When does harmless banter cross over the line?

MARY HANNIGANon whether what happened at O'Moore Park was just simply jibing or something substantially uglier than that

THE RECENT to-do in English football over the Luis Suarez v Patrice Evra affair revived the debate, in a somewhat incendiary fashion, over just how sporting “banter” should be defined.

Was the whole business only a bit of harmless jibing between opponents, or something substantially uglier than that?

Suarez apologists, among them his manager Kenny Dalglish, opted for the “harmless enough” line, but those less than convinced remain flummoxed as to why the Liverpool player ever felt Evra’s skin colour was relevant to their on-field spat.

The hue of Ciaran McKeever’s skin wasn’t an issue at O’Moore Park in Portlaoise at the weekend, but, according to the Armagh County Board, their captain’s place of birth was what, allegedly, drew vilification from some of his hosts, which the board characterised as “partitionist provocation” and “racist and personal abuse”.

“God Save the Queen”, they claimed, was chanted in McKeever’s direction, along with cries of “British bastard”.

If true, it’s hard to choose between eye-rolling and weeping. Not least because there’s a fair old chance those doing the hollering number Four Green Fields as one of their most loved tunes.

A bit like the day Austin Currie was told, in the Dáil, to “go back” (to where he came from) – by a member of the Republican party.

And it called to mind another day when, in one of our supposedly more genteel sports, a player from a Belfast club informed her southern marker that she was a “Fenian bitch”, when – to be hopelessly crude about it – her name suggested she was highly unlikely to be the former, and was most certainly not the latter.

Harmless banter?

Or just plain moronic?

Joe Brolly, Derry old boy and now RTÉ pundit, opted for the harmlessly moronic when he spoke to Morning Ireland yesterday about the McKeever business.

“It sounds like a bit of a storm in a tea cup,” he said, “you don’t want to get too precious about this stuff.”

And then he blew a passionate smacker in the direction of his old rivals: “Probably with Armagh, there’s a bit of desperation because they’re slipping through the relegation trap door.”

Ouch.

Other than sellotaping shut the mouths of supporters who spout this stuff – the “God Save The Queen” chanters, not Brolly – it’s hard to know what the GAA can do. But they can certainly make players pay for their nastiness, if they so choose.

And such idiocy is hardly new. Jason Sherlock endured mindless abuse, for example, because he looked “a bit different”, and before and after he came out as gay, Donal Óg Cusack suffered the ugliest of bigotry from the terraces. “Mostly it’s just the same f***ing thing, the fellas that want to hurt you will go for the personal stuff. Calling you queer, ingenious stuff like that,” he said.

In the history of sport, there were few more “ingenious” banter merchants than the Australian moustachioed bowling legend that was Merv Hughes. He earned such a reputation for abusing opponents he ended up writing a book containing his favourite.

“Why do we insult our opposition,” he asked in the introduction to Best Sporting Insults. “Psychological advantage at the highest level. Performance is so much tied up in the factors that contribute to a player’s ‘mental attitude’ – and these are especially self-image and confidence – held together by the power of concentration.”

So?

“Sledging is about finding a real or invented weakness in another’s technique or approach in the hope that highlighting it might lead to undermining their confidence.

At the highest level, this can mean the difference between winning and not.”

Fair enough. So, how did Merv go about undermining his opponent’s real or invented weakness?

“How about I bowl you a f***ing piano, you poof, see if you can play that.”

Strewth.

Much better was the clash of two Tipperary hurlers in a club match. After a heated exchanged one informed the other: “And you needn’t think you’re painting my kitchen tomorrow.”

That’s banter. Although probably not harmless – after all, the fella on the receiving end lost a day’s work.