Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil): Paddy Melia, (Anniv).
11.00: Colm Ferguson, Monica Duggan, Patsy Glynn, (Month's Mind).
6.30: Nora & Martin Flaherty, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

We lost the run of ourselves with the Thierry Henry outcry. One journalist rightly dubbed this hysterical reaction as 'emotional incontinence'. Irish forward Kevin Doyle added his own sensible perspective: 'You do not blame the player if he can get away with it. It's almost a natural reaction.' In other words, that's football! Get over it!

Cheating in sport is nothing new. As far back as the Olympic Games of 338, boxers were bribed and the perpetrators were punished. So, long before betting syndicates tried to influence the outcome of everything from snooker to football, cheating was as much a part of competitive sport as olive oil!

The principal difference between ancient and modern sport is TV. Close-up and slow motion have made us all armchair connoisseurs of the theatrical and sometimes cruel skills that were once a secret art - much as CCTV cameras have opened our eyes to pickpockets and bag-snatchers.

Contrary to the belief of the wide-eyed optimist, cheats often do prosper. You don't need to look to anything as dramatic as Thierry's goal to see this: a well-timed dive in the box, or a few stolen extra yards for a free kick can turn a game just as easily. If there's something wrong with cheating it can't be that it never works! Cheats have changed the course of sporting history - and will do so again.

But the word 'cheat' is too crude to cover the full spectrum, from match-fixing and drug taking, through to shirt pulling and ball-handling. Sport has the complexity of most areas of life, and we shouldn't blame all cheats to the same degree. For example, there is a huge difference between drug-taking and jerseypulling.

In the heat of the recent debate, some of our commentators were blinded to that important distinction.

A tension exists between a principled amateur approach to football, and the 'win-at-all-cost' approach of the professional. To the latter, the professional foul is a pragmatic solution. For the Victorians, sport provided an arena where the virtues of honesty, nobility-in-defeat and modesty-in-victory, were cultivated. This naivety is easily parodied today; but it is still relevant. It doesn't, however, sit comfortably with the demands of professional sport.

It's easy to run through the clichés about pressure put on sportsmen to win at any cost. Yet it's true that stars are selected for their ability to win. They don't get picked as exemplars of fairness and moral virtue. We may want sports stars to be role models - but often that will be asking too much of them. Such character traits can even be obstacles to progress in the 'red in tooth and claw' world of professional sports: honesty is likely to result in fewer wins in competition with players who are more self-interested. Admirable as moral rectitude is, it is not what takes people to the top of the pyramid in their chosen sport, where getting an edge on your opponent is the key to success. Fair play could even work against ascent to the highest levels.

Those who do manage both to excel in their sport, and to do so with exemplary fairness, are truly remarkable, and we should celebrate them. Unfortunately, for the sake of football, and for his own sake, Henry walked out on that elite company on Wednesday night last. A great pity of course, but not a tragedy.

-Dick Lyng

Political Correctness

Dr Tony Holahan, the Irish Chief Medical Officer, must surely win some sort of prize for Political Correctness for his repeated use of the phrase "pregnant people". In an interview with RTE radio, concerning swine flu injections for pregnant women, Dr Holohan must have spoken the phrase "people who are pregnant" and "pregnant people" more than a dozen times.

Certain applications of what is called Political Correctness are praiseworthy, polite and respectful of the human person. But surely common sense - let alone biological facts - need to be considered too?

As things stand, only women become pregnant.

Therefore, there is no insult to anyone to speak about "pregnant women", or "women who are pregnant". Particularly when the intention is - so excellently - to protect mothers-to-be from the flu epidemic.

Political Correctness engenders a kind of over-anxious desire never to say anything that could be construed as offending equality orthodoxy. Over-anxiety in this sphere can lead to the risible.

Mary Kenny in 'The Irish Catholic', November 19, 2009.

ADVENT & CHRISTMAS PLANS

The Steering Committee met on Wednesday week last and, among other things, we drew up a 'Programme of Events' for the season of Advent and Christmas. You may think it's a little early to be talking about this, but we will need to have some of this up and running for Sunday next, the first Sunday of Advent. So don't say you weren't warned!

Cheating & Football

Top

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict