Statement from Tyrone County Board:

Following on from the Weekend Tyrone Club Championship matches, The Tyrone County Committee wish to state

that all or any disciplinary action will be a matter of consideration by the Tyrone CCC and  based on the referee’s report plus examination of the video- recording of the games the matters arising will be dealt with in an urgent manner & following due process as stipulated in the Rules of the Association and the Official Guide the CCC will determine the relevant penalties.

We would wish to condemn all of the ugly scenes of unwarranted violence.

We wish also to extend good wishes to all players who incurred injuries – whether accidentally or otherwise.

Recent high profile incidents in club football matches have drawn serious attention to our game. Camera footage of what has been called ‘a mass brawl’ towards the end of the IFC clash between Strabane and Stewardstown has drawn some serious heat, while Moy’s match with Edendork has also received plenty of coverage. Referee Kieran Eannetta found reason to brandish six red cards and 21 yellow cards during the contest, with former county star Sean Cavanagh hospitalised for what he said in a tweet was ‘bad concussion, broken nose & extensive facial injuries’.

There was a Derry Senior Club Championship match between Lavey and Dungiven the previous week, a fairly uneventful game which Lavey won 0-11 to 0-6. During the match the assembled press, disappointed by the fare on offer, harked back to an earlier time when this fixture would have been much more ‘fiesty’. There was almost a misty-eyed nostalgia for games where players tended to get ‘their retaliation in first’ and the referee would have needed a bag of eyes to keep an eye on all the skulduggery breaking out all over the park.

And while much of this has undoubtedly been exaggerated down through the years, it’s probably safe to say that the game is a little ‘tamer’ than it was in the 1970s and 80s. Recent events, including the events in the U20 game between Armagh and Tyrone, however, suggest that violence has certainly not been completely eradicated.

Nothing attracts a crowd like the thought of an impending ‘dust up’. But while an on field fight certainly raises the pulse, does anybody want to see a man end up in hospital?

Have recent events been exaggerated to fill column inches now that the county game is in it’s off season? Or is ‘unwarranted violence’ a real problem in our game that needs to be tackled?

Let us know what you think.