There’s an Ulster flavour to today’s Hospital Pass, which discusses two Gaelic footballers jumping the fence to the Garrison Game and the strange spectre of an entire province ganging up on the Dubs.
A couple of weeks after Armagh’s interest in the All-Ireland series came to an end, there’s talk that two of their star men, Stevie McDonnell and Brian Mallon, will go to the devil looking for nixers this winter.
Stevie Mac and, er, B-Mall are “poised” – that’s the word the soccer lads use over on JOE’s Transfer Tracker, anyway – to sign a deal with Irish League side Newry City.
The pair of them have played for Armagh for several years now, including a number of games in front of packed stands on summer Sundays at Croke Park.
But the vagaries between the sports means the first time they’ll hear supporters singing their name could come from the hoarse throats of about two dozen lads at a windswept, rain-belted Saturday afternoon at Newry Showgrounds.
And that’s only if they’re any good. If they’re not, the singing will quickly turn to savage terrace rants from the same two dozen hardened followers. Still, getting personal abuse at close quarters is worth £20 a week and a fiver win bonus, right?
What’s troublin’ Dublin?
Apart from, say, one other county – Cork, obviously – few people in Ireland do siege mentality better than the Dubs.
Dublin football supporters believe they have a right to everything: exclusive access to Hill 16, the right for their team to warm up in front of Hill 16, delayed throw-in times to fit in those last two pints before heading to Hill 16.
So you can imagine their consternation when it was revealed that Ulster man Joe McQuillan will take charge of Saturday evening’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Ulster’s Tyrone.
Never mind the fact that McQuillan’s club Kill Shamrocks is situated almost as far from Omagh as it is from Dublin, sure they’re all the one up there, aren’t they?
Whatever way it goes, McQuillan will have to think long and hard about blowing his whistle for any square balls in the Tyrone goalmouth.
But the bottom line is that he has to be seen to be fair, and what better way to do that than to give the mother-of-all-controversial-goals to Tyrone at the Hill 16 end on Saturday evening?
