Magill Diary Sept 1983

Down For The Match

The compartment of the train was divided into three. At one end were the lads; at the other were a number of Gardai who had gone to Cork for the day in order to quell any possible unruliness. The lads at the other end were being unruly. There were maybe ten or twelve of them and they were aged maybe fourteen or sixteen. They had bottles of cider. Every so often and totally in unison they would do a verse of "Roaming In the Gloaming" as though they were around some camp fire. In the middle of the verse they would laugh hysterically and they would all have to stop.

One of the cider drinkers would straddle the aisle of the train with one foot on the armrest of each seat. A bottle cider in his hand, he would wave it down at the Gardai. The Gardai thought this was funny. The lads sang a song about Roger Casement and then "The Boys of the Old Brigade". One of the Gardai came in and had a very cordial conversation with one of the lads.

But the lads really came into their own each time a small fattish grey-haired woman passed through their lair. They cheered her and roared pro-Dub slogans at her. The woman was delighted at being made into some sort of mascot. The train began to go through Dublin towards Amiens Street Station. The lads, cider all gone, began to put their hands out of the windows and pound the sides of the train. The train was indeed made of plywood; we had been warned. The lads screamed at anyone in the small streets below the tracks who would listen. And when they came into the station, they took their blue flags and blue scarves and ran roaring down the platform.

It was not thus at 7.30 that morning when the blearyeyed hordes had paid £13 to go down for the match. There had been so much stuff in the papers about how much violence there was going to be that the passengers eyed each other cautiously, nervously and suspiciously for evidence of small missiles and broken bottles. The Dubs looked out dolefully at the carriage that was still lying on its side near Kildare; this was the same make as the train that crashed, as the Indo had warned all week.

Three young Dubs were making their way to Pairc Ui Chaoimh. They didn't notice that all along the walls were daubed anti-Dub slogans. One of them read: "Dubs are full of shit". They were lucky too that the people of Cork couldn't hear the appalling imitations they were doing of the Cork accent.

"All Cork is up there on that terrace," said one man. "There's Dubs up there too," said the other man. But there didn't seem to be any Dubs up there. They were all red and white and two or three of them seemed to be waving an American flag for some reason.

If you were looking for Dubs they were on the other terrace. Most of the blokes had taken their shirts off and excitement was building up. Before the junior hurling match the team came out to take a look around the pitch. The Dubs went mad. And when the first match was over and very boring it was too, a young bloke got onto the pitch who shouldn't have got onto the pitch. This chap had his arm twisted behind his back and was led firmly by a security man to his rightful place. Several security men and guards looked at this security man enviously.

The Dubs were winning and rightly so; the Dubs were better than Cork. Even a child could see that. On the Dub terrace they were sure of that. They were all waving their arms, roaring, waving their scarves, trying to get chants going and wondering how they were going to get out onto the pitch after the match. This last was going to be difficult.

Ten minutes into the second half the bloke behind, a Dub supporter, said to his companion: "Wake me up at the end." He was bored that the Dubs were doing so well. Just then Barney Rock got a ball in the corner of the field and somehow put it in the corner of the net. The bloke behind stood up on his hind legs and went hysterical. The goal had just woken him up.

Cork, however, never did wake up. And then came the moment the Gardai had been waiting for. The final whistle when some of the Du bs managed to get over the fence and onto the pitch. Like a bull to a red rag some of the Cork supporters got over their fence and ran down the pitch as though it were The Year Of The French. The Gardai stood in the middle and fended off these Southern warriors. The Corkmen quickly realised they were beaten and they ran back towards their terrace just as fast as they came. The only skirmish was between one of their number and a Garda. The Garda just tripped this fellow over and hit him with a baton on the backside. Then the fellow ran back after his companions.
Feeney On Friday August 19 John Feeney published a story in his column in the Evening Herald about Senator Shane Ross.

"Fianna Fail, at the express permission of Charles Haughey, has approached a well-known stockbroker and asked him to join the party," the story began. "Senator Shane Ross has been approached by the very topmost in Fianna Fail - the offer was made by general secretary Frank Wall and 'David Andrews TD," it continued. Shane Ross denies this. He says he has not been approached by anyone in Fianna Fail and asked to join the party. The only reason he can think of why Feeney might come to such a conclusion' is that Feeney saw him in a restaurant with Rory O'Farrell and Frank Wall. They were not, however, asking him to join Fianna Fail.

In his story of August 19 Feeney goes on to quote Ross. "Said Ross last night 'Well maybe, and maybe I won't and who the hell was impertinent enough to tell you about my private life. If I join Fianna Fail that's my bloody business and you've no right to ask me. Are you going to join that bloody awful Labour party again? And how do you like such questions - if I join Fianna Fail it will be solely because I see that party as the most realistic and the most likely to do things." Shane Ross says that he never said any of this nor anything like it. He says that Feeney did not contact him about the story.

Feeney ends his story with "My feeling is that Martin O'Donoghue has been rightly scuppered." Our feeling is that someone should stop John Feeney's inventions in the Evening Herald.