Paidi's sins as forgiveable as the tractors

Sideline Cut/Keith DugganThere was some consternation and fear around the office among the true Dubs when the first of the Massey Fergusons rolled into the heart of the capital yesterday.

"What the hell is going on?" demanded one colleague born and bred within a stone's throw of the Liffey as the tractor convoy moved imperiously past our window. "Is there a bumper sale in Clerys or something?"

Many of our city-slicking colleagues had indeed heard that the culchies would descend upon their fine streets and thoroughfares but took it on board the same way that most of us agree that green men in spaceships will eventually descend upon the planet.

To see such tyres and hats in such numbers was indeed a shock and those of us with the rosy cheeks and awkward gait that are the give-away signs of a non-Dublin up-bringing sought to placate their fears.

The Gate Theatre is holding open auditions for its new show, Miley Byrne: A Retrospective, we said. Jackie Healy-Rae is having a family bash in the Gresham, we chanced. Everybody's driving them; they are the must-have vehicle of the year, we pleaded. They are just hired hands to give the Luas project a bit of a kick-start, we tried.

But our city friends were too savvy, too damn cute and sharp to buy such excuses. Sort it out, they warned. There must be at least two or three of your cousins down there. Send them home. Tell them the dog is worrying the sheep. Tell them Declan Nerney is playing in the hall for free.

The city folk were upset, frightened by the spectacle and nothing would ease their worries. Until at last the penny dropped. Blame Páidí. They'd swallow that. It was all Páidí Ó Sé's fault . . .

Poor old Páidí. In hot water again - both metaphorically and physically as he is currently enjoying the balmy waves of South Africa. Word is that the land of Kerry is in a state of high anxiety over Páidí's latest comments regarding his feeling towards the native football supporters. Word is that in certain quarters they are calling for Páidí's silver and crew-cut head on a platter.

Well, here's hoping that Páidí gets to keep his head and indeed his job as Kerry manager. Until this whole furore erupted, we hadn't really given much thought to Kerry. That has been the way under Ó Sé; they have been a team to watch and frequently admire but never to think about very much because outside the 70 minutes, they have been largely anonymous. They have been silenced primarily by Páidí himself, which is a pity.

But their supporters, of course, have not. It is only now that I have come to realise it is just as well fate or God or luck chose Kerry to be the prime exponents of Gaelic football. They handle their destiny with exactly the right balance - always proud and excited about it without ever been aggravating or cocky.

Kerry people are always fun to be around the night of a big summer match, win or lose, as long as you are one of those people who don't mind listening. On those occasions, they literally turn purple with the pure joy, the pure happenstance of having been born inside the Kerry borders and they have a need, a genetic requirement as pure as oxygen to celebrate that fact through conversation.

Which is just fine because as well as being able to play football like no other county, they can talk like no other county. Kerry people take ordinary words and names and do something special with them. Take Maurice Fitzgerald. You and I say that it sounds like a name, albeit one with an automatic halo at this stage. Kerry people take it and turn it into something delicious, saying it with such relish and accent that by the time it is vocalised it sounds as if it has been smathered in mayonnaise and, well, relish.

They use choice phrases at 100 m.p.h. They will happily compare this Kerry team to that Kerry team and will explain why the first 15 minutes against Cork last year was as good as it gets. They will introduce you to their neighbour who never played much, just has two or three All-Ireland medals. They are noble in defeat, especially to counties that don't have much success and often bask in the glow of an uprising - such as that executed by Armagh - as contentedly as they will an especially sublime victory.

They do all this not to crow but to try to spread the joy, to try to share the sense of privilege they feel. All of which lends a truth to Páidí's ill-fated remarks of a week ago. Páidí's phrasing was, to say the least, unfortunate and hardly enriches the legacy of John B. Keane.

But we ought to believe him when he says he meant no harm. Páidí's family and friends are Kerry football supporters, for God sakes.

As for his comments about John O'Keeffe, well, they were needless and foolish and ill-advised but Johnno didn't become one of the great Kerry full backs through sensitivity.

Johnno is the born opposite of Páidí; ask Johnno two spoons or one and he will examine all implications before answering. Johnno is reserved and honest and devoted to Kerry football. He does a lot of the work without much of the glory but that is fine; he has seen as much glory in his playing days as any man could handle.

Páidí has always been frontline. He needs it and it needs him. But it can't be easy, standing out there alone in front of a county that lives and breathes the game and knows it the way the boffins used whiz through their special subject on Mastermind.

The pity about this is it will leave Páidí so convinced of the evils of talking to the public he might ban players from talking to each other, let alone to the press.

There was always the sense Páidí was never fully accepted among the aristocracy in Kerry, that his wild man of Ventry reputation made him unsuitable - unworthy even - of the coveted position. But since 1997, Kerry have been there or thereabouts.

And his teams play fine and often beautiful football.

But most importantly, although his players seldom venture an opinion on anything, everyone has an opinion on Páidí. Some people shake their head or smile or turn angry at the mere mention of his name. He has got the touch, he gets people flowing.

He gets his fellow natives in the mood on summer Sunday nights when they analyse another Croke Park exhibition in their unique dialect, talking faster and in higher tones as the hours go on.

Kerry football is bigger than a few carelessly remarks. So is Páidí Ó Sé.

It would be a shame if he isn't in the hot seat when the big carnival opens up again, marching the sidelines with his sergeant majors strut and then thanking God for the win in his soft, Ventry tones. He has sinned but should be forgiven by his own.

If the Dubs can forgive him for the tractors, then . . .