Serious sport and funny business

Sports writing is often regarded as the lowest form of journalism, frequently appearing towards the back of the newspaper and often referred to by tactless colleagues as "the toy department" and dismissed by some snooty people who believe that sports writers are a lower form of human life.

The most common statement among journalists from "more serious" parts of the paper is "but then I have no interest in sport", as though such a crass statement might confer some level of gravitas.

This attitude doesn't, however, extend to weeks when "the big match" is coming up and you, as a sports journalist, are sheepishly approached by people with "no interest in sport" who have an urgent need for a couple of Hogan Stand tickets for an elderly clerical uncle home on leave from Nigeria suffering from some terminal illness who will never get another chance of watching an All-Ireland final. "It is," you are told, "his dying wish to see Mayo win the Sam Maguire Cup." The best of luck to him!

If one were to believe all the hard luck sob stories one would be in a perpetual state of tearful frustration.

An old and highly respected colleague of mine often recalls how he prostrated himself before a prominent GAA official on one such occasion and pleaded for a couple of tickets for an All-Ireland final and finally managed to convince the official of the dire need involved - only to later discover that the supplicant already had access to half a dozen other tickets, two of which remained unclaimed and ended up on the black market.

There is a remarkable story also of the then president of the GAA who managed to get a ticket for such a supplicant and discovered to his shock and amazement that the ticket, among a small batch which had been his own personal allocation as president, appeared on the black market in O'Connell Street on the morning of the All-Ireland and was later sold for a huge sum outside Croke Park. To his eternal embarrassment he had given instructions to Croke Park staff to buy several tickets from touts on the street in order to identify their source with a view to stopping such trade, only to discover that one of the touts' tickets was traced back to himself.

Some years ago this writer was given a promise that this business of black market tickets would be addressed by a certain political party and that my advice on the matter would be of use.

I was interviewed about the matter and a promise was made that a Private Members Bill would be introduced in the Dail and that the sale of tickets for sporting and other entertainment events would be brought under some form of smacht.

My suggestion was that the offering for sale of such tickets in public places above the face value of the ticket would be made an offence.

Like many other promises by politicians it never bore fruit. Perhaps the politician who gave me the promise might decide to resurrect the matter if his fellow county-men get a secure grip on the Sam Maguire Cup this weekend.

On the subject of that splendid trophy, I managed, quite by accident, to have that cup in my hands within the past week. I nearly wept!

It has been vandalised to a shameful extent. One of the handles has been bent, there are scratches all over it and some mindless idiots have tried to scrawl names and slogans on it which are pitiful to behold.

The present cup was made at huge expense in 1987 after the old one had to be taken out of circulation because of damage. The older one had, however, lasted since 1928. The present one is only 10 years old and may not last an awful lot longer if its condition deteriorates further by reason of the damage which ignorant people inflict upon it.

But to get back to the question of tickets, it is a fact of life that there will never be enough. Many schemes designed to introduce a fairer method of distribution have been suggested but there doesn't seem to be any ready-made solution.

No matter what precautions sports bodies take, tickets for various events always seem to find their way into the hands of people who have never been inside Croke Park or Lansdowne Road or The Point and it seems to me that legislation is the only way forward.

There is a lot of talk around at the moment about zero tolerance and yet we can be approached on the streets of Dublin by hawkers of tobacco whose merchandise, most probably, has been illegally obtained, and nothing seems to be done about it.

Regarding All-Ireland tickets, maybe we will have to wait until the Croke Park development programme is completed when something like 75,000 or 80,000 people can be accommodated. Somehow I believe that, even then, there will still be a shortage of space.

That, in itself, is not a bad thing but, in the meantime, we can be content that, barring a draw, the hassle for tickets this year is over and that is a relief.