by the third quarter there were four refs on the pitch. Either they rubbed up against one another and went for it big time or maybe they are like those one-celled organisms which simply split in two to carry out the reproductive process. If the game had gone into fifth and sixth quarters the number of refs would no doubt have increased exponentially. This is the reason why these games have to stop after the fourth quarter. Also, refs do go on reproducing. This means that at the end of every game there has to be a ref cull. Refs are given a lethal injection in the dressing room. The danger for Irish society is if these refs escape into the wild and start to over-run the hillsides, bogs and plains.
Word before the game was that there would be a huge scrap at some point. Apparently this is par for the course in Aussie Rules. The Aussie lads had been sticking the boot in or putting in late tackles for a while, niggling the Irish. Then it all kicked off – some innocuous little challenge near the Canal End and two players started lashing into each other. I got the feeling it must have been staged. Within a second or two, half the players had joined in and after three or four more seconds it was a total free-for-all. All the trainers and subs came chasing out onto the pitch like when you’re at school and someone shouts ‘scrap!’ with one eye on the staffroom, waiting for the teacher to come along and pull you apart, cuff you and take you to the headmaster while the onlookers will sit in the lessons for the rest of the day with stupidly large grins on their faces. It was handbags at three paces – hardly a punch seemed to connect, they were sort of waffing thin air with their eyes closed – you could imagine them rolling around on the floor pulling each other’s hair and scratching.
Meanwhile the crowd were going completely mental – grown men were jumping up and down like kids and clapping their hands with glee. Then I realised I was doing it too – jumping up and down from foot to foot, clapping my hands together and shouting ‘Whhhooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!’ at the top of my voice. When the fight finally petered out it was the end of the third quarter and the crowd gave both teams a standing ovation – the Irish walked off the pitch in a tight little huddle and I could imagine them shouting ‘Join on the gang’ or ‘Does anybody want to play aaarrmmmyyy? No girls – only boys.’ Whatever else happened in the game, this was guaranteed to put bums on seats for the next encounter a week later. Very clever.
The Irish have a reputation for fighting. They even go on about it themselves. In America too, they’re called the ‘fighting Irish’. But they certainly don’t seem to fight any more than the English. In fact, blokes out and about drinking in the centre of towns seem a lot less aggressive. Whatever, the Australians would treat them with respect now, said the bloke standing next to me. They perhaps see the Irish as a sort of madder version of themselves, the pure source of the idiosyncratic Aussie spark, and they’d be united in their hatred of whingeing Pommie bastards. But it seemed to me that the fight was not a sign of mutual respect but a deliberate tactic to throw the Irish out of rhythm. They may have won the scrap but would they win the match?
In the fourth quarter a man in luminous lime green overalls ran onto the pitch at various intervals. At first I wasn’t sure if everyone else could see him. Could it be the drink? I discussed it with a few other fans and we decided he was the team gossip because he kept running over to players and chatting to them. He fancies your wife. Did you see Eastenders? Your investment portfolio is doing well, etc. An on-pitch information service, perhaps?
The urchin gurrier choir, quiet for a while, opened up in full voice once more, with an old battle ballad.
‘Aussie Aussie bastards,’ they sang. ‘Aussie Aussie bastards.’ Then the Kylie Minogue song, ‘I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, I should be so lucky in love.’
A bit of Rolf Harris: ‘Tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down.’
‘Come on Australia,’ said the bravest of the two Antipodeans nearby.
‘Stick it up your arse, you fat Aussie bastard!’ sang the choirboys. ‘You fat bastard, you fat bastard! Youse is all a load of women!’
There was a big countdown by the crowd, then the hooter went for the end of the game. The final score was 62–61 to Australia. The winners were delighted, leaping around and hugging each other. It had been a terrific, hard-fought match, sporting heaven for those who like blood, guts and a lot of skill.
Then one of the little Hill 16ers began a solo refrain – ‘You’ll never beat the Irish, You’ll never beat the Irish – except,’ he went on, deadpan, ‘maybe at soccer, rugby, snooker, cricket, darts, Compromise Rules …’ His mates fell about laughing.
1 Called ‘Reflings’.
2 am
I’m trying to get to sleep in O’Shea’s Hotel, between O’Connell Street and the railway station, while downstairs in the ‘24-hour bar’ a dreadful singer/accordion player is murdering a few classic tunes and I’m praying that he’ll shut up soon. No such luck – ‘Rivahhhssss roon freeeeeeeeehhhhhhrrr’, ‘Dirrdi ooooooohl taaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhn’, ‘Fffffeeeeeeellllzzzzz ovathenraaaiiiiiiiiiiiiii’ etc., etc., come piling one on top of the other. I’d popped in earlier for a quick half.1 There were a mixture of local people with cold, pinched faces and skint and harassed looking tourists sitting around fondling their itchsome facial hair, their tongues lolling into fizzy yellow pints of lager. Next to me were some lively ‘Europeans’, who seemed to know all the words to all the songs. Their leader, a Eurotourist archetype, was a big-boned man with non-designer stubble, in a Luftwaffe-issue lumberjack shirt and a post-post-post punk hairdo – bald at the front, brown and greasy at the back. He seemed extremely upset by the plight of most of the protagonists of the songs – his face was one of absolute concentration and conviction as he listened to the music. I decided he was called Klaus, even if Greek. The Erinese, the brandy-buttered maudlin sentimentality of it all was too much for me after half an hour or so. It reminded me of a Paddy’s Day in London a few years back, red-faced folk with tears in their eyes bawling out songs – this was Dublin for Christsakes, what had they got to be nostalgic about? I got up to leave and, after a few whispers and hand signals, one of the Eurogroup parked their big, denimed backside in my seat.
‘Noit?’ said the pretty dark-eyed receptionist, meaningfully, as I headed for the stairs.
Back up in my rooms I turned the light out and tried to get some sleep, but the singer seemed to have taken my disappearance as an affront and belted it out louder:
Singer: Let’s put the speakers up in the corridor outside the miserable git’s room, hey ladies and gentlemen?
Klaus the Possibly Greek Eurotourist: Ha ha, yesss, zat iss good johke! ‘Ze Vild Rover’, jah?
I flicked the TV on – the film When Saturday Comes,2 starring Sean Bean and Emily Lloyd, was showing. In many respects the singer downstairs was a lot more entertaining than this terrible piece of British cinema.
‘Begorrah Jimmy,’ said Emily Lloyd’s character in a really crap Dublin accent and I just burst out laughing, though they were nearly tears. I wished I was more drunk, then it might seem more entertaining. By the end I realised I am perhaps unique in the world, having now seen the film twice.
I don’t know what happened to Emily Lloyd. She seemed to sort of disappear after being superb as the young girl in Wish You Were Here. Sean Bean was eerily watchable, though. He’s like one of the sleazy blokes who’d stand on the back of dodgems when you were a kid, never smiling, catching