During an inglorious sporting career, which, just like George Best’s, was cut short to focus on drinking, I amassed the grand total of two medals. Both were runners-up gongs, presented to losing finalists in the summer seven-a-side league. Needless to say, I cherish those trinkets as if they were Ballon d’Ors; often wearing them to work, or at home when I’m feeling sad. Those cheap little baubles might, when compared to the top prizes, mean very little, but to me they’re representative of a fleeting youth, a time when everything came easy and tomorrow seemed far away.
The celebrations which accompanied those unspectacular feats were understandably muted; consisting of a few pints down the local, countless hard-luck tales and the comparing of bruises. But had we won either of those finals, had our medals been gold instead of silver, the resulting shindig would have been something for the ages. The cup would have been filled with the cheapest champagne known to man, there’d have been dancing, a little carousing, and at least half of us would have taken our tops off for no reason whatsoever.
On that basis I can empathise with the members of Ballyragget’s intermediate hurling team who, on the Tuesday following their county final success, were still in the thralls of victory, milking it for all it was worth, refusing to return to reality. In fact, if they were still at it now, a whole week later, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt, it was their first championship in over forty years after all. Unfortunately for these young Kilkenny men their celebrations have been deemed somewhat excessive, overly enthusiastic, a little over the top.
Because they didn’t celebrate alone. Fifi was with them, as was another unnamed woman. Hired as part of a 21st birthday party which members of the Ballyragget panel were attending, Fifi and her colleague were tasked with providing the entertainment for a group of rowdy, but mostly friendly, young men. High-jinks ensued, frolicsome capers which not only involved some of the hurlers but also, crucially, the cup they’d won just a couple of days previous. Perhaps if these capers had been of the sort seen in the Carry On films everything would have been okay, but they were slightly more risqué than that.
For a start, Fifi had her fifis out. Not only that, it appears that she engaged in a sex act with one of the players. How do we know all of this? Because of social media; when busty Italian women come to town and flaunt their assets it’s nigh on possible to resist filming the results and sharing it with everyone you know. What has followed has been a trial by media, the squad members involved drawn over hot coals with everything from the expulsion of the team to the castration of the village mooted as justifiable punishment for their actions.
All of that is, of course, complete nonsense. Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t laud the GAA for remaining faithful to its amateur roots, for ensuring that players play for the love of the game and that no money ever crosses hands, while simultaneously expecting those same players to adhere to a lifestyle more in keeping with professional footballers across the water. So what if a few young lads acted out of turn after a few sociables? So what if the trophy, that magical piece of worn and twisted metal, was used as an unwitting prop in a tawdry act of innuendo? In the grand scheme of things it just doesn’t really matter.
These are amateur sportsmen, whose affiliation to their club, their county, is as tenuous as a five-year-old’s is to his new favourite football team. They may represent Ballyragget, which by proxy, makes them members of the esteemed, almost godlike, GAA, but once they finish training on a Tuesday night, once they trudge off the field after a game, they are their own men. In truth if anyone should be assessing the contents of this video and making judgement on the content of their character, it’s their employers, the people who paid them the money which enabled them to buy the pints they so scandalously poured into the trophy and feck knows where else.
