Joe Brolly – Nordic referees, Brian Mullins and bloody noses

WHO would be a referee in the Nordic GAA league and championship? Leleå GFC is in the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden, a 14-hour train journey from Stockholm. Underarmour? Try arctic fox furs.

Or how about refereeing a fixture at Oulu Irish Elks ground, in Finland’s Arctic Circle, where a grey wolf is liable to wander up and have a look?

Travelling, for example, from Malmo for a fixture between Helsinki Harps and Oslo GFC, a referee will cover the 1,800 km round trip either by car and ferry (17 hours 52 minutes each way according to Google maps), train, or plane.

“Planes, trains and automobiles” as referee Philip O’Connor, based in Stockholm and a member of the Stockholm club, put it to me this week.

So, on St Patrick’s night this year, at 9pm Swedish time, 8pm our time, Stockholm GAC are hosting an online evening with me (Youtube and other outlets) to raise funds for the Nordic Referees Group, which will fund their transport and overnight stays for the coming season. The subject? A humorous history of refereeing.

No such history would be complete without reference to the life and times of Oweny O’Neill from Dungiven. Oweny, as he often says himself, was half-reared by my beloved grandmother Hannah Brolly in her council house on Station Road, where he had a place at the dinner table every day after school.

Once, Oweny was persuaded to referee a game between Drum and Foreglen. Given the notorious history of the fixture, the other north Derry refs were reluctant to bite. Not Oweny. Drum won a very tight game, and at the final whistle, one of the O’Connors (Or “Connors” as Oweny says) made a beeline for the referee, swinging with both fists. “I drew out and hit him,” said Oweny, “ and landed him on the flat of his back.” The referee’s report, submitted to Murty Higgins, ought to be framed in Croke Park. It is handwritten, and reads simply:

“There was only one incident that occurred in this game, and I took care of it myself.”

Before Brian Mullins’s first game as Derry manager, a friendly against Antrim at Owenbeg on a bitterly cold night, he put his face against mine, placed his huge hands (which are like baseball mitts) on my arms and said “Joe, when the officials are not doing their jobs, the law of the jungle prevails. Do you understand me Joe?” “Yes,” I nodded. “Do you understand me?” he said again, louder this time. “Yes Brian,” I said, as he lifted me off my feet before realising it, then setting me back on terra firma before patting me down gently in the manner of a mother tying her child’s school tie before sending him out for the bus.

Oweny was the ref. The ball was thrown in and it was one-way traffic. My man – who I later learned was nicknamed ‘The Crab’ – put his arms round me and held me in a vice. When I say he did not let go, he did not let go. After 10 minutes, big Mullins came round behind the goals beside me and started shouting “The jungle Joe. The jungle.”

I said to my marker “Seriously sir, quit it.” Mullins: “THE JUNGLE JOE. THE JUNGLE.” A few minutes later, Gary Coleman kicked a point, my marker took his hands off me for the kick-out, and I hit him hard, knocking him backwards off his feet and leaving him prone on the ground. It was like a John Wayne punch. I couldn’t believe it. Blood was pumping out of his nose which was obviously broken.

Terry McCrudden the Lamh Dearg and Antrim captain and a good friend of mine, ran over to me pointing his finger, saying “You’re lucky he’s a Johnnies man.”

Owney came in, bent down over the dazed player and uttered the immortal line “You deserved that you dirty bastard.”

As he came past me he said “Just be careful our man, some of them other boys would send you off for that.”

Another time, Owney was refereeing a championship game involving Lavey, who he hated with a passion. A Bellaghy player (I can’t recall who and hadn’t time to check with Danny Quinn) took a shot which went perhaps a yard wide. Both umpires immediately signalled the wide.

Owney blew his whistle, ran in and overturned the decision, prompting the bemused umpire to wave the white flag. A number of Lavey players, including Seamus Downey, Lavey’s brilliant number 14, surrounded Oweny and remonstrated hotly with him.

Suddenly, Downey walked away, laughing. Afterwards, I asked him what made him laugh. “I was saying to Oweny, it was wide ffs. Both umpires gave it wide. Everybody knows it wasn’t a point. Oweny took out his notebook, noted the score, and said “Seamus, buy you the Irish News tomorrow and you’ll see if it was a point or not.”

These stories ought to be written down and preserved. With what I call the boardroomification of the game, everything now is dull and the same and lacking in the emotions and tempers and individualities that were the great joys of the sport. Pints after the games in the clubhouse. A player emerging with distinctive skills because we were not all subjected to dull, formulaic training regimes that ruin originality. Tom McFeely from the Foreglen (old Tom) taking Andy Murphy aside after he was hit in the face right in front of him and saying “I’ll let you look after that one yourself Andy.”

Barry McElduff once sent me a referee’s report from a league game in Tyrone in 1962, written by a Carrickmore referee who signed his name P. Haughey. The entire report reads as follows:

“Given the violent history of this fixture, I brought the players from both teams into the middle of the field before the throw-in and exhorted them to conduct themselves in the true spirit of the Gael, at which point I was struck from the side with a heavy blow to the temple, which rendered me unconscious. In the circumstances, I have nothing further to report.”

‘ Vem skulle vilja vara domare? ’ as they say in Sweden.