Jimmy Geoghegan: Rows and ructions and the part they play in the GAA

Seldom can a dispute within the GAA have caused so much controversy, so much debate and general discussion than the Kilmacud Crokes v The Glen debacle. While it was raging everyone seems to have had a view as to how the controversy should have been sorted out. Who should do what? Who was in the right?

It's only one of a series of controversial events that have beset the old Association in the last year alone.

There was the bust up, for example, between Galway and Armagh players when they met in the All-Ireland quarter-final last summer. That provoked an outcry in the media afterwards about how it was time for the GAA to stop such unseemly scenes from unfolding.

Then there was the image posted on social media last summer of a referee being struck by a player during a game in Roscommon, the match official left lying on the pitch receiving attention. That too sparked an outcry and a demand for something to be done to protect match officials.

Controversies, rows, ructions, flare-ups, violence, attacks on match officials, disputes, claims, counter-claims, objections have been as much a part of the old Association as goalposts, jerseys and All-Ireland finals. They were always part of the GAA's culture, always will be.

Take the events of 1889, for example, and what unfolded in the fair county of Meath, just five years after Michael Cusask, Maurice Davin and their colleagues set up the Association.

In the summer of '89 Navan Pierce O'Mahonys met Donore in Kentstown in a big championship game in local field owned by a Mr Kinsella.

At the interval Donore led 1-3 to 0-0. Early in the second-half Donore added another point to their tally. Apparently the crowd at around this stage invaded the pitch. Somehow the game continued.

O'Mahonys hit back with 1-1 with Donore vehemently disputing the validity of the O'Mahonys goal. They claimed the ball was out of play before the goal was scored. The goal was allowed it seems but Donore were declared winners. They were after all in front at the final whistle. Job done you might think. Clear-cut. Not so. O'Mahonys weren't happy.

"All hell broke loose!" wrote Michael O'Brien in his account of the incident in his book 'Royal and Loyal.'

"The O'Mahonys players shouted to their supporters to close the gates, and immediately, to the consternation of all, they rushed on the referee. One tall player from Navan struck him full in the face and others beat him with sticks while he was endeavouring to beat a retreat. The members of the local club, who were present in large numbers shirked away in the most cowardly fashion."

The bemused referee, a Mr Collins from the Yellow Furze club, was fortunate to make it out of the venue.

"You never in your life saw such a display of ruffianism. Everyone who saw it wondered that I ever got away with my life. And what was it all about? I cannot at all understand, unless they wanted to terrorise me into acknowledging that the goal scored by Donore in the first-half was foully scored," he said later.

The Navan club lodged an objection to Donore getting awarded the match and the game was re-fixed for Slane a few weeks after the original fixture. O'Mahonys won the replay, 0-4 to 0-2. Donore then lodged an objection as the controversy rumbled on over the summer like a protracted thunder storm.

The Donore protests were, it seems, ignored by the Co Board Committee involved even though O'Mahonys seemed to have illegal players on their team.

No doubt there were many wry smiles around Donore when Julianstown went on to defeat O'Mahonys in the county final. Not that it seems to have been a classic. The score was 1-0 to 0-2. Bonfires blazed around Laytown.

O'Mahonys lodged an objection to the result citing an unplayable pitch and their belief "they were victims of bad refereeing." The objection was later withdrawn. It was the only senior title won by Julianstown.

Controversies, rows. There's nothing like the GAA to stir up deep-down feelings. As they old saying goes. The more things change the more they stay the same.