I have done my best to keep out of the whole Cork saga. But keeping schtum on something that has dominated the discourse of every sports person, never mind a Cork one, over the last few weeks is a bit like trying to keep out of the pub on St Patrick’s Day.
To some, Gerald McCarthy’s decision to abdicate his role brought an end to the sordid affair. Unfortunately, the fun – or the nightmare, whichever you prefer – is only just beginning. Some newspapers, in an effort to develop a story that was headline news at 6pm yesterday, even threw out the names of a few coaches mostly likely to next sip from the poisoned chalice.
At this point, it is a waste of time to guess. McCarthy may be gone, but nothing has really changed. The Cork delegates will meet at Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Thursday night, where it is unlikely that a vote on any motion relating to the running of the board will be countenanced. It may take a Special County Board Convention for the sort of change the clubs have been proposing in recent weeks to come about. Only then, if regime change has either been achieved or the coup has been repelled, should we waste our breath on crystal ball gazing.
To others, mostly those in the players’ corner, last night’s development will be greeted as a victory. McCarthy’s public humiliation, and the ugly treatment he and his family were forced to endure, will be interpreted as justice for the stance he took over the last four months.
I find it sad that the reputation of a man who has given so much to Cork hurling can be disparaged, and even mocked, by those who claim to back a righteous cause. There is nothing righteous in revelling in another man’s humiliation. No cause should gain sustenance from a good man’s downfall.
McCarthy went out all guns blazing; it was the exit of a dispirited and downtrodden man. That he chose to have a dig at the players is no surprise. His language and some of the issues he brought up in his departing statement should probably not have seen the light of day. But a man who has been felled and kicked is going to fight back. Borrow every cliché, they are all apt: the wounded animal, the man backed into a corner. McCarthy saw no way out and he hit back.
Unfortunately, the reaction to McCarthy’s inglorious end was all too predictable. As always, with issues as divisive as the Cork row, people become so bound to one side in a dispute that they lose all sense of perspective and rationality. In Cork, you are a county board man or a players’ man. There is no room for a grey area in an argument that is perceived by opposing sides as black and white. Polemics dictate that McCarthy was a hero or a traitor.
The fact that McCarthy was used by both the players and the board is all but ignored. He has always maintained that he was never a county board man, but that did not stop the board from using him as a shield to deflect the flak that came their way throughout this grubby row. The players needed a fall guy as they struggled badly to find a way out of the mess and McCarthy became the poster boy for the county board’s folly. It suited both sides for the manager to act as the buffer in the row.
Having said all this, I think it is important to remember that the natural inclination of any right-minded person to pity McCarthy, an honourable and decent man, should not blind us from the real issues at the heart of this row. McCarthy, in many respects, is not even relevant in deciphering the seemingly impregnable mess. We need to divorce ourselves from pity and look at the issues coldly.
I am not going to lie to you and say that I have not been guilty of flip flopping in formulating my own opinion. I have. It has been impossible not to. We have never been privy to all the facts. Some of the most pertinent issues have only come to light in recent weeks. Some will tell you that they knew all along; they will have you believe that they had distilled something from the row that none of us could decipher. But the man who is guided by blind faith is more foolish than the man who has toyed with the issues and come up short.
The reality is that most of us do not have Frank Murphy’s ear [some might say that many would not have his neck either], nor did we ever know what the players were really looking for. For many outside of Cork, where county boards work with the players rather than against them, the idea that the men charged with running a county could possibly want anything other than the best, is completely alien to them.
The players were to blame, too. It took them too long to get their message across. It was not until the first players’ press conference in the Maryborough House that they finally seemed to have formulated a coherent exit strategy and a rallying call the public could relate to. Even then, they dirtied their bibs by lapsing into the easy business of panning McCarthy and his training methods, when really their beef was with the county board. Winston Churchill said that the first casualty in war is the truth, and it is clear that there were untruths told on both sides. For that, the players cannot be absolved of all blame.
The real issue was that of complete regime change in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, prompted by an intifada among the county’s clubs. The clubs were slow to come on board, before the truth about the way the board goes about their business came to light.
There is a cartoonish image of the Cork County Board propagated by the media; it depicts gormless, sports coat-wearing officials manning the unwelcoming gates of a crumbling Pairc Ui Chaoimh - a perceived monument to a reactionary group that is more comfortable with cloaks and daggers than the ballot box. It may not be too far wide of the mark.
Similarly, the White House, during George Bush’s ill-fated presidency, was nicknamed ‘Fortress Bush’ such was the clandestine nature of the business that was conducted within its walls. Bush’s conservative government ruled through fear, by carefully managing and blocking information channels. The Bush regime managed to dupe the American public for two terms; the Cork County Board has been doing it a lot longer. The Cork GAA public must now be given the power to bring about regime change.
There has been no transparency from the county board, just endless attempts to cover up their pathetic efforts to hold on to the last remnants of power. The three votes on McCarthy’s future, we have now learned, were a sham – an insult to the principles of democracy.
When it emerged that county board delegates were not being mandated by their clubs, and therefore were only serving their own needs, their time was up. Jerry O’Sullivan, the Cork chairman, is in danger of turning into a figure of fun, like Mohammed Saeed ‘Comical Ali’ al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister, such is his delusion in thinking that he can somehow subvert the will of the people.
One of the most basic tenets of human existence is the assumption that we can take things at face value, that no person or group is pulling the wool over our eyes for the purpose of serving their own agenda. This has not been the case in Cork. Only now are we beginning to understand that we have been duped. Nobody should be looked down on, or no lasting fault lines should scar the Cork landscape as a result. There are more important things to worry about in life than sport.
If McCarthy’s experience has taught us anything, it is that there has already been enough collateral damage. This has to end now and the only way it can is to take ownership of Cork GAA out of the hands of those who have abused their powers for too long, and hand it back to those who wish to encourage a future where Cork will return to picking up trophies rather than engaging in wilful self destruction.