Humphries article in the times

[theworm2345]

Absolute legend!

Does he not realise how deeply unfashionable he is? No Bentleys pimped in pink. No superman jocks. No strops. No sulks. No tantrums. Ah, God love him.

[osarusan]

In comparison, Humphries head disappeared up his handball alley a long time ago when he started believing the hype about how good a journalist he was. At one stage, he was a good journalist, writing interesting challenging pieces on a variety of sports.

Vanity got the better of him and having secured his pulpit on the back page of the Times, he forgot that his job is to write articles that interest people, not to preach as a single issue candidate and convert non-believers to his narrow view of the sporting world.

Spot on. I think he can be a gifted writer, but produces vast amounts of rubbish in the Irish Times.

[Den Perry]

Claimed last year the FAI sang "you can stick your GAA up your ar$e" or something like that on the flight back from Belfast in 1993.

I'm partly responsible for the story.

Actually song was sung by fans on a fans charter back from Vilnius (might have been Riga but definitely June 1993 GAA did something dodgy at the time can't recall exactly). I mentioned it on usenet at the time and a gah head took offence. The same user was subsequently claiming it was on the FAI flight and then it was Belfast rather than Vilnius within a year or so.

Now Humphries was on the flight and wrote about the flight at the time but never mentioned the song. Strange not claiming such a great scoop. A good friend who is heavily involved in the GAA was also on the flight and confirms that no anti GAA songs were sung. In any event some of the main FAI officials at the time are keen GAA fans.

He probably picked it up from some gah forum and was happy to peddle the lie.

thanks GSPAIN

[Den Perry]

Don't have a link to it as you need an Irish Times account which I don't have. As far as I remember the article was called "Minister, its about resources, not cash" which is even more laughable now looking back when it's clear just how little interest the GAA actually had in Tallaght stadium, and what a sucess the stadium has been without the GAA succeeding in having the project cancelled. His comments about the kids were in the same article I believe, mentioned seeing kids playing in soccer jerseys in a traditionally staunch GAA area and joked about how he had to stop the urge of steering the car towards them.

cheers...koh

[SuperDave]

for those asking, usenet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

Kind of like a predecessor of the world wide web.

[gspain]

what usenet gspain?

When people use the term "gah" it makes me think of "RA" so gah head to me sounds like "RA head", it sort of makes me think people use it on purpose to make those particular people sound as raw/rare as ra heads.

What's usenet? I feel old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

Before the web this was a system of messageboards back in the late 80's and early 90's. Normally only used by IT workers and college students in those days. Everybody used the real names and posted all sorts of personal info on it too.

The term "the gah" is quite common in Dublin - a colleague who played to a decent standard (or so he tells me) uses it all the time.

I like Keith Duggan as a writer. Clearly a GAA head but without any of the baggage regarding other sports.