This article is from page 57 of the 2007-12-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 57 JPG
THE Clare Schoolboys Soccer League, the Munster Football Asso- ciation and the FAI have been writ- ten to this week by the St Pat’s club in Kilmihil, who have lodged a series of complaints over Saturday under 11 Clare Cup semi-final against Money- point.
In a hard-hitting letter, St Pat’s of- ficials Tom Egan, Derek Dolan and Tony Quinn have said when they travelled to Kilrush for the match they “had no idea of the horror which was to unfold”.
‘“Moneypoint managers and a large number of their fans invaded the pitch and verbally abused the referee in front of both sets of teams.
‘Foul and abusive language flowed
unchecked and disregarding the children listening. We gathered our children together to shield them from deh
‘“Moneypoint’s team seeing their parents managers etc abuse the ref- eree themselves began aiming foul language at him to cheers of encour- agement.
“Was this supposed to be a game for kids to enjoy or was it as Money- point’s supporters seemed to think it was life or death,” the letter adds.
Moneypoint won the game 4-3, but according to St Pats’ correspondence, the game descended into a farce in the second half.
“What followed was disgraceful. Our children some as young as eight were being threatened from the side- nase
“Two of our supporters who had children on the team were assaulted by a woman and were told to stand on the opposite side of the pitch.
‘The referee had to stop the game to try and restore order. Some of our boys were now in terror and had tears in their eyes.
“We had to bring any of our players playing on Moneypoint’s supporters side into the middle for their own safety which effectively meant that channel was now fully exposed.
“Having little regard of what was happening on the pitch and listening to foul threatening language from the sideline our team fell apart to howls of derision from Moneypoint Supporters.
“Trailing 4-3 and with ten min- utes remaining the referee told me
he would support us if we wanted to abandon the game. Under normal circumstances I would have said yes but my primary concern was to get our kids off the pitch safely and un- injured and abandoning the game would not have been well received and could have led to even more seri- ous scenarios.
“I agreed that at the games end we would gather our children over to our side straight away and wait for the supporters from Moneypoint to leave. At the final whistle we gath- ered our children and tried our best to comfort them. Losing is a part of growing up but losing like this is nothing short of disgraceful.
“One of Moneypoint’s club officials apologised for the terrible behaviour of their supporters to our lads. Did
he not have a duty to stop this type of behaviour?
Did he not realise that the Code of conduct for players, managers and supporters had all been broken. Were these Codes ever issued and if so were they not understood?
“Soccer at underage level is all about teaching kid’s basic skills and encouraging them to enjoy the game while maintaining good discipline and respecting their fellow players and opponents. When did that change to a win at all costs attitude regard- less of who you hurt in the process? Soccer suffered a terrible blow on Saturday,” the letter added.
The Clare Schoolboys Soccer League are awaiting the referees re- port on the game.