Feck Sake Umpire

Another weekend and another controversy. Colm Cooper scored a point against the Dubs in Croke Park only it wasn’t. The umpire decided not to allow it for a reason only he knows to himself. Maybe the sun was in his eyes but sure it was February and the sun isn’t really all that taxing approaching the evening time. Perhaps he looked at Cooper and though a lad that slight couldn’t have possibly hit the ball that far. Only he knows. But as Jack O’Connor stated afterwards, enough is enough. Ireland’s not the laid back country it once was. In the past, such a dispute was resolved with a wink and a pint and forgotten about in the morning. All that changed eight years ago when Marsden got the line for chinning Jordan in the final. Before that, players like Paidi O’Se could go toe-to-toe swinging right hooks and at worse end up with a stern talking to by the ref. Now, the right thing is done it seems, that is unless it involves the men beside the posts.

What can be done about this? I have heard that they might change the coats that the umpires wear, bringing them more in line with the striped outfits you’d see our Australian cousins don for their games. How that will address their decision making is beyond me. I’ve heard of vertical stripes helping weighty people look slight less hefty but I’ve yet to hear of it rectifying chronically deteriorating eyesight. For when all is said and done isn’t that the problem here? The GAA are holding on to a tradition that sees them hire pensioners to gauge whether a ball has gone between two posts. It’s a well known yarn that just before Sludden awarded that goal for Meath against Louth last year, he threatened the umpire that he’d not give him his teeth back from the officials’ changing room unless he raised the green flag. It left the umpire perturbed and confused about the whole incident.

The major hindrance here though is surely eyesight. I’m not aware of one man or woman over the age of sixty who can drive a car without the aid of seeing glasses. What makes GAA headquarters think that the same men can see a white ball amongst the white clouds pass between two white posts? It’s lunacy and I cannot get my head around their persistence in employing officials in this age bracket. There has to be some kind of financial reason such as exemption from paying tax if they hire pensioners or maybe it cuts down on the catering bill as all those lads would want after a game is a cup of tea and a scone. No matter the reason, the advancement in technology means their persistent errors are highlighted with undeniable evidence.
Referees are given vigorous tests to see if they are fit enough to take charge of a game at any level, and rightly so. What examinations do umpires endure? I would excuse them from treadmill analysis or bleep tests but surely some form of eye examination is a must as well as the ability to make correct decisions and lift a flag. Some umpires might claim that the glare of the sky on their spectacles hinders their sight or that the rim of the glasses may cause them to misjudge the flight of a ball. They are good points and the GAA know they’d be in choppy waters if they discriminated against people with glasses. My solution is to look at Art McRory. He wore the thickest-lensed glasses ever seen on a man and never missed a trick, winning Ulster and league titles. It also gave him a menacingly wide-eyed look that offered him an advantage in any form of combat. I’d imagine that if Sludden had faced an umpire staring back at him with those type of glasses, Louth might well have been reigning Leinster champions today.

There are also the small binoculars that can be attached to glasses as well as tiny wipers for those drizzly days when the spectacles get streamed up. As well as that, I have a friend who works in a science factory in South America and he informs me he has been assigned by some GAA bigwig to investigate the use of an electric current that picks up any movement between the two posts. This volt then surges into the body of the umpire through a wire up their sleeve from the bottom of the post. The umpire will automatically jump slightly into the air and lean forward to pick up the flag. It has been tested twice on two Maned Wolves which ended tragically. The South American Maned Wolf is now an endangered species. The point is that moves are being made to do the best with what we have. The GAA know that ageism will be used against them if they begin to phase out the current batch of umpires. Be it thicker glasses, electric shocks or standing on scaffolding, something needs to be done soon before the crowd begin to turn on the defenceless old-timers.

I just cannot see how the striped jumpers will improve umpire performance. Stripes have often been associated with criminals or burglars. Maybe there’s more to that than meets the eye.