Hurling

September 13, 2010

Hurlers - Last of the real men

The final was ferociously physical -- but played with a spirit rarely seen in other contemporary sports. John Meagher reports

Saturday September 11 2010

'Not men, but giants." It was the strapline of an ad campaign that marked Guinness's sponsorship of the hurling championship a decade ago, but it is a phrase that seemed entirely appropriate on Sunday as Tipperary beat Kilkenny in a thrilling All-Ireland final.

It was a match that will live long in the memory, especially for those like me who hail from the victorious Premier County and were in Croke Park to witness Kilkenny's bid for five titles in a row brought to a conclusive end.

Last September, it was all so different, with Tipperary losing out at the death in a match every bit as intense, passionate and keenly contested.

Both were perfect showcases for hurling, matches that combined all that's great about the game -- technical ability, guile, bravery, cunning, toughness and honesty. Nor were there blatant shows of gamesmanship or the unseemly sight of players hounding the referee.

This was sport in its purest form -- as close to the Corinthian ideal as you can get. The humility of the losers on Sunday told its own story. Kilkenny refused to seek scapegoats; they accepted defeat like the gentlemen they are.

The beauty of hurling stood out in a week in which other sports have been badly tarnished. Wayne Rooney becomes the latest in a long line of England international footballers to have their sordid off-pitch behaviour made public. Cricket is still reeling from revelations of alleged Pakistani cheating. And last week the doctor at the centre of the so-called Bloodgate scandal, which saw a Harlequins rugby player fake injury, was given the all-clear to practice medicine again, despite admissions that she had conspired in the cover-up.

If that wasn't enough, there was the tasteless rejoinder from British boxer David Haye that shocked even those normally immune to sport's ugliness. In bigging up his fight with Audley Harrison, he predicted it would be "as one-sided as a gang rape".

Men like Lar Corbett, Tipp's three-goal hero, or Brian Cody, Kilkenny's inspirational manager, operate on a different planet to the mega-bucks, marketing-driven worlds of football, cricket, rugby or boxing. Their sporting obsession is rooted in community and borne of hard work and dedication.

Their unassuming demeanour and palpable modesty is at the polar opposite to the behaviour of the likes of England cricketer Kevin Pietersen or 'The Special One', Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho. Corbett seemed almost embarrassed when receiving the Man of the Match award on The Sunday Game, and was at pains to point out the contribution of others.

Corbett and Cody make huge sacrifices, not because they are paid to do so (the travelling expenses, if applicable, are comically modest) but because hurling courses through their veins. They make time for countless hours of training in the months when the public's gaze is elsewhere and juggle their work, as electrician and primary school headmaster respectively, because they are drawn to a sport that has grabbed their respective counties for more than 100 years.

Yet both wear their talents lightly. Not for Cody, for instance, any talk of being 'The Special One' even though his managerial record of seven All-Irelands in 12 years would justify such a claim.

Hurling is not a sport in which success can be bought -- take a bow, Manchester City -- or where its greatest practitioners can be lured to a rival. Tipperary won their 26th All-Ireland thanks, in part, to a young generation of gifted players all born in the county and astutely managed by a young manager, Liam Sheedy, another hurling man who eschews self-aggrandisement in favour of plain speaking and behind-the-scenes toil.

For Stephen Shaw, a hurling obsessive from Sunderland, it is this very groundedness that makes something like an All-Ireland hurling final such a marvellous spectacle.

"I have no Irish background whatsoever and only came across hurling as a child when one of the TV channels, it might have been Channel 4, started showing games late at night," he says.

"I was drawn to it straight away. The speed of hurling and the technical qualities on show blew me away -- and continue to do so. The match on Sunday showed all that was great about the sport, its grace and brutality and essential honesty."

Shaw's interest in hurling was resurrected six years ago when he met his Galway partner, Martina, while travelling in Spain. The couple moved to Ireland in 2006 and Shaw, a TEFL teacher based in Dublin, has become a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of Galway hurling. "It was gutting to lose the quarter final in the last seconds (to a tenacious Tipperary), but what a match that was."

The Englishman's love of the game is such that he wrote a novel centred on hurling. He self-published These Green Fields last year and reckons it's the first fictional book on hurling aimed at adults. "I couldn't believe that there weren't other hurling novels out there, when you consider how intrinsic this game is in Irish life."

His devotion to hurling has puzzled some natives, who can't get their heads around why someone from abroad, and with no link whatsoever to the country, could be as enthralled as he is.

"I can't see how anybody could not appreciate what a great sport hurling is. The fact that I'm English doesn't matter. Hurling has everything you could want in sport -- drama, excitement, heartbreak . . . you name it."

He remains a football fan and a Sunderland supporter, yet Shaw says he is increasingly finding aspects of the Premier League to be repugnant.

"There's an unsavoury quality to it and money has changed the game for the worse," he says. "You look at the way the referee gets abused and that's filtered down to grassroots level and there's a nasty aggression there. Hurling is different. It's tough and combative, but you don't have that unpleasant undercurrent."

For sociologist Dr Paddy Dolan, the sense of community that hurling engenders remains as important to fans of the game now as it was when the GAA was established in 1884. And it is this attribute that makes it a special proposition. "The fact that the players can perform wonders on the pitch one day and are doing normal work like you or me the next makes the game resonate even more with the fan."

The Dublin Institute of Technology lecturer has written extensively on hurling and believes that the modern game -- typified by elite counties like Tipperary and Kilkenny -- has retained the intensity and passion of its early days, while eschewing the violence that characterised the sport in the years after the formation of the GAA.

That was especially apparent on Sunday. The challenges were fierce, but fair, and while there were a number of off-the-ball incidents --"getting to know you" moments, to use that annoying euphemism employed by some GAA fans -- the match was cleanly contested. There were handshakes and embraces between the players afterwards.

And the respect extended to the crowd, too. When Henry Shefflin, Kilkenny's towering genius, was forced off with an occurrence of a much-publicised knee injury, he was applauded by all present. I was surrounded by Tipperary people in the Davin Stand and there was genuine disappointment that this talisman would play no further part in the game.

Dolan grew up in a pocket of south Dublin where hurling was something of an alien sport. But gradual exposure to the code has helped him recognise just what a national treasure it is. "It's an amazing game," he says. "The players are so honest and courageous and there seems to be a desire to play as fairly as possible. You don't get that horrible phenomenon of players trying to get an opponent sent off and that's something that's unfortunately creeping into Gaelic football.

"It's an amateur sport in name, but the preparations that go into a showpiece match like Sunday's final are absolutely professional. The intensity that was on show for the entire game proved that. You could barely take your eyes off it."

Not men, but giants indeed.

Irish Independent

September 13, 2010

I'd like to see you hurl yourself off something tall :D

September 14, 2010

I'd like to see you hurl yourself off something tall :D

Because you know that I'd land in the driver's seat of a Corvette, :wub: strategically parked :thumbsup: :D

September 14, 2010

Too fast & furious for the ball [sliotar] to be seen, most of the time :eek: :thumbsup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srmKpvjjaGQ

September 14, 2010

More Hurling....

A police sergeant jailed last week for hurling a petite woman into a cell has walked free after spending just six days behind bars.

Sergeant Mark Andrews left 58-year-old Pamela Somerville with a large cut above her eye when he threw her into the small room, after dragging her through the custody area at the police station where he worked.

The 6ft 3ins tall former soldier was jailed for six months by a District Judge last Tuesday but despite his employers stating he had let them and the public down, today Andrews was a free man.

Guilty: Mark Andrews is led away in handcuffs after he was jailed for flinging an innocent woman on to a concrete cell floor

Crown Court Judge Julian Hall, hearing an application from defence counsel Jeremy Barton behind closed doors, was persuaded that the defendant should be freed from jail before an appeal against his conviction and sentence was heard.

Crown prosecutor Adam Gersch did not oppose the application.

Andrews made national news headlines after he was reported by a colleague for his attack on Ms Somerville, which was caught on CCTV in the custody suite at Melksham Police Station in Wiltshire.

The prisoner had been arrested on suspicion of drink driving - an allegation which was never prosecuted or proven - after she was seen sitting in her car in a lane near her home.

She had had an argument with her partner and gone to her car to listen to music and calm down, eventually deciding to sleep in it.

However, police officers hauled her into custody, without ever telling her why.

Sgt Andrews was the custody sergeant at the police station when the market researcher was taken in, on July 4 2008.

Before taking her to the cell, the sergeant could be heard on the CCTV recording shouting: 'Shut up. Listen to me. You are in my custody now and you will be quiet and you will listen. Do you understand?'

When she later walked out of the cell after a police doctor visited her, she recalled being 'lifted up under the arms like a doll by Sgt. Andrews and thrown headfirst back into the cell'.

He then slammed the door shut, leaving her unconscious on the floor.

The CCTV footage showed Andrews coming back into the cell after Miss Somerville got to her feet and calling for help.

Another person then went to check her and paramedics were called. Andrews, a married father of two, has been a police officer for eight years.

Since his conviction he has been suspended on full pay by Wiltshire Police. If his conviction is upheld he faces a formal disciplinary hearing, where he would most likely be sacked.

Describing her treatment in an interview with a The Mail on Sunday Miss Somerville said: 'What happened to me was extraordinary, terrifying, and no-one should ever be treated in the same way again, no matter what they are said to have done.

'It's the kind of thing that might go on in a tinpot dictatorship in Latin America, maybe, but not in rural Wiltshire.'

Andrews was found guilty of assaulting Miss Somerville and causing actual bodily harm after a five-day trial at Oxford Magistrates' Court on July 30.

As he was sentenced at the same court last Tuesday, Deputy District Judge Peter Greenfields told him: 'You presided over an atmosphere of fear and bullying.

'Miss Somerville was emotional and communication with her was not easy. However it's aggravated by your position of trust and abuse of authority.'

Today Judge Hall heard a review hearing will be held on October 18 before a full appeal hearing, lasting five days, begins later in the year, on a provisional date of November 15.

Andrews was not present for the half-hour hearing at Oxford Crown Court at which bail was granted.

Heavy-handed: Police CCTV still of Sergeant Mark Andrews dragging Pamela Somerville across the floor of Melksham police station

In you go: Andrews throws Pamela Somerville into the cell

Injured: Pamela Somerville hunches over with blood seeping from her body

Shock: Somerville manages to sit on the cell 'bed' as officers get set to inspect

Compassion, or guilt: Andrews crouches down as Somerville is inspected

September 14, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-kB1e96CA

September 14, 2010

To fast & furious for the ball [sliotar] to be seen, most of the time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srmKpvjjaGQ

An excellent match fiercely contested by both teams , shame there had to be a loser :thumbsup:

September 15, 2010

The tables were turned on the 1st Sunday of September, this year :D Tipperary beat Kilkenny, denying them a historic 5 in a row of All Ireland wins.

Unfortunately, there are about 4 or 5 top Hurling Counties, who feature every year. The remainder are "also-rans" :(

February 27, 2011

The game of hurling is more than just a game -- it is Ireland's national passion. But to appreciate hurling, one must look beyond the mere fact that it is a sport, because it is much more. Countering the trend towards big-money professional athletics, hurling has remained strictly amateur. It is a game played purely for the fun and history of it. It is a game woven deeply into the social fabric of the Irish people. Which is amazing when one considers just how extraordinarily dangerous the game is.

First, the basics. Hurling is best compared to lacrosse. Hurling is an outdoor ball-and-stick game played with fifteen players on a field larger than a soccer pitch. Whereas lacrosse is played with Hurling Game in Progressnetted sticks, hurling is a played with a flat wooden club, and the ball is struck by swinging the stick vice flinging it as in lacrosse. Hurling players can catch and carry the ball in the hand, but can only pass it by hitting it with the stick, kicking it, or slapping it by the hand.

As you can surmise from the first photo, the object is to drive the ball either into a soccer-sized goal or 'over the bar'. A goal is worth three, over the bar is worth one. The common tactic is to accumulate single points, chasing goals only when a clear opportunity presents. An average senior-league score would be about 22-18, with three-to-five goals averaged per game.

There's little equipment involved. The second photo shows me holding a hurley and the ball. The ball is fairly soft, even softer than a softball, which is good because the ball is sometimes traveling at pretty high speed among the players. Helmets are commonplace, but not required, and many players didn't wear them until the last decade. Although the risk of injury is great (imagine getting smacked Me Holding Hurley and Ballfull force by one of these sticks!), they aren't as common as you think. Of course, when they happen, they can be pretty nasty -- missing front teeth are common among players.

The reason they aren't common is because the game is played honorably, and this is where the game's amateur status is very important. The players play for pride, not money. They play the game hard, but fairly, and they are careful with their sticks (but not at the expense of the play). The referees are strict and respected. And when the game is over, any bad blood is left on the pitch, and the players exchange their uniforms for factory clothes and return to work the next morning. And when their playing days are over, they merely hang up their hurley and continue their working lives unless they elect to become the team manager.

Amateurism keeps the game within reach of the average fan. Most games are free or minimal admission and played on the local radio station. Games are played at the local sports club (I recall once watching a game where they had to move the cows off the pitch and off to the nearby pasture).

Thanks

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