‘Butcher’ gets all fired up

KILMURRY-IBRICKANE junior ladies football selector Pat ‘Butcher’ McCarthy was certain he had seen it all during his decades as a player, mentor and highly rated umpire.

 

That was until last Saturday evening in Cooraclare when a tense junior ladies football county semi-final involving Kilmurry Ibrickane and Kilrush, had to be abandoned two minutes before half-time. In the GAA world, the phrase ‘match abandoned’ usually follows a mass brawl where the referee was unable to dissuade the players to desist from ceaseless schmozzling.

Unusually, however, it was a floodlight fire that ended this game with the teams level, Kilmurry 1-2, Kilrush 0-5.

‘Butcher’ McCarthy was so engrossed in the match, he didn’t immediately notice the fire, although he does remember the Kilmurry manager, Aidan ‘Horse’ Maloney engaging in conversation with a Kilmurry supporter.

“I noticed Tommy Galvin came down from the stand and said something to ‘Horse’ I didn’t hear because the game was going on. The next thing the lights started to flick off, which the Cooraclare people noticed. It went dark and the very minute it got dark we saw the smoke billowing from the floodlight in the car park corner,” ‘Butcher’ revealed.

“The supporters couldn’t even go out that way to go home. The gate had to be opened to let them into the field from the stand. Basically, the stand had to be evacuated. In a nutshell, that’s what had to be done,” he said, speaking while seated in the Gurteen stand before last Sunday’s Éire Óg v Wolfe Tones Senior Football Championship game.

Despite the fire, ‘Butcher’ wasn’t enamoured with the less than clinical Kilmurry forwards. “We missed three one-on-ones out of four. We scored one. We should have been nine points up,” he claimed.

But back to the fire. Although the game was abandoned by Miltown referee Barry Kelly, the Kilrush management felt the show could still go on at a new location, slightly more favourable to them.

“Barry Kelly abandoned it and then it was put to us ‘sure we’ll go to Kilrush and finish it’. We just said ‘ah sure, can’t we go to Quilty? And that put paid to that one,” ‘Butcher’ laughed.

In what was highly charged evening in Cooraclare, ‘Butcher’ insists that he felt in more peril during the game than he did while fleeing the fire.

“At no stage did I fear for my health from the fire but from the pressure of the match I thought I was going to get a heart attack,” he said, before describing management as “about 60,000 times more pressurising,” than umpiring.

“And I’m not even the manager, I’m only a selector,” he concluded.

The game has been re-fixed for Sunday at 5.30pm in Kilmihil. Floodlights will not be required unless extra time is necessary.