‘For fuck sake ref!’

‘Are you blind ref? That was a fucking free!’

And so on ….. and you’ll hear that at an under age football or hurling game.

Now we have two prominent teams brawling in a league match. Five players sent off in the course of the game.

Fair play to the G.A.A. President Nickey Brennan for coming out publically to condemn such behaviour.

Rhetoric has its place but something needs to be done about this behaviour that is becoming more and more commonplace in our games.

The amount of bad behaviour that children are exposed to in sport is scandalous.

The last under 16 game I was at ….. the referee suffered constant abuse from the beginning of the game right through until the end.

Every decision he made brought out an expletive from some corner. Many of the expletives came from the parents of the players themselves and from other spectators. Even the players (children) had abuse hurled at them.

We do our best to teach children right and wrong in school and we try to instil the value of respect for others. They go to a football match and all that gets crushed underfooot.

The school can not and does not act in a vaccuum …. we need the wider community and those in positions of influence (be they sportsmen/women or politicians etc.) to show leadership and basic moral guidance.

Actions speak louder than words ….. the words of the school will fall on deaf ears when pitted against the actions of the community at large.

N.B.

I’ve chosen G.A.A. games as an example because of the Dublin/Meath game. There are many other sporting organisations who could take heed and do a little clean up also.

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