had never happened.
Judge Joseph Mathews had been told by past club captain and past president Paddy Monaghan that in March 2003 in the men’s toilet, weeks after the fight, he had overheard Mr McAuley’s instructions to Mr McEvoy.
He told Conor Bowman, for Mr Curtis, that Mr McEvoy had asked Mr McAuley: “Where is Holmsie now?” and had been told: “Don’t be worrying about him at all. Say what you were told to say and that’s it.”
Mr Monaghan said the row between Mr Holmes, of Rathdown Drive, Terenure, Dublin, and Mr Curtis, of Brooklodge, Curryhills, Prosperous, Co Kildare, which had left the toilet spattered with blood, had been the talk of Lucan village and the club.
He made a note the following day of what he had overheard in the toilet, and had later given a copy of it to Mr Curtis when he had heard a court case mentioned.
Mr Monaghan told Louis McEntagart, for Mr Holmes, that he never reported the toilet eavesdropping evidence to a club investigating committee. He felt Mr Curtis, who was banned from playing golf for a year and from the clubhouse for three years, was treated unfairly in comparison to Mr Holmes, who had been suspended for three months.
He said people regularly sat in front of the bar television shouting foul language during matches. Mr Holmes, who claims he was head-butted, and Mr Curtis, who claims he was punched and kicked, have each sued the other for €38,000 damages for assault.
The court has heard the two clashed in the toilet after banter during a televised Man United-Burnley match got out of hand over a €100 bet, which United fan Mr Curtis had offered to Mr Holmes, one of a number of “anyone but United” supporters.
Mr Holmes said he told Mr Curtis to f*** off when he approached about the bet, but denied repeatedly shouting “you are only a f***ing mouth” to Mr Curtis. He said Mr Curtis knelt at his table and said: “I’m going to f***ing do you outside.”
Judge Mathews said crucial evidence had been given yesterday by club member Patrick Carroll, who said he had walked into the toilet and saw Mr Holmes and Mr Curtis grappling with each other, which he thought at first was horseplay.
He had gone to the urinal, and seconds later when he turned he saw Mr Holmes’s head oscillating and blood pumping from it, and the two men roaring.
Mr Carroll said he had not seen any assault. He tried to break them up. He told them: “You can’t do this in a golf club. Lads your membership is in jeopardy here.” Mr Holmes said: “I’m not letting him away with that Paddy. He head-butted me.” Mr Curtis said: “I’m getting the police for you.”
Judge Mathews said Mr Holmes’s case was that there had been no engagement between the two in the toilet until he had been head-butted out of the blue. Mr Carroll, called on Mr Holmes’s behalf, had changed all that. He had seen the men grappling, but no sign of blood when he entered the toilet.
Mr Curtis is to give his side of the story today.