We were somewhere around Fermoy when the ennui began to take hold.
Only that kind of an opening line will do to describe the king-hell tedium of a weekend drive to deepest Munster and back to watch a couple of hurling matches. There are few other phrases that can better capture the sheer screaming monotony of spending the better part of a whole day on the road, in a hot stuffy car, half-dead from lack of sleep, with one tape to keep us going throughout the whole journey the offending object in question being The Cream Of Eric Clapton.
After four hours of driving, and more interminable renditions of Lay Down Sally than I care to remember, we reached our port of call: Pairc Um Chaoimh, a stadium so run-down it makes Dalymount Park resemble the Stade de France.
The extent of its decrepitude can be measured by the fact that it still looks exactly the same as it did over twenty years ago. I know this because I watched a re-run of the 1976 Munster football final recently on Network 2. Incredibly, every detail of the stadium was the same, from the ubiquitous flaking paint to the horrible metal fencing.
As I queued to get in, amid the clouds of dust and rubbish blowing around, a porno mag lay on the ground nearby, flapping forlornly. However the fuck it ended up outside stile 10 of Pairc Um Chaoimh, it was the final perfect touch.
The game itself was too one-sided to qualify for classic status (which many GAA hacks rather generously bestowed on the original match). Clare, let off the hook by their goalkeeper Davy Fitzgerald s last-minute penalty in the first fixture, were in no mood to take any shit on this occasion, and effectively had it won by half-time.
As soon as Alan Markham put away the goal that effectively clinched matters, the three Clare fans in front of us, a cheerfully obnoxious bunch of eejits whose inarticulacy was matched only by their volume, seized the opportunity to break into song.
If I had the wings of a sparrow,
If I had the arse of a crow,
I d fly down to Clonmel tomorrow,
And shit on THAT BASTARD Nicky English below.
After the game, outside the arena, Foul Play bumped literally into Frank Lohan, the mountainous Clare corner-back who had been having a physical running battle with his opposite number all afternoon. My doctor says the bruises should go down in about another week.
The next morning, hungover to fuck, we nonetheless managed to get an early start for Thurles, where we would watch the Cork v Waterford game. One of our number suddenly let out a shocked yelp, having been startled out of his hangover-induced somnolence by catching sight of the most monstrous photograph of Ger Loughnane ever taken.
Loughnane, it must be pointed out, is rarely pictured without a facial expression that suggests either inexpressible jubilation or a painful bowel condition, but this snapshot really was one to keep well away from the kids.
In a photo presumably taken seconds after the final whistle against Tipp, the benevolent Clare dictator was sporting a pair of hellishly red-rimmed, glaring eyes; a thin-lipped mouth contorted into an expression somewhere between a snarl and a shit-eating grin; and a facial complexion so red you could probably keep an omelette warm on it.
Thurles was a mess, its grey little streets filled to overflowing with drunken hurling fans, a surprisingly high number of whom thought nothing of urinating against walls in plain view of everybody else.
Cork won the game at a canter, though apart from the performance of debutant Mickey O Connell, with his eight point contribution, there wasn t much to look at. Many of the Cork fans struck the casual observer afterwards with the sheer volume of their oafishness, which begs the question: what are they like when they lose?
And so to Croke Park last Sunday, where, as an aperitif, Kilkenny gave Laois the beating of their lives, and Offaly handed Wexford a 3-16 to 0-15 drubbing.
Wexford were still within striking distance of the Faithful County at half-time, even though they had leaked three goals without playing particularly badly.
Offaly spent the entire second half taking the piss. The Wexford crowd gradually lost interest, many of them streaming out of Croke Park like Blackburn fans at 4:20, and the players became noticeably narkier, a state of affairs which came to the boil when one of their number inflicted a neck-high assault on Offaly s Simon Whelahan.
The Biffos (Beautiful Intelligent Fellows From Offaly), an overwhelmingly excellent body of people with whom Foul Play has whiled away plenty of drinking time, weren t reading too much into their comprehensive victory, especially considering the surprisingly lame second-half performance of the opposition. As one Offaly fan commented of Wexford, In the second half even their third touch was bad.
So why, given that Offaly are among the top two or three hurling counties, had their support been outnumbered by something like two to one on the day?
Offaly never bring big crowds with them for piddly-shit occasions like these, opined one well-informed gentleman. The Biffos only start singing in August. n