Stag parties and the club championship
Need some shut-eye at 4pm? Try the local B&B 
Daniel Carey A MAYO soccer team recently got thrown out of a divisional cup competition. Apparently they won a match that had been re-fixed to accommodate a wedding, only for it to emerge that they were, in fact, on a stag party on the night the game was originally scheduled for. So that was the end of the cup run.
Last Saturday, part of me was sorry that going to a stag party is no more a legitimate excuse for missing the club championship than it is for postponing a Tuohy Cup fixture.
After spending Friday night in Athlone, I arrived in Ballyhaunis (the venue for a Saturday evening Intermediate Championship game between the home side and Achill) in mid-afternoon, not exactly the worse for wear but in need of a few hours’ shut-eye. The stag itself (or ‘sten’ party, given that it was a mixed affair for both men and women) was civilised enough – a boat on the River Shannon, followed by a barbecue at the back of a hostelry in the midlands.
The real rough edges came either side of the formalities. Somehow I had managed to find a ground floor room in a hotel that was hosting a wedding. Closing the door behind me, I was greeted by a woman in her 20s and a man the wrong side of 70, who was holding a tissue that covered half his face. “We’ll get you something for that blood now,” the woman said more than once, the kind of statement that never bodes well for at least one of the parties concerned.
Arriving back in the early hours, I was greeted at the gate of the hotel by a woman who was crying, perhaps a victim of that well-known Irish disease Too Much Sauce. “Can I do anything for you?” I asked. “Are you a taxi?” she replied, and, having conceded that I was not, I made my way into the building and on to my room, as the DJ in the ballroom went from ‘Summer of ’69’ to ‘Thunderstruck’ and onto ‘All The Single Ladies’. Something for all tastes, you might say.
Eclectic and enjoyable as the music was, it didn’t make for an entirely restful evening. And so, by the time Iarnród Éireann had deposited me in Ballyhaunis the following afternoon, I was keen to catch a snooze. I may be the first person in history to use a B&B primarily as a place to lay my head between 4pm and 6pm.
I arose ready for action, grabbed a bite to eat, and made my way out the Knock Road for the match, arriving in the stand just in time to avoid a torrential shower. Like a Spanish soccer crowd, the importance of the fixture didn’t encourage too many to come early. There were perhaps 30 people in the stand by 7.25pm, but by the time the ball was thrown in 14 minutes later, that had swelled to around 60.
As one of the few neutrals present, I positioned myself so that I could hear both sets of spectators. But on a day when Achill were far the better team, Ballyhaunis supporters had most to complain about, and one or two weren’t shy about saying so. The first free awarded to the islanders was dismissed by one local as ‘cat melodeon’, and there would be more where that came from.
The rain, having threatened to ease, returned with a vengeance, although one Ballyhaunis maor uisce was so engaged in the play that he neglected to put up his hood. “We’re the worst of two bad teams,” said a man from East Mayo, which seemed to be an unnecessary plague on Achill’s house.
For one thing, you’ll go a long way to find better free-taker than Donal Corrigan, and Colm Cafferkey has the engine and demeanour of Roy Keane in his pomp – racing up and down, cajoling, popping up everywhere. It was 7-3 to Achill at half time, and as the second half degenerated into a series of off-the-ball incidents, one visiting supporter was anxious that his side (who were clearly about to be victorious) stayed out of any unnecessary entanglements. “Beat them with football, lads,” he suggested, and another man chimed in: “Beat them on the scoreboard!” Hmmm … where else?
They did, of course, and it finished 11-6. Achill go through, Ballyhaunis go out, and I headed for bed at the B&B before the Saturday night festivities got too loud.
1.40am: Is that the Sky Sports darts music I hear outside?
