Tom Humphries in Saturday's Times

[gspain]

Anybody read Tom Humphries in saturday's times.

He slagged off the F.A.I. big time conjuring up images of semi naked council members and while i imagine it would not be a pretty sight I suppose the F.A.I. council is not picked on good looks and great bodies. I assume the Irish Times do use these criteria to pick their GAA columnists. :D

What was disturbing though was his claim that the F.A.I. officials sang "you can stick your GAA up your arse" on the flight back from Belfast in 1994 (assume he meant 1993) after qualifying for the World Cup.

I've checked the story with a friend of mine who is an Irish fan and was on the flight. He is also heavily involved in the GAA and claims he heard no such thing. I've also checked it with another excellent source who said it was total rubbish. He didn't see the article but said it was simply not true.

Now I didn't come back until the following day and can't remember if I got the Times that day but certainly would have been a regular reader and can't recall any such claim at the time. Indeed some of the more prominent football officials at the time (and indeed now) are actually GAA fans.

I know a GAA fan on some messageboard did make the claim at the time of the opening of Croke Park debate but there was no source and I assumed it was just made up propaganda.

I did try the online edition but the archives don't appear to go back to 1993 from the searches althogh I don't have an online sub.

Anybody know

1) was he actually there - have to assume he was?

2) Did he cover the incident at the time in his column? If he was and it happened then he surely would have

I have my own theory on where the story came from as a group of Irish fans in Vilnius in June 1993 did sing "If you hate the GAA clap your hands" and some other ditties at a postmatch singsong although there wasn't an F.A.I. official in sight. I think some one of their nearderthal bigots had made some derogatory comment about football a few days earlier.

[thejollyrodger]

here ya go

You can stick your soccer up . . .

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/sport/2006/0506/1587626665SPSPLAYERSCLIPSPSQUI.html

The GAA now has the World Cup threat down pat, writes Tom Humphries. It will be a classic summer

Some people say that the most distressing thing they have ever witnessed was the frank footage beamed without warning from the Irish team hotel during the last World Cup. Readers of a delicate disposition should skip a few paragraphs right now, but those still with us will shiver and perhaps vomit as they recall the horrific images of those tubby FAI officials jiggling around the lobby of their plush Japanese hotel wearing naught but their skimpy bathing costumes.

A friend of mine, more articulate than I and more tuned to the zeitgeist of the nation, neatly captured the feelings of an entire people when he said, "Ugh, jaysus, get those wackjobs off the telly".

Now, every hell is personal, and I'm not saying that soccer's voluptuous alickadoos shouldn't be required to keep their Pammy-style manboobs beneath their blazers as nature intended - I'm just saying I have seen worse. I have been to that floor in Beelzebub's mansion where you would gladly fork over your last euro for the distraction of a saucy table-dance from a fuller-figured FAI official.

Yep. Once, in the bad old days during the cold war, I had the misfortune to be on the team plane after Ireland's soccer team had qualified for the 1994 World Cup.

I say misfortune, because as we landed amid much mirth and jollity, a roseate crew of soccer blazers sashayed as they crooned a cappella version of their favourite hymn, You Can Stick Your GAA Up Your Ass. It was a display offered up in a spirit of craven lasciviousness. Human decency was offended, but too shy to say anything.

Yes, into a night of genuine national unity and celebration such as was that dreamy evening in Windsor Park, the FAI managed to insert, well, the crude suggestion of insertion. For those of us who regularly worship in the Cathedral by the Canal, it was an alarming moment. Were events to unfold as expected, we would soon be following the lyrical instructions of our new lords and masters. Croker would become the Cathedral by the Colon, and Irish summers would be longer than arctic winters, but shorter than Frank Murphy speeches.

In my sleep, I had uneasy dreams. I heard wild talk of interning GAA members, talk stirred up by the sort of paid guttersnipes who deemed the words BogBall and StickBall to be the greatest witticism every uttered outside the confines of a Bernard Manning gig. In my sleep, I became a well-paid informer to these people, but when I awoke I was still poor. No, pure.

It's strange to reflect on this now, but at that moment Ireland's second successive World Cup qualification could easily have delivered the GAA into a palsy from which it might never have recovered.

For Gaels, reared in the belief that inappropriate contact with soccer is the root cause of most major illnesses (and possibly the Famine), it was a bitter pill to swallow.

But swallow it they would. The response was slow and weak. You will remember the summer of Italia '90 when, to mark Ireland's first venture on to the stage of world soccer, the GAA obligingly coughed up one of the most stunningly tedious championship seasons in living memory.

To make matters worse, they topped the metagloom with a bizarre act of hara-kiri when Cork were permitted to win the double. Only the sight of Dr Tony O'Reilly winning the lottery would have brought more joy to our little nation.

It was Jack Charlton's world and we were destined to live in it (or, to use the vernacular, to "fanny aboot" in it). The GAA might as well have scraped together a delegation to travel to Switzerland to officially hand the other 31 counties over to soccer, or Ground Ball, as many of us still called soccer with our merciless wit.

Once again (as in 1974, the time of the Dutch Total Football scare), it took Dublin to rescue the nation from the quicksands of global homogeneity. The following summer, 1991, Dublin toyed with Meath like a cat pawing a petrified mouse. During an incredible series of four games which gripped the imagination of the entire country, Dublin saved civilisation.

Their work done, the noble Dubs gallantly permitted the mouse to devour them, knowing that the clawed and scarred Meath team would stagger onwards to September when they would be exterminated by Down.

And lo, it came to pass.

And the night after it had come to pass Paddy O'Rourke walked the Sam Maguire across an invisible line which the GAA delicately described as the historic border between Leinster and Ulster, but every Gael knew that the GAA had gotten an international dimension for itself.

Grown men, hardened stoics who had seen dark deeds performed at junior football games and had said nothing when questioned in A&E later, were moved to weep.

Since then, the GAA has been a little livelier on its feet anytime a World Cup comes around. In 1998, with characteristic graciousness and noble self-sacrifice, Dublin permitted Kildare to beat them in a replayed game in an early round of the Leinster championship.

Historians will recall that the arrangement actually required Kildare to win on the first day, but Kildare bottled it and many Dublin players had to cancel holidays for the replay.

The Lily Whites took the replay by a point, and thus pumped full of confidence went on to claim their first Leinster title since 1956, a novelty which completely overshadowed France's World Cup win, even for the French.

Better was to come, as Galway managed to squeeze out their first All-Ireland in 32 years that September, and as they made their historic journey carrying Sam in the vanguard back across the Corrib, the bonfires blazed and the western night was cut with a beautiful and haunting rendition of You Can Stick Your Zinedine Zidane Up Your Ass.

By 2002, the GAA had the World Cup threat down pat and the quadrennial international series took another twist. The football championship was as choreographed as a pro-wrestling bout, but UK favourites Armagh, the self-described Cinderella County, were crowned All-Ireland champions, having turned the tables on the Republic's traditional ugly sisters, Dublin and Kerry, along the way.

World Cups come and go now, and the GAA, remarkably, is insulated against even the severest weather fronts of global hype. The rural-based amateur organisation which depends on volunteerism to promote and preserve our indigenous games is preparing to become landlord to the FAI.

The realms of BogBall and StickBall absorb great oceans of corporate cash every year, and whatever joys and spectacles a World Cup brings, the GAA has learned to have confidence in the appeal of its own joys and spectacles.

There was no need for triumphalism on the plane from Belfast in 1994 and no call for GAA triumphalism now. The World Cup has been good to the GAA. Since 1966, Croke Park has been responding and reacting and adapting to the challenge.

This summer promises a feast of sport, and the World Cup people have wisely kept the best of the first round ties away from Sunday afternoons in June; in fact, clever timing by Fifa means that it should be possible to watch Dublin and Laois on June 25th and get home for England's second-round exit later that evening.

So accustomed is the GAA by now to responding to the threat offered by soccer that news of Wayne Rooney's broken toe had no sooner surfaced than the GAA responded with Brian McGuigan's unfortunate leg break.

It's going to be a great World Cup and it's going to be a great football summer. Surely, after all they have done to make the games safe for ordinary people, it's Dublin's turn to win in September?

No?

Italy and Kerry then, in a season for resurgent traditionalists.

© The Irish Times

[oconghc2]

interesting post - humphreys can get carried away on occassions and when it comes to GAA v soccer he is always gonna be biased towards GAA. The thing with Humphreys - it's more of an opinion piece where he doesnt stick to objective reporting.

the allegations re the song on the plane, fair enough might be result of a bit of poetic license. If this was a journalist knocking the GAA would you be investigating it the same way? Just a curiousity really - i have no idea of youre opinions on the GAA and maybe you were just interested as you know people who were there and cant recall any of it.

[Fergie's Son]

Humphries has the blinkers on big time when it comes to the GAA. Sure didn't he go to Joey's though so he ain't all bad :)

[OwlsFan]

He wears his GAA badge on his sleeve and has published 150 reasons why the GAA is better than soccer - so no doubts where is loyalty lies. He's a good writer but his pen is poisoned towards soccer.

[drummerboy]

He took great pleasure in the whole Saipan affair.

[gspain]

interesting post - humphreys can get carried away on occassions and when it comes to GAA v soccer he is always gonna be biased towards GAA. The thing with Humphreys - it's more of an opinion piece where he doesnt stick to objective reporting.

the allegations re the song on the plane, fair enough might be result of a bit of poetic license. If this was a journalist knocking the GAA would you be investigating it the same way? Just a curiousity really - i have no idea of youre opinions on the GAA and maybe you were just interested as you know people who were there and cant recall any of it.

I don't like the way he snipes at local football whether it be the national team or the EL.

I have no interest in the GAA so no I wouldn't be as bothered if it was a football or rugby journalist writing about the GAA although I don't like sloppy journalism and fact getting screwed up.

The online archive only goes back to 1996. I will at some stage get to the library to check his reports of the time and if he reported it then I will have to believe it happened. However the GAA guy who claimed it happened last year failed to provide a source and frankly in November the GAA would be the last thing on anybody's mind. I suspect it is a mishmash of the Lithuania incident in 1993 which involved a group of fans and not F.A.I. officials. The fact that he got the year wrong in his article would imply he was more likely writing from memory rather than checking sources.

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

I've said before on this forum and I'll say it again, Humphreys is a p!ss poor excuse for a writer. For some reason he's been glorified (for want of a better word) by certain people in recent years. I would bet that most people on this forum know more about football than he does. He regularly get his facts wrong and his memory is somewhat blurred. In addition to that, he's second behind Hyland in terms of writing trash.

[OwlsFan]

His biography of Quinn was a good read though as football books go. As an impartial observer of Irish soccer, to use an Americanism, "he sucks".

[klein4]

I've said before on this forum and I'll say it again, Humphreys is a p!ss poor excuse for a writer. For some reason he's been glorified (for want of a better word) by certain people in recent years. I would bet that most people on this forum know more about football than he does. He regularly get his facts wrong and his memory is somewhat blurred. In addition to that, he's second behind Hyland in terms of writing trash.
humphries is an excellent writer. you only have to read some of the pap that gets written on here to see how talented he is.

[NeilMcD]

Humphries is an excellent writer but is biased towards the GAA and that does cloud his judgement when writing about football. A great writer but not a great journalist in my view.

[Donal81]

Anybody read Tom Humphries in saturday's times.

He slagged off the F.A.I. big time conjuring up images of semi naked council members and while i imagine it would not be a pretty sight I suppose the F.A.I. council is not picked on good looks and great bodies. I assume the Irish Times do use these criteria to pick their GAA columnists. :D

What was disturbing though was his claim that the F.A.I. officials sang "you can stick your GAA up your arse" on the flight back from Belfast in 1994 (assume he meant 1993) after qualifying for the World Cup.

I've checked the story with a friend of mine who is an Irish fan and was on the flight. He is also heavily involved in the GAA and claims he heard no such thing. I've also checked it with another excellent source who said it was total rubbish. He didn't see the article but said it was simply not true.

Now I didn't come back until the following day and can't remember if I got the Times that day but certainly would have been a regular reader and can't recall any such claim at the time. Indeed some of the more prominent football officials at the time (and indeed now) are actually GAA fans.

I know a GAA fan on some messageboard did make the claim at the time of the opening of Croke Park debate but there was no source and I assumed it was just made up propaganda.

I did try the online edition but the archives don't appear to go back to 1993 from the searches althogh I don't have an online sub.

Anybody know

1) was he actually there - have to assume he was?

2) Did he cover the incident at the time in his column? If he was and it happened then he surely would have

I have my own theory on where the story came from as a group of Irish fans in Vilnius in June 1993 did sing "If you hate the GAA clap your hands" and some other ditties at a postmatch singsong although there wasn't an F.A.I. official in sight. I think some one of their nearderthal bigots had made some derogatory comment about football a few days earlier.

Good post Gspain. Why don't you contact the Irish Times sports dept about it? sports@irish-times.ie, ph 01 6758366 - the editor is Malachy Logan.

I like Tom Humphries and there's definitely a place for his style in Irish sports journalism. In fact, given the likes of the Evening Herald and the tabloids, we should be grateful for him. But he does make a serious charge against the FAI and it should be accurate.

I have a feeling that some of the posters here, however, may be mistaking his obvious disdain for the FAI for a dislike of football in general. He loves GAA games, that's obvious, but his writings suggest that he loves soccer just as much (he had a Lockerroom about Leeds a few weeks ago, his boyhood team). It's the FAI and the unpleasant elements of football that he writes about.

In fairness to the posters here, though, his 101 reasons for GAA versus soccer was based more on the friendly, community stuff of the GAA versus the corporate, advertising, diving, cheating element of soccer so it wasn't a fair comparison at all.

[Stuttgart88]

As said above, Humphreys is a great sports writer, though not necessarily a great journalist.

His stance on Michelle Smith was admirable, and subsequently justified.

However, I think he was acting out of self-interest in the infamous Saipan interview & I feel he was irresponsible to have it published.

He has often come up with a few fibs in the past to make his point. I remember one article saying as a kid he & his mates used to bunk into Sutton Golf Course just to play. However, his description of the course bore no resemblance to the real course so I suspect he was making it up for effect. Maybe the same applies to the FAI / GAA remark.

[Superhoops]

.....
However, I think he was acting out of self-interest in the infamous Saipan interview & I feel he was irresponsible to have it published......
I am glad you pointed this out Stuttgart, I was waiting for someone to mention it.

You are spot-on and IMO Humphries was the catalyst of the way the whole incident unfolded. Totally irresponsible journalism, the kind you would expect from some of the red tops.

A pity though, I used to think that Tom Humphries and Vincent Hogan were the two best sports writers (not reporters) in Ireland but Humphries went down in my estimation after that sad day.

[monutdfc]

He took great pleasure in the whole Saipan affair.
Did he not cause the whole Saipan affair?
As an experienced journalist, he must have been well aware of the likely consequences of publishing that interview.

[deadman]

I am glad you pointed this out Stuttgart, I was waiting for someone to mention it.

You are spot-on and IMO Humphries was the catalyst of the way the whole incident unfolded. Totally irresponsible journalism, the kind you would expect from some of the red tops.

A pity though, I used to think that Tom Humphries and Vincent Hogan were the two best sports writers (not reporters) in Ireland but Humphries went down in my estimation after that sad day.

in a follow-up interview with Roy Keane about two years ago, i think, he also brings up the Saipan issue again.

but when TH questions Roy about it, he says, "it's in the past, no need to bring it up again" .... which was all TH needed to remind us of all the details with his particular - unbalanced - slant on the affair.

complete self interest

[gspain]

Good post Gspain. Why don't you contact the Irish Times sports dept about it? sports@irish-times.ie, ph 01 6758366 - the editor is Malachy Logan.

I like Tom Humphries and there's definitely a place for his style in Irish sports journalism. In fact, given the likes of the Evening Herald and the tabloids, we should be grateful for him. But he does make a serious charge against the FAI and it should be accurate.

I have a feeling that some of the posters here, however, may be mistaking his obvious disdain for the FAI for a dislike of football in general. He loves GAA games, that's obvious, but his writings suggest that he loves soccer just as much (he had a Lockerroom about Leeds a few weeks ago, his boyhood team). It's the FAI and the unpleasant elements of football that he writes about.

In fairness to the posters here, though, his 101 reasons for GAA versus soccer was based more on the friendly, community stuff of the GAA versus the corporate, advertising, diving, cheating element of soccer so it wasn't a fair comparison at all.

Will do but I want to get my own facts right first of all.

Need to check if he wrote about it in Nov 1993. If so then he may well be right. However I doubt if he did.

I have no doubt he likes/loves Leeds. I've seen no evidence that he has any interest in or love for domestic club football. He normally snipes about the national team too apart from being a huge Kerr fan.

[eirebhoy]

A pity though, I used to think that Tom Humphries and Vincent Hogan were the two best sports writers (not reporters) in Ireland but Humphries went down in my estimation after that sad day.
I remember Kerr gave an interview to the Irish Times and Hogan wrote an article in the Indo with all the points he disagreed with. I couldn't believe how he twisted so many of the quotes. There was lines added to quotes, there were seperate quotes being added together to make it look like something else. He was so anti-Kerr that he was making up stuff just to try and get the public against him. As someone said on here at the time, it was like he was replying to posts on an internet forum the journalism was so bad. "He said" "We say".

[ken foree]

don't like his flippant style (used subscribe to the times online), thought that kimble fella was good though, grittier if i remember correctly.

[Aberdonian Stu]

It's George Kimball you're thinking of and he is a legend!

[ken foree]

It's George Kimball you're thinking of and he is a legend!

would you believe i had "kimball" down before i changed it to kimble! yea i loved his america at large column, some great stuff in that.

[Donal81]

I disagree utterly with the notion that Humphries either (a) caused the Saipan affair or (b) was in some way irresponsible to allow the interview be published. I'm surprised at some of the posters who said this, to be honest.

How was it irresponsible? His obligation is to the reader, not to Mick McCarthy or Roy Keane. Jesus, irresponsible journalism is writing that Liam Lawlor had a hooker in the back of a car before he crashed in Moscow, not carrying out an interview on the record, publishing it more or less verbatim AND showing it to the subject before its publication (which isn't ethically proper).

As we all remember, it was McCarthy's response to Keane's comments in the interview that kicked things off. The general consensus now is that McCarthy should have handled the interview a whole lot better and that Keane should have handled McCarthy's response better, right? I remember reading the article and thinking, "blimey, Keano's gone on a bit of rant here," but I never thought it would cause the reaction it did. The bottom line is that Keane said those things, not Tom Humphreys. He wasn't tricked into saying them - he looked at the interview before it was published and had no problem with it. If Humphries and the Irish Times hadn't published it, the journalist would have, in effect, become a de facto spokesperson for the FAI.

We saw with Michelle Smith how damaging the lack of proper journalism was. There are still legions of people around the country who are convinced she was an innocent woman, victimised by everyone, despite the absolute evidence against her.

If the 1994 article we're talking about is flawed, nail him and the Irish Times on it. Facts should be sacred, after all...

[NeilMcD]

Great post Donal, I could not agree with you any more. It is not the job of the journalist to be supporters of the Irish football team. There job is to report what happens. Keane gave the interview. He was happy with it and It was published. It is between Keane and Mc Carthy what happened. Its easy to blame Humphreys but in my view very very foolish to do so.

[Stuttgart88]

I read Humphrey's book last summer "Lap Top Dancing With Goats" or whatever it was called. Good book I thought. I haven't got it in front of me so am relying on memory but what I recall from the Saipan chapter is that there was a big scramble among journalists to get the Keane interview. Everyone knew his frame of mind was questionable & that his relationship with McCarthy was worse than ever before. The whole Niall Quinn testimonial "no show" episide right through to the row with the goalkeepers had highlighted this. There was definitely one hell of an interview to be had & everyone wanted it.

I think Humphreys must have had an idea just how incendiary Keane's remarks would be. Keane was clearly happy to grind his axe in public. When you say that it wasn't the interview that caused the disaster, it was the respective parties' responses, I just don't see how you can separate the two.

I'm not saying Keane's views on the manager & his team-mates' lack of ambition should have been censored and buried forever, but publication could have waited. In my opinion Humphreys was acting far more in his own interests than in any duty to the reader. I'm pretty sure he was under editorial pressure too though. Every other journalist out there would have loved to have got it & it was a personal triumph for Humphreys. Every one of them wanted to be the guy who got to know what Keane was thinking given his clearly volatile state of mind, and to be the guy who got to print the story.

Can someone remind me: when Keane walked out & was talked back into staying, was this before or after the interview? I'm sure it was before and if so, this clearly added to the size of the "scoop" that the interview repersented, & also to the knowledge that it would have consequences. Of course Humphreys' responsibility is to the reader, but this interview was far more than a "I had a yap with Roy yesterday and this is what he thinks".

Of course, hindsight is a great thing though. From the Irish Times' point of view, who was to say he wouldn't have given a similar interview a few days later to another journalist, ruining the impact of anything they had up their sleeve?

In fairness, it was a good interview, though I'd expect no less from Humphries as he is an intelligent & very good writer. But God, I wish he & his paper never published the interview when they did.

[Donal81]

I read Humphrey's book last summer "Lap Top Dancing With Goats" or whatever it was called. Good book I thought. I haven't got it in front of me so am relying on memory but what I recall from the Saipan chapter is that there was a big scramble among journalists to get the Keane interview. Everyone knew his frame of mind was questionable & that his relationship with McCarthy was worse than ever before. The whole Niall Quinn testimonial "no show" episide right through to the row with the goalkeepers had highlighted this. There was definitely one hell of an interview to be had & everyone wanted it.

I think Humphreys must have had an idea just how incendiary Keane's remarks would be. Keane was clearly happy to grind his axe in public. When you say that it wasn't the interview that caused the disaster, it was the respective parties' responses, I just don't see how you can separate the two.

I'm not saying Keane's views on the manager & his team-mates' lack of ambition should have been censored and buried forever, but publication could have waited. In my opinion Humphreys was acting far more in his own interests than in any duty to the reader. I'm pretty sure he was under editorial pressure too though. Every other journalist out there would have loved to have got it & it was a personal triumph for Humphreys. Every one of them wanted to be the guy who got to know what Keane was thinking given his clearly volatile state of mind, and to be the guy who got to print the story.

Can someone remind me: when Keane walked out & was talked back into staying, was this before or after the interview? I'm sure it was before and if so, this clearly added to the size of the "scoop" that the interview repersented, & also to the knowledge that it would have consequences. Of course Humphreys' responsibility is to the reader, but this interview was far more than a "I had a yap with Roy yesterday and this is what he thinks".

Of course, hindsight is a great thing though. From the Irish Times' point of view, who was to say he wouldn't have given a similar interview a few days later to another journalist, ruining the impact of anything they had up their sleeve?

In fairness, it was a good interview, though I'd expect no less from Humphries as he is an intelligent & very good writer. But God, I wish he & his paper never published the interview when they did.

I'd put it differently. I wish to God that Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane had acted like adults in the months leading up to the World Cup and not fallen out entirely over an article which wasn't earth shattering in its content.

What is driving my argument is that censorship to protect the egos of McCarthy and the Irish players as well as the incompetence of the FAI can never be a good thing. Journalism ethics dictate that you should only pull a story that stands up if it's genuinely in the public interest such as national security. This was a football story, ultimately, and it would not have been in the public interest to pull that interview.

If I remember correctly Stuttgart, Keane had walked out of the Irish camp after a few days of silly ****-ups but was persuaded that night to stay. He had already promised Paul Kimmage and Tom Humphries interviews. The journos woke up that morning to find out the crazy story that had happened under their noses the night before. McCarthy told them in a press conference that it was all over now.

Later that afternoon, Keane did the interviews with Kimmage and Humphries. As far as I remember, McCarthy got the interview off the internet and had it rolled up in that team meeting when it really kicked off.

I appreciate what your saying Stuttgart but I honestly can't put the Saipan thing down to anything except the non-existent relationship between the manager and the captain. The interview was interesting but not inflammatory; I have a feeling that if McCarthy had spilled coffee over Keane, he would have walked over it at that stage.

[Donal81]

And the notion that the interview was akin to something we'd expect from the redtops is just ridiculous (not that you stated that Stuttgart but another poster did).

This is an example of irresponsible journalism, as reported in today's Irish Times:

"The Sun newspaper has apologised to the former captain of the Roscommon GAA football team over an article published in its Irish edition that said he had played pool in a hotel bar naked.

In an apology read out in court yesterday, the newspaper stated Francis Grehan was not naked at a Derry hotel four years ago and acknowledged that its article had caused Mr Grehan and his family distress...

In the High Court yesterday, counsel for the newspaper group Shane Murphy SC, read out an apology to Mr Grehan....

"We now wish to state Francis Grehan, the then captain of the team, was not naked on the night in question and withdraw any such imputation," the newspaper stated. The Sun also acknowledged the distress caused to Mr Grehan and apologised to him and his family...

Mr Grehan, a director of a construction company from Ballyforan, Co Roscommon, had said he had been injured in his professional reputation as well as his reputation as a member of the community and as a county footballer and athlete."

[Donal81]

And the notion that the interview was akin to something we'd expect from the redtops is just ridiculous (not that you stated that Stuttgart but another poster did).

This is an example of irresponsible journalism, as reported in today's Irish Times:

"The Sun newspaper has apologised to the former captain of the Roscommon GAA football team over an article published in its Irish edition that said he had played pool in a hotel bar naked.

In an apology read out in court yesterday, the newspaper stated Francis Grehan was not naked at a Derry hotel four years ago and acknowledged that its article had caused Mr Grehan and his family distress...

In the High Court yesterday, counsel for the newspaper group Shane Murphy SC, read out an apology to Mr Grehan....

"We now wish to state Francis Grehan, the then captain of the team, was not naked on the night in question and withdraw any such imputation," the newspaper stated. The Sun also acknowledged the distress caused to Mr Grehan and apologised to him and his family...

Mr Grehan, a director of a construction company from Ballyforan, Co Roscommon, had said he had been injured in his professional reputation as well as his reputation as a member of the community and as a county footballer and athlete."

[monutdfc]

Journalism ethics dictate that you should only pull a story that stands up if it's genuinely in the public interest such as national security. This was a football story, ultimately, and it would not have been in the public interest to pull that interview.
That's where I would disagree. Humphries knew what the implications of publishing the interview would be. We could argue whether or not it was in the public interest to pull the interview, or at least edit it. (Or whether Keane would have walked anyway, but that is a moot point).
Reporters hold back political stories all the time (silly example, but every journo in Ireland knew of Haughey's affair with Terry Keane). Was scuppering Ireland's World Cup hopes to get the scoop responsible journalism or acting in self-interest? Would holding it back be acting in the public interest?

I don't expect you to agree with me, just putting across a different viewpoint.

[livehead1]

That's where I would disagree. Humphries knew what the implications of publishing the interview would be. We could argue whether or not it was in the public interest to pull the interview, or at least edit it. (Or whether Keane would have walked anyway, but that is a moot point).
Reporters hold back political stories all the time (silly example, but every journo in Ireland knew of Haughey's affair with Terry Keane). Was scuppering Ireland's World Cup hopes to get the scoop responsible journalism or acting in self-interest? Would holding it back be acting in the public interest?

I don't expect you to agree with me, just putting across a different viewpoint.
and a comendable, well balanced opinion i might add. well said.

[klein4]

fair play donal. possibly only bit a sense in whole thread. public interest? people are havin a laugh. the interview is fairly tame looking back. macarthy used it as an excuse to get rid of what he considered to be a negative influence. and keane possibly used the situation to get him out of a place he didnt feel particualrly happy in. and good luck to both of them.

[geysir]

The point of the IT Humphries article is that no matter what soccer fanfare hyped up to the heavens event is happening on the planet, the Championship survives. The Championship survived the mania around our 4 WC/EC finals or any finals . There's a magic there that has even survived the GAA's insular attempts to sabotage itself.
There is a lot of tongue in cheek.
What else, that Soccer bigotry exist as well as Gaa bigots, jibes at the plump FAI officials, shocking :)
Remembering that night in Belfast, the after effects, the celebrations, who would give a féck what an fai official got up to on the plane ride home. He could have sung the "Sash" stark naked on the wing while departing Belfast for all I would have cared.
It takes a joyless Humphries to remember and repeat some grievance from 13 years ago on one of those historical memorable occasions.

[Donal81]

That's where I would disagree. Humphries knew what the implications of publishing the interview would be. We could argue whether or not it was in the public interest to pull the interview, or at least edit it. (Or whether Keane would have walked anyway, but that is a moot point).
Reporters hold back political stories all the time (silly example, but every journo in Ireland knew of Haughey's affair with Terry Keane). Was scuppering Ireland's World Cup hopes to get the scoop responsible journalism or acting in self-interest? Would holding it back be acting in the public interest?

I don't expect you to agree with me, just putting across a different viewpoint.

I appreciate the other viewpoint and it's a fair one.

But I find it hard to believe that people would consider Roy Keane mouthing about Mick McCarthy to be in the public interest. If two grown-up and wealthy men complaining about how they dislike each other is on a par with people lying on trollies in a hospital car-park, then we're in deep, deep trouble.

Of course reporters hold back stories, I never said they don't. Plenty hold them back to protect sources, others hold them back for libel reasons - such as Terry Keane - and others hold them back because they don't give a monkeys about ethics.

None of this takes away from my original point: it wasn't the interview that caused it but the relationship between Keane and McCarthy, I would have said that's quite obvious.

And here's another point: is this self-interest we're referring to his job? It's his job as a journalist to get the story. What that story is depends on his ethics and his newspaper. He could have gone after Keane's personal life and tried to dig some dirt about the supposed affair Keane was having (which turned out to be rubbish). But he didn't. He gave two full pages of a broadsheet newspaper - Bertie Ahern wouldn't get that - to the situation, asking Keane in a Q & A format about things in Saipan. As followers of the Irish team who give our time and cash to it, we surely have a right to know what's going on over there? If McCarthy and Keane chose to act like children over the whole thing, that's their business, it's hardly Humphries'.

Ultimately, there's a difference between us as supporters and stakeholders having a right to know and the issue being so important as to warrant the interview being pulled.

The Irish Times is hardly the News of the World, is it? Anyone with even a passing interest in journalism knows it's the most ethically proper Irish newspaper out there.

[OwlsFan]

Obviously Humphries had a scoop and he chose to publish it. While I hate him for it, it was his job and he no doubt took great delight in the carnage which resulted in Irish football.

The fault lay in the person giving the interview. If I gave an interview to a national newspaper telling everyone what I thought of my boss and my colleagues and the systems etc at work, having just had a bust up with my boss the day before and for whom I had a personal antipathy, I would expect a massive confrontation and I wouldn't call him childish for sacking me or arguing with me. I couldn't object either if he had the meeting in front of the staff whom I had attacked in the newspaper. For me there will always be only one person to blame for that disaster.

As for Humphries, I really don't see the point of mentioning FAI Officials in their swimwear. I am sure they would be no more unattractive than GAA Officials in similar attire and probably more attractive than the voluminous Humphries. It's just another of his attempts to ridicule and do down soccer as he pumps up the Championship. At least soccer never banned anyone from playing because they played another sport or were part of an organisation.

[geysir]

I don't have an issue with Humphries or Kimmage over their part. They just wrote it all down. Roy okeyd all the content.
What I don't like about guys like this is when the info is not flowing out of the interviewees mouth, the digging, the subtle and unsubtle cajoling, looking for the hurt anger bitter angle as was evident from Humphry's attempts to interview Babb, Morrison, Mc Ateer and the sense of dissappointment/failure when the player keeps their mouth shut.

[ramondo]

Never having heard of this Tom Humphries guy before (being in Australia) I've just read his article with what I hope was an objective and unbiased eye.

Oh, before I go further, he says...

Yep. Once, in the bad old days during the cold war, I had the misfortune to be on the team plane after Ireland's soccer team had qualified for the 1994 World Cup.


This doesn't mean he thinks the incident took place in 1994.

So, I've read it. What's all the fuss about?

He claims FAI officials sang an offensive song about the GAA. In November 1993. Whether they did or not, does anyone really care?

There then follows a discussion on the merits/demerits of Humphries as a journalist/writer.

For what it's worth, I'd like to think I have a keen eye for literary and journalistic masturbation, and this one made me squint. There were a few places there where I thought we we going to lose him in a Con Houlihan-style irellevant ramble, but thankfully he showed some restraint.

That said, I wonder if he's awoken from his uneasy dreams on a few occasions to find himself all hot and sticky.

He's the one in the position to put his point of view across to a lot of people, and that should make you question absolutely everything he says. On the 'up your arse' point, though, I don't think I'd bother.

[gspain]

He does claim it was 1994. About 4 paragraphs from the end.

"There was no need for triumphalism on the plane from Belfast in 1994 and no call for GAA triumphalism now. The World Cup has been good to the GAA. Since 1966, Croke Park has been responding and reacting and adapting to the challenge."

Of course it matters whether it happened or not. It is poor and shoddy journalism.

I don't blame him re Saipan. Journalists will run with any juicy stories they get. Of course I wish he hadn't done it.

[fergalr]

Is it just me of is the whole tone of this article disturbing?

Its all about how world cups might have weaned the impressionable Gael away from "local games". By the time we get to the central section of the article he chooses to use some particularly loaded words:

"In my sleep, I had uneasy dreams. I heard wild talk of interning GAA members, talk stirred up by the sort of paid guttersnipes who deemed the words BogBall and StickBall to be the greatest witticism every uttered outside the confines of a Bernard Manning gig. In my sleep, I became a well-paid informer to these people, but when I awoke I was still poor. No, pure."

I am 100% Irish and my interest in sport is devoted 100% to assocation football. Is there anything wrong with that? I suspect TH believes there is.

.... or maybe I've just had a tough day .....

[republic]

Is it just me of is the whole tone of this article disturbing?


I am 100% Irish and my interest in sport is devoted 100% to assocation football. Is there anything wrong with that? I suspect TH believes there is.

.... or maybe I've just had a tough day .....


Good point FergalR. Humphries, a well known GAAHman, continually attempts to be 'humourous' but this cannot hide his fear of the impact of the beautiful game on his favourite (ahem) sports.

I've no idea whether an anti-GAA chant was started on the plane back from Belfast in 1993 (somehow I suspect, like GSpain that it wasn't). However I was in Vilnius that summer for the Lithuania match and recall a small number of fans chanting "If you hate the GAA clap your hands". This however was not at the stadium but was outside a hotel - or at least something which approximated to a hotel in those days of the post communist Soviet era. I don't know how the FAI could be held responsible for that. Maybe Humphries could enlighten us?

Best of luck to GSpain in his quest. Don't let Humphries away with it!

[WeAreRovers]

"In my sleep, I had uneasy dreams. I heard wild talk of interning GAA members, talk stirred up by the sort of paid guttersnipes who deemed the words BogBall and StickBall to be the greatest witticism every uttered outside the confines of a Bernard Manning gig. In my sleep, I became a well-paid informer to these people, but when I awoke I was still poor. No, pure."


I informed the man who came up with phrases Bogball and Stickfighting (or at the very least was the first to use them in a national newspaper) that Humphries had described him a a "paid guttersnipe." It made his day, to say the least.

Humphries is a cancer on Irish journalism. Anyone who read his cringeworthy OTT paean to hurling in the Observer Sports Magazine will know exactly what I mean.

KOH

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

Humphries is a cancer on Irish journalism.
KOH

Have to agree with you and republic and fergalr. Humphries is nothing short of a thug. I've noticed that his facts are often wrong, particularly when it comes to soccer. He's a crap journalist. In fact, I'd put the pr!ck alongside Hyland of the Herald as the top two gutter sports journalists in the country.

[Donal81]

Have to agree with you and republic and fergalr. Humphries is nothing short of a thug. I've noticed that his facts are often wrong, particularly when it comes to soccer. He's a crap journalist. In fact, I'd put the pr!ck alongside Hyland of the Herald as the top two gutter sports journalists in the country.

I'd disagree with you there, I think that's a bit outlandish, but I can see why some of his stuff would get people wound up. Like I said, taking the worst elements of football and comparing them to the best elements of gaelic games is simply not a fair comparison. Yes, hurling is a brilliant sport played by people in their spare time and yes, football is dominated by over-paid, under-talented egotistical scuts. But football also has elements of greatness and hurling and gaelic football have a nastier side.

That said, if you read much of his stuff you'll see an obvious dislike for much of the unpleasantness that comes with the GAA and a love of football, athletics and golf.