Attending the FAI Cup final between St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians last Sunday was an incredibly enjoyable day. There was a frisson of lunacy about the whole thing that was genuinely unique in Irish sport, an element of tribalism and fan engagement that just isn’t really replicated in the GAA or in rugby.
There were some dissenting voices of course, some (including Ken Early of this parish, and other parishes close to my own) who speculated about the make-up of the almost 44,000 people inside the ground. They couldn’t all have been Pat’s or Bohs fans, right?
But All-Ireland finals in hurling and football have at least as many neutrals in attendance as the weekend’s cup final. In fact it is a key plank of the GAA’s overall ticketing strategy to have neutrals in the ground. Every club in every county gets a ticket, so there should in theory be a representative from every village in Ireland in Croke Park.
Many of these tickets will find their way in due course to the counties involved, that is the way of things. But that entire ticketing strategy is reflective of one important thought - that this is a day for the entire sport, not just the two counties involved. It’s supposed to be a national occasion, not a localised squabble. Day-trippers (as opposed to exclusively fervent fans) are welcome.
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From where I was watching the game last Sunday, Lansdowne Road all seemed extremely partisan, but that’s not exactly the point. Whether there was an element of the day-tripper about some of that number, the overall impression of anyone attending the game was that here was a really special occasion that even the Old Trafford and Anfield regulars don’t get when they board planes and boats every weekend to see a game in England. Last Sunday was closer to Belgrade or Boca Juniors than it was to Stamford Bridge.
The flares before the game even started, and in the immediate aftermath of the two early goals, might have been annoying for those peering into the gloom on a TV screen, but for those of us inside the stadium it was all gloriously chaotic. It was a throw-back - the occasion would have been even more spectacular if the fire safety experts hadn’t stepped in just a couple of hours before kick-off to stop both sets of fans from displaying a tifo (a choreographed display of banners and signs very common at European club stadiums).
I found out today that the Italian word tifo actually refers to the typhus fever, a reasonably salty medical condition which can cause delirium in those who suffer it. Supporters who form a tifo are known as tifosi, which is the Italian word for those infected with typhus, and I think communal delirium is a fairly decent description for a lot of what was going on behind both goals. That is not particularly common in this country.
Bohs and Pat’s are turning fans away on a regular basis as well, due to how small their home capacities are. Between those regular match-going fans, and casuals who were delighted to pay such a small price to attend a game in a modern, comfortable stadium, you have a constituency of people ready to provide a thrilling atmosphere.
It’s not in the GAA’s nature to create the sort of noise and chaos we saw in the Aviva on Sunday, and that’s a pity. You might say that given all the chaos that goes on between the white lines in a hurling game there’s hardly time for songs and chants - and maybe that’s true. But you’d have time to sing all 27 verses of Four Roads To Glenamaddy during most Galway football games, without fear of interruption, if you so desired.
Communal song is an incredibly powerful thing. For all the brilliant days that I’ve experienced as a Galway fan, not many beat the moment when the Croke Park tannoy played out N17 by the Sawdoctors, seconds after the winning penalty went in against Armagh in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final.
It was an emotional experience, in a way that rather caught me by surprise (for all that I love what the Sawdoctors mean to Galway people), but I’d never in a million years expect an a cappella version of it to break out in the Hyde or MacHale Park.
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The GAA also loves to give itself a pat on the back about its non-segregated crowds, but while the atmosphere was fairly partisan at either end, in the main stands, on the concourses, and in the aftermath of the game, both sets of fans mixed freely. It was of course the same at the interpro games in the URC last week.
If there’s hassle at Bohs vs Rovers games, or isolated other games during the year, is it any more endemic than crowd trouble spilling onto the pitch (and vice-versa) at GAA club games, or incidents on the Hill this summer? Instead of the GAA taking a victory lap, maybe we can say that it’s just Irish people who can do this without much or any hassle?
Ciarán Murphy’s first book “This Is The Life”, published by Penguin Sandycove is out now, and available in all good bookshops.
