View from Hill 16: A Saturday evening flashpoint reminds us why this place must be protected

Why don’t you pop along to Hill 16 on Saturday, they said. Factor 50 and a sunhat, they advised. Be lovely, they added.

But, we countered, weren’t there a few scuffles there in recent weeks? Not that we’re afraid, mind, just these days we’re more partial to sitting down at matches. Merely some isolated high jinks, they assured. You’ll be grand, they continued. Oh, and could you give us about 1,000 words on it.

So, here we are. The Hill, a dizzying kaleidoscope of brightly coloured ponchos and dark hoodies, of mangled umbrellas (”Will you take it down ta f**k!”) and unseasonal waterproof trousers, grey concrete steps speckled with rain from April and frayed cowboy hats from 1985, wooden bodhrans emblazoned with the three castles and generic eardrum splitting air horns, the waft of sulphur from flares and the lingering stench of smoke bombs. For a few hours it’s a world that exists somewhere between the flying of Palestinian flags for everybody to see and the stashing of Carlsberg bottles for nobody to see.

Gregarious Monaghan heads to our right, expectant Dubs all around, excitable Meathies spreading like a bellicose vein through the palette of blues, and a pocket of skittish Down boys to our rear. The scene was set.

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After a couple of recent incidents on Hill 16, the spotlight is on the most famous terrace in Irish sport. Is it on borrowed time?

Is one of the last great shared terraces really counting down towards plastic seats and synthetic slagging?

When talk turns to Hill 16, what you rarely hear about is the view. It’s magnificent. It feels like you have been dropped in a great open theatre, the roofs of the three stands wrap around to frame the vista out in front. It’s as if the curtain opens just in front of the Hill and when it does the stadium is complete, the stage is set. It’s like nowhere else.

Midway through the first half of the Tailteann Cup decider, a garda stood near the back of the terrace clutching an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Given he was upright we can only assume he hadn’t drained it himself.

“F**k Tayto Park, ya langers,” roared a Down supporter at one stage.

Now, there’s plenty to unpack in that taunt.

Firstly, the Meath footballers have been called a lot down the years – indeed a Dublin fan speaking on his phone during that first game could be heard saying, “these c**ts are leading”. It was the kind of insult that would fill the heart of Meath fans with pride, comforted their neighbours still cared.

Either way, the langers live further south.

Secondly, it was quite the put-down for the marketeers who spent thousands of euro during the rebrand launch of Emerald Park.

Just before the end of the Tailteann Cup final, the most disturbing incident of the afternoon occurred when a burnt-out flare was flung from the top of the terrace, striking an individual standing at the bottom. It was an inexcusable act.

Instantaneously, hundreds of visibly angered folk spun around and sought the culprit. Fingers were jabbed in the direction from where the flare had come. This all took place during injury-time.

In that moment, while the eyes of the rest of the stadium were elsewhere, what was transpiring on Hill 16 felt significant. Most would have been aware of the recent conversations about its future. The game was secondary.

GAA officials had suggested self-regulation would be key. Well, this was it. There was a fleeting risk of mob justice, but it was soon contained and replaced by a broader disgust over what had just happened, a realisation this was exactly the kind of mindless violence that could kill their Hill. Several gardaí arrived and left with company. A chorus of cheers went up.

Shortly before the main event hundreds of Monaghan fans spilled in, festooned with an impressive array of modern bucket hats while also displaying a nod to traditional values by actually wearing headbands around their noggins.

In our area, the outnumbered Monaghan folk comfortably outsung their Dublin counterparts. The default chant was, “Farney army, doo-doo-doo,” but they saved their best work until midway through the second half.

By that stage there was a general air of edginess among the Dublin fans. The Hill was quiet. You could hear conversations.

“Is this a liiiiiibrary, is this a liiiiibrary?” the Monaghan fans chanted with glee.

When the Farney supporters streamed towards the exits after Dean Rock’s late goal, there were no chants of “cheerio” from the Dubs. Relief to have won was the overriding emotion.

Afterwards, as a group of young Dublin fans walked out one snagged his goose down puffer jacket off a fence. The coat deflated and the liberated feathers took flight. Mercilessly, his friends preceded to loudly inform all comers their pal had just suffered a puncture.

And by raising questions about the future of Hill 16, the GAA want to take the air out of any growing pattern of troublemaking on the terrace. If you want nice things, and all that.

We can only hope that 20 years from now fans from four different counties will be able to share a terrace at Croke Park. You’d like to think it’s more likely than unlikely. It remains the case that none of the recent incidents appeared pre-planned but were more impromptu flashpoints.

Ultimately, the people who inhabit the Hill will decide its future.

There was no sense of danger on Saturday but the passageways either side of our section were completely blocked during the first half of the Dublin-Monaghan game, to the extent it was difficult to tell where they actually were.

And it cannot be deemed acceptable for people to suffer facial cuts or get struck by flares when attending matches.

In 1993, Wales lost a World Cup qualifier to Romania in Cardiff. At the end of the game a distress flare was tossed by disgruntled Welsh fans and it struck John Hill in the chest. The 67-year-old postman died and two men went to prison for manslaughter. It is important not to trivialise what happened on Saturday as some overly excited kid throwing an extinguished flare. What if it hit you?

Culture is a word that has been bastardised recently, but there is a responsibility on all of us to protect something bigger here – there is no place like Hill 16.

The Hill on Saturday wasn’t always politically correct and it wasn’t always respectful to thy neighbour. But is that really what we expect it to be? Or want it to be?

With every passing day, the world around us becomes increasingly beige. On Saturday, a few hundred concrete steps on a terrace in a stadium on the northside of Dublin were momentarily painted blue and navy, blue and white, green and gold, red and black.

That’s special. It’s easy to take for granted that we still get to stand on the same steps as the other crowd. Jackeens and culchies and nordies and langers.

“Hill 16 is Dublin only,” the locals sing.

But even they know it cannot be, because it won’t survive as a terrace for just one tribe.

It must belong to all of us.

Let us not be the generation to screw that up.