‘If God meant him to be a referee, he wouldn’t be wearing glasses!’
Christy Ring famously said that hurling only counts after the cuckoo comes. Anyway, cuckoo or no cuckoo, we have entered the serious season of GAA activity. A thought occurred to me at a recent match and I feel that after presenting the evidence to you, dear reader, you will agree that it is strange how professions seem to attract a certain type of person, totally unsuited to the job!
A quick example is the gardaí. The evidence suggests that the only garda graduates coming out of Templemore are men and women who had nothing better to do with their time. As soon as these young keepers of the law start work, they are found out. A traffic stop for speeding and the ceist is thrown; ‘have you nothing better to do with your time?’. A raid on a pub after hours, and the Lad trying to get the last of the pint into himself will pause to burp and enquire of the garda; ‘have you nothing better to be doing with your time?’. Parking ticket, house party out of control or chip-shop disturbance and the most pressing problem addressed to the officer doing their job; ‘don’t you have something better to do with your time?!’.
The greatest example of a profession attracting candidates totally ill-equipped for the job is that of a referee – and I include all sporting pursuits here.
I am a long time going to matches and despite all the changes I have seen – and the great work done by Specsavers; nobody, and I mean nobody, seems attracted to the refereeing job except the visually impaired… or more commonly known as a ‘Blind B####x’!
During any week, your typical referee can act like an ordinary man. He can be a teacher, a postman, solicitor, welder or whatever – and that is the mystery; he never seems to have trouble with the eyes. But come the weekend, for an hour or so on Saturday or Sunday, and lo and behold, what the man in the middle needs most, deserts him… his good eyesight!
He cannot see something 10 feet in front of him that the lad behind me can see from 100 metres away. In fairness, the woman to my right, wearing a different colour jersey, will stand up for the ref this time. Later in the game she too will admit that the ref has now gone ‘as blind as a bat’. ‘Take the free yourself, ref,’ calls out the old man sarcastically beside me… oops, sorry that’s me… A proposal needs to be brought to the next GAA Congress that only ‘sighted people’ be ratified as referees.
Farming: now here we have an occupation that seems overly represented by fortune-tellers. Get two nice sunny days back to back, as we have been getting recently, and the first farmer you meet will inform you; ‘we’ll pay for this later on!’. ‘July is meant to be a hoor of a month!’
I’ll tell you now about the qualities required to be a good solicitor. Bright, starry-eyed young adults from good families head off to do law. Their agile minds, self-esteem, patience, empathy, enterprising approach and thirst for justice are all that will be needed, they imagine. Not so; they can possess all these attributes – when what is most required is the skin of a rhinoceros!
Why do unassertive people become doctors? The medical profession attracts our brightest and best and they then spend 14 years training to be a doctor. Despite all this preparation and years of practice, your trusted GP may still need to look for ‘a second opinion’.
What sort of people are professors before they are professors? Did they always forget how to turn on the TV and not remember their granny’s name – while remembering how everything else in the world works? The Spaniards lump teachers and absent-minded professors together, as the Spanish word for teacher is ‘profesor/a’. There are exceptions to every rule and all I can vouch for is that my profesora is no way absent-minded when it comes to any of my little mistakes over the last 50 years!
Clergy: now what sort of people believe they hear a call to the priesthood? Most are the great and the good, but not all. We haven’t enough space left here to deal comprehensively with the issue, so we’ll close with a quote from another man. ‘I will tell you sincerely that I am scared of rigid priests. I keep away from them… they bite!’ ‘There are often young men who are psychologically unstable without knowing it, and who look for strong structures to support them.’
Before you complain to the editor about this line from a priest-hater, those are actually the words of Pope Francis!
One last thing; you will find all of the above listed professionals are blessed with a sense of humour!
Don’t Forget
‘I was a deceptive sort of hurler… worse than I looked!’ (Johno O’Farrell, RIP)