Dunphy erupts as referees start clowning around

TV VIEW: On one of those summer trips to the US, for one of the golf majors, a couple of American journalists who had recently returned from a trip to Ireland started an interrogation. It involved a fascination with the buntings and flags and county colours that greeted them wherever they went in Ireland, one of those spin-offs of Gaelic Games, writes Philip Reid.

"Just what are these national games of yours?" one of them asked, only for someone else to get in an answer first. "The Premiership," he quipped.

It's a bit sad the joke is not a world removed from the truth. Although the crowds that continue to flock to football and hurling matches are huge, there is an armchair culture that demands you follow an English soccer team.

Of course, Sky Sports is in overdrive at this time of the year but the show business razzmatazz of the soccer games from across the water is also to be found on terrestrial stations too. RTÉ and ITV have found their niche in the market and, although the relationship was strained at the start of the campaign, it seems Network 2's John Giles and Eamon Dunphy have regained the old spark.

On Saturday evening, the glint was back in Dunphy's eye and the sharp edge back to his tongue as he played devil's advocate on The Premiership. And, of course, he was heaping out the advice to the beleaguered managers.

To Terry Venables. He should be taking Alan Smith - the bad boy of English soccer, or as Dunphy called him, "an impetuous lad" - aside. "It's the coach's job," insisted Dunphy, to channel Smith's aggression.

To Arsene Wenger. He shouldn't be too worried about Arsenal's recent run of defeats. "Just a blip," insisted Eamon. Although, when Bill O'Herlihy asked was the bell tolling for David Seaman, Dunphy nodded his head. "I think so, there are too many accumulated errors to ignore . . . it's a drip, drip thing."

All friendly advice, nothing earth shattering. But give Eamon an opening and he's off, and it came when the question of refereeing standards in the English Premiership was questioned.

"I think these referees are clowns . . . they're out of their depth, (they're) ruining the game. We saw Graeme Souness react there (to Gary Flitcroft's dismissal in Blackburn's win over Arsenal). He's a manager doing his job, (he) could get the sack next week. They're spending millions of pounds on players. This is a multi-billion pound industry and you have a clown refereeing like that, sending people of the pitch for nothing. It's ridiculous," blasted Dunphy.

"Why don't you get off the fence and tell us what you really think," said Bill.

It was enough to send Dunphy into overdrive. "They really are clowns," he said. "Nobody in the game respects them. The players don't respect them. There is anarchy on the field."

The calm voice of reason came from Giles. "They're under instructions from the FA, "instead of just using their commonsense."

Dunphy wasn't to be stopped. "The first two-syllable word I ever learned growing up was discretion," said Dunphy, "and it was used in the context of discretion is the best weapon a referee has."

As Dunphy observed, soccer in England is a multi-billion pounds industry but there is a past generation of players who didn't get to cash in.

On the Kelly show on UTV on Friday night, Harry Gregg - the legendary Manchester United goalkeeper - was asked why he had decided to write his autobiography, Harry's Game, so many years after he had hung up his boots. "Because a publisher offered me a few quid," was the gentle reply.

Harry was the goalkeeper at Man Utd when the Munich air crash occurred in 1958. It was he who raced back into the blazing plane as a pilot running the other way shouted, "run you stupid bastard, it's going to explode". It was he who rescued a baby crying and went back into the plane. He found the mother and, as he recalled, "physically kicked her in the backside through a hole in the plane" before going in search of others.

But, as he explained, "the book is a life story, not just about Munich . . . some people like to say Harry Gregg, hero, but I prefer Harry Gregg, survivor . . . I wasn't a bad 'keeper either. I don't believe in heroes - don't believe heroes are made. One day you and I could be in a set of circumstances and I turn and run like hell and you stay and the following day it could be the reverse. That's how life lays it down to you . . . I did what I had to do."

Of course, the Munich air disaster was a significant part of his life. But, as he said, he wasn't a bad 'keeper. In the World Cup finals of 1958, when Northern Ireland reached the quarter-finals, Gregg was named on a World XI team with three times more votes that Pele.