Sideline Cut: An Open Letter To The Lad Who Nicked DJ's Beemer, from Keith Duggan.

Dear Lad, Are you stone mad? Do you not realise the power of the man whose honour you have just insulted? He is not just a man, he is The Man.

You have enraged an entire county, pal. Kilkenny men are dead civil at the best of times, but gosh, have you never seen them on the rampage? Look, your position is to be sympathised with. Undeniably, the circumstances in which you find yourself today are unfortunate. Of all the diesel joints in all the world, you had to pick this one.

The chances of acquiring the very set of wheels belonging to the most famous sportsman on this island are slim but somehow you managed it. Don't you watch The Sunday Game? Haven't you heard the tone of divine awe with which Cyril talks of DJ? And more to the point, didn't you recognise DJ as he stood beside the diesel pump? To be fair, the fact that he was out of context might have thrown you. It's hard to imagine DJ doing anything other than scoring goals in Croke Park. It is certainly difficult to imagine him doing something as mundane as filling a tank full of diesel, BMW notwithstanding.

And perhaps he was wearing street clothes. Maybe in jeans and a shirt, DJ looks the same as anyone else. Although I must admit, when I envisage the scene it is impossible to see DJ wearing anything other than his Kilkenny outfit. Standing at the petrol pumps in his black and amber number 14 shirt, pressed white shorts and polished boots. He is even wearing his black glove and has the famous hurl in his hand and taps a sliotar against the unleaded pump as he waits for his tank to fill. Other motorists wave in recognition as they see the famous figure and a few ask for autographs.

"Howya, DJ?" they call. "You're hard at it." "Ah sure, doin' a bit," the legend replies in his easy, down-to-earth way as he jogs into the shop to pay.

And when I heard DJ had bravely pursued his stolen car along the dual carriageway, the only vision I could muster was that of the Kilkenny star in a flat-out sprint along the hard shoulder. The beauty of it was that he ran while soloing the sliotar on his hurl. Hell, he probably even laid off a perfect pass for Charlie Carter at some point of the chase, just on instinct.

Other motorists would have thought nothing of it.

"You have to hand it to DJ," they would have marvelled as he zoomed past, waving and smiling apologetically, rubbing the curly heads of infants thrust out of car windows for benediction, frantically signing autographs and pausing for Polaroids on request.

"You'll not see Alan Shearer training like that and him on 60 grand a week," they would have praised as DJ sprinted away again, staying well clear of the articulated trucks, quite literally a hurler on the ditch.

The way I see it, Lad, is that you were just beginning to feel comfortable in your newly acquired motor when you caught sight of what you loosely recognised to be a GAA man in your rear-view mirror, hurling his way up the road behind you at a fantastic rate of knots.

Maybe yourself and the boys had visited your local cinema on Friday night to see Arnie in Terminator 3 and so you believed that this vision, this mixed-up version of life imitating art, was your mind playing tricks with you. So you pulled off the main road and found a country hostelry where you got yourself a settler, something to steady the nerves.

At this point, you probably already knew you weren't driving the Beemer of just any old mortal. You were probably a little disconcerted as you flicked through the channels in search of MAD FM to find all the stations tuned into Kilkenny radio.

You probably found yourself answering the car phone and fielding 15 different interview requests before you had even made it as far as fifth gear. Perhaps you agreed, to your immense surprise, to the request of a persuasive and mildly scary lady who called herself Sister Agnes to turn up in County Cork the next morning to present medals at an under-10 sports day.

As you rifled through the glove compartment (a place where, having appropriated hundreds of motors over the years, you have discovered everything under the sun except gloves), you might have had time to read some of the many letters that began "Dear DJ". Charities, businesses, kids, people bestowing small thanks and asking small favours. You probably began to wish you had left this car be and even though you had pumped hard on the Lynx that morning, you could well have been overcome by a sense of grubbiness.

True, the welcome presence of 2,500 washers was probably more than adequate compensation for any negative feelings you may have experienced and perhaps the urge to stop for a tipple was in celebration of this windfall, which came in an envelope marked "County Board Tickets". In truth, you were probably relieved when this pursuing figure, this unshakeable DJ character, closed in upon you some minutes later and confused you by demanding to know what kind of clubman you were.

"Techno, mostly," you may have stuttered before tumbling into the back of a car belonging (or not!) to your pals and making a getaway. You were glad to see that back of that Beemer and its owner.

But you are not in the clear, pal. The bet here is you have seen that film Pulp Fiction and are familiar with the scene where John Travolta observes that "you do not f**k with another man's automobile". It is a good rule to remember, particularly when the man in question is a nine-time All Star, is on television more often than our Taoiseach. and will, in just a few weeks' time, be the star turn in front of 70,000 people on the Jones Road.

You should buy a ticket and go see him. It isn't like you don't have the cash.

But remember, now, you are a wanted man. What you did is the equivalent of seeing Roy Keane on the street and then walking up and delivering a good firm pinch to the Keano tush. Not quite insanity but definitely not advisable, for all kinds of reasons.

DJ is not the worry for you now. DJ is too good-natured to bear grievances like this. Besides, history is documenting that DJ loses stuff from motors as easily as he loses defenders. No man is an absolute saint.

The problem for you is that there are literally thousands of others that will be only too happy to bear that grievance for him. You don't want to bang into Ger Henderson in a bad mood. You don't want to be tangling with Willie O'Connor. You won't know the meaning of hard until Richie Power smiles at you.

Look, you are sitting somewhere today in possession of Kilkenny hurling money. You have stolen from god. It is not too late to repent. Turn up at Croke Park. Beg clemency.

You will be spirited into Gowran where DJ will receive you and offer you tea and talk to you for half an hour. A week later, you will find yourself walking around in a black and amber shirt.

You will be converted.

Either that or move to somewhere they have not heard of DJ. That could be okay. There are nice Beemers in Saudi too.

Yours, etc . . .