September Road: Tipp FM dream up a solution to Garth Brooks conundrum

NOT SO FOOLISH, REALLY: Tipp FM whip up a storm
Every year on April Fool's Day, media outlets like to show they have a sense of humour by playing some sort of jape on the world. Generally speaking these range from silly (Aliens have landed!) to sillier (Goose lays golden egg), but very occasionally somebody manages to hit the sweet spot between pointless and plausible.

Last April 1st it was announced on the Tipp FM morning show – Tipp Today with Séamus Martin – that owing to the furore around Garth Brooks playing five consecutive shows in Croke Park, a deal had been struck whereby Semple Stadium would alleviate the strain by staging two of the concerts.

The tin hat on the tale was provided by getting Tipperary County Board chairman Seán Nugent in on the gag. He came on the show and confirmed that a deal had been done – Garth was coming to Thurles.

Cue pandemonium. The switchboards lit up with callers veering between outrage (those who remembered the Féile concerts in Thurles back in the mid-90s as being a sort of zombie invasion) and joy (Brooks fans and local vendors). When the whole affair was eventually revealed as a hoax and the smoke started to clear, there were a few casualties – some callers had cancelled their concert accommodation in Dublin – but in the main everyone accepted they’d been had, doffed their caps to the Tipp Today team and moved on.

Three months later and the events of the last week make you see why the prescient gag struck such a chord.

Joe Duffy had a caller on during the week, who couldn’t understand the arguments brewing up around the Croke Park concerts. She opined that there was an obvious solution to the problem – could they not stage some of these concerts in Semple Stadium?

Joe agreed that this was a perfectly logical suggestion.

SPELLCHECK: Mind your Ps and Qs
We had some technical issues in the sports department last Wednesday. Basically the computerised spellcheck became sentient and made some of its own decisions.

As a result Wexford’s Jack Guiney became Jack Guinea (surely a bagman for the mob), while the normally-sized Alan McCrabbe became the diminutive Alan Microbe, and so forth.

Yes, it’s embarrassing, but not as bad as the time we referred to the then Eircom League as the Rectum League.

So small mercies and all that.

Still, the incident made us curious about what other players exist in this strange twilight zone.

It turns out Down’s Ambrose Rodgers becomes Embryos Urgers, which sounds like a pro-life group; Walter Walsh becomes Alter Wash, surely the best alter boy in all of Kilkenny; and Kerry’s Anthony Maher changes into the rather delightful sounding Anything Maker.

Galway’s Eddie Hoare? We’ll leave that to your imaginations.

THEY SAID THAT?: Twitter Twaddle
@unofficialgaa
Big homecoming in Kilkenny tomorrow night, the famine is over, Cats have ended their 3 year agony & won Leinster

@daveyhannigan
To commemorate the closing of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork and Kerry are re-enacting one of the ritualistic slaughter games of the 70s/80s

@lynch_derrick
I thought the whole idea of the seeded draw was to stop one sided Munster Finals?

@keanepaul
It would be excellent to see Anthony Nash take a penalty on Tim Krul. That would shut him up. Possibly permanently.

@Inphosports
Great team support as Clare's Shane O'Donnell consoles Podge Collins after he was shown red (see picture at top of page)