Thoughts from Amish Ireland

Thoughts which occurred over the weekend here in Ireland, the Amish country of Sport. Surest sign of a team on the way up: Full and happy co-operation with the media. Cork, generally, and Jimmy Barry-Murphy specifically have this season been a dream to deal with. No fatwahs, no embargoes, no thin skins. Just lots of good talkers.

Like Clare in 1995, Wexford in 1996, Offaly most years. Bless them. We accept that nature being what it is when Cork are closing in on the three-in-a-row the media will be their accursed enemies, any slight will be sufficient to have the iron curtain drop and many journalists will lose their lives.

So James Buster Douglas, last seen weighing 23 stone and riding a Harley around Florida, is to get the gig fighting the world's most famous rapist Mike Tyson in Las Vegas. Not the same Buster Douglas in the same city who scooped $20 million for toppling over and hugging the canvas when Evander Holyfield (38lb lighter) blew on him in 1990. I could do that for half the money. Has nobody the imagination or the purse to let George Foreman and Buster Douglas get it on in a burger eating contest?

Wouldn't it be been nice to have grown up in Dickie Murphy's house. He lets so many things go by with a smile and a wave of his hand and leaves the rest of us in the dark as to his thinking. Could have made it to the top as a cinema usher apparently.

With respect to past, present and future incumbents shouldn't the GAA presidency be quietly done away with or else made more sexy? The association has a fine chief executive, why does it need a quasi Royal Family, too, if they are not ever to be found in bed with live boys or dead girls.

Speaking of which, what will we see first, a black president of the US, a woman president of the GAA, or an openly gay Pope? Or Ru Paul, supermodel of the world, holding down all three positions.

Where did the fashion begin for goalscorers in Premiership soccer whipping off their shirts and, if it's so spontaneous, why do kids with acne on their backs not do it.

You don't get fat guys on GAA teams anymore. Surely we've lost something of our cultural heritage there. It was rumoured a few years ago that Murt Moriarty of Kerry was spotted ambling up to training in Fitzgerald Stadium eating a bag of cod and chips. Pity the nation that thinks that's not the sort of thing which inspires young fellas.

Heartwarming was it not that most of the refugees streaming back to Kosovo this week were principally pleased that things had been resolved amicably so as not to affect the chances of the Europe team at the Ryder Cup next month. From Ukrainian goatherds to Dutch clogmakers, we speak of little else in Europe these days.

Why is it that people with so little interest in sport generally know Formula One motor racing inside out? And why are they not discriminated against in society?

We heard something at Croke Park yesterday which we had thought we'd never hear again. A fogra to the effect that "both sides play as selected". Tactical bumpkins.

Isn't the Horse Show in danger of giving time warps a bad name. Trapped indoors by the rain this week I caught them all still jumping around the place on apparently the same old nags they were using back when the game was popular 20 years ago. The competitions had been jizzed a little, the equine equivalent of some hot gravy on yesterday's cold meat.

When will we be hearing from DISC on the issue of sports stadiums for Dublin. Are they building one of their own? More than one? Surely this is an issue perfectly suited to DISC's talents?

What happens if newspapers and media just decide not to call The Arena by its new name Eircom Park? Better still why didn't one of us think to follow the steps taken by Tony de Bolfo, football writer for the Melbourne Herald Sun, who upon hearing that the city's Dosckland stadium was to be renamed the Colonial Stadium ($50 million Aus for 10 years, if you're interested) immediately went and registered the name Colonial Stadium himself.

Why has the long-awaited 50-metre pool to be built in Limerick not got an adequate warm-up pool attached? Those inquiring about this deficiency have been told that there will be 10 lanes and people warming up and warming down can swim in lanes 1 and 10. Which just goes to prove the old saw about fools and their money. And will the pool have an Olympic standard pharmacy attached?

Ben Hogan played in 292 tournaments, finished in the top-10 241 times and in the top three 139 times and never shone as golden as Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus. Tiger Woods got $750,000 for playing 18 holes, one on one with David Duval last weekend. "Greatness" gets cheaper and cheaper.

Why are sporting lesbians much more open about their sexuality than gay men. What a step it would be if an openly gay man won the world heavyweight title, stole The Masters, took the chequered flag at Monte Carlo or got sent off while playing for Meath. Not much of a step for gay men maybe but a big step for the rest of us.

This column is no advocate of imprisonment for those found guilty of drug offences in sport, but we have to admit we were surprised by how quickly RTE rehabilitated Michelle de Bruin, having her on the radio last Saturday morning reviewing a 25-year-old book about boxing. Not the worst of RTE's many crimes on the issue, but how long before Michelle is hosting Liveline call-ins on stiffer sentences. Meantime, we look forward to Ryan Tubridy cuddling up to Charlie Haughey in the next instalment of "What I Read When I was in Disgrace."

Which reminds us of how much we are looking forward to the next time we see Linford Christie on the Late Late Show. Having permitted Michelle de Bruin to foul the reputations of journalists in the autumn of 1997, the Late Late took a call from herself on the night Linford appeared, thanking the king of the lycra lunchboxes for his kind words. By then, of course, science was finding out precisely what Michelle's secret formula was. This week, if Dr Wilhelm Schanzer of the IOC-accredited laboratory in Cologne is to be believed, after the discovery of a level of nandrolone 100 times greater than that which naturally occurs, science may just have done the same for Linford.

If Eddie Irvine wins the world driving very fast championship will RTE please place a moratorium on those chummy little chats with Pat Kenny. The whole shocking cult of Eddie Jordan worship amongst middle-aged men going through the change of life is depressing enough, but Eddie Irvine spraying PK with his drive-by banalities is more than any daytime audience should be asked to stomach.