A MAYO WIN would have been the real test, of course. But barring such a future celebration, in which case nothing – not even the resurrection of the dead – could be ruled out, last Sunday may have marked the official demise of that great Irish tradition: the Croke Park pitch invasion.
As their former opponent on this issue, I can only congratulate the GAA authorities on the triumph of the anti-invasion strategy. Which I suspect owes something to a study of military history, and also (although Peter McKenna and Paraic Duffy will probably deny it) to lessons learned from the 19th-century reconstruction of Paris under Baron Haussmann.
Historically, most Parisian riots started in the city’s impoverished east: the crowded, narrow streets just beyond the Bastille, around the Faubourg St Antoine. By encircling this area with military-friendly boulevards, therefore, Haussmann effectively ended the era of mass uprisings.
Similarly, a few years ago, the ruling powers in Croke Park identified the stadium’s eastern suburbs – in particular the densely populated ghetto of Hill 16 – as the source of all their problems. Having no seats to start with, locals there were in a permanent state of uprising. It didn’t take much for them to mobilise and storm the pitch.
If these could be isolated, by a screen of some kind, the authorities would have nothing to worry about from the more bourgeois suburbs of the Hogan, Cusack, and Davin stands.
Just to be on the safe side, however, the cunning people in headquarters started allocating the front seats in those stands to supporters from non-combatant counties: thereby adding a buffer zone of relative indifference immediately around the pitch, allowing stewards an extra few seconds to identify potential invaders.
Thus, despite the emotion engendered by Donegal’s win last Sunday, an incursion was never threatened. At the point where, in past years, the PA would be declaring “Plan B in operation” (the formal surrender announcement, after which stewards stopped trying to deter the masses and instead facilitated their safe entry), the men in bibs received only repeat orders to remain facing the crowd. The Bastille would not be stormed this time.
AN ENTHUSIASTICparticipant in several All-Ireland final invasions, I regret the passing of this near-institution. I say "enthusiastic participant" but, actually, my usual strategy was to wait until there were about 10,000 other people on the pitch first. Then I would stroll sedately onto the field, just as far as the edge of the main throng, from where I would gaze fondly at the scene like a farmer admiring his cattle.
After all, it was never my county involved. So from where I was standing (literally), the GAA’s protestations that pitch invasions were a disaster waiting to happen always seemed a bit of an exaggeration. There was a suspicion that the health and safety argument – the old “hit me with this child in my arms” – was just masking other, more petty concerns about, say, damage to the playing surface.
But after only three years of seeing teams have the pitch to themselves, post-match, the invasions are already beginning to look a bit archaic: like people’s hairstyles in even the most recent episodes of Reeling in the Years. Safety issues aside, you can tell that the winning players now enjoy being able to hang around on the pitch afterwards, relaxing in the afterglow, without being mobbed.
And a pitch invasion on Sunday would have prevented those moving pictures of Martin McHugh and his son Mark: a changing-of-the-guard moment when, as the proud parent put it afterwards (apologising for his tears), the young man stopped being known as “Martin McHugh’s son” and the older man started being called “Mark McHugh’s father”.
Meanwhile, with gold streamers rather than supporters strewing the pitch, the whole Cup presentation appeared – in that dread term – more professional than it used to do.
But there’s the rub. In an increasingly slick world, you would now fear for certain other All-Ireland Final Day institutions that are beginning to look a bit sepia-tinted. The winning captain’s speech, for example. The defence of which may have been undermined on Sunday by Michael Murphy.
There was a moment during his epic list of thank-yous when I feared he was going to propose a toast to the bridesmaids. Not that we have any right to expect oratory from a young sportsman. He had already displayed his eloquence on the pitch, God knows. For its wit and brevity, his second-minute goal was one of the most devastating put-downs of an opponent I’ve ever witnessed.
Even so, I predict that Croke Park will impose a time limit on All-Ireland speeches soon. Then they will be phased out altogether. But maybe the GAA will need to cite safety concerns first. In which case, I predict the emergence of research suggesting that, if you already have an underlying vulnerability – being from Mayo, for example – listening to the winning captains’ speeches can sap your will to live.