Hogan Cup final - St. Colman's supporters

The Colman's fans behaved terribly-I'm sorry but there's no justifying that. Fair play to the Colman's team all the same.

Yeah it's a Northern conspiracy run by the Ulster Council, I'm actaully the Ulster Chairman disguised by various usernames. You've cracked it. Actually, the original article was posted on facebook by former College students and it's causing both laughter and anger.

I would like you to point out at what point the College fans acted ''dangerously". The flares? No more dangerous than thousands of fans pouring onto the Croke Park pitch every September. Not that Mayo fans would have much reason to be running onto the Croke Park pitch with their glittering record in All-Ireland finals ;-) (bit of craic and banter by the way, hope I'm not being a 'hooligan'). As for yesterday's attempted pitch invasion, it was only a tiny crowd in comparison to Senior Inter-county finals and the health and safety risk was minimal (not half as risky as having fans bunching up in the stand!). The boys that got arrested were just trying to get onto the pitch...wow....the thugs lol.

At what point did we have 'havoc' in Croke Park yesterday?

I am actually annoyed to read such rubbish and ridiciolous claims by yourself a man who had a first hand account of what occured yesterday in Croke Park. There is a serious anti North chip on your shoulders and thats a fact! You've never seen anything like it? You never been to a Dublin Game take a wee walk next time to hill 16. Paul Galvins a grown man am sure he can handle the odd chant or two about himself. It was beyond an over reaction and the way the STEWARTS behaved was aggressive and arrogant. It got to the point where i single handly watched one particular stewart attempt to pull a fan over the fence and on to the pitch so that he could be arrested. Some of the language and abuse boys from as young as 15 were subjected to from stewarts was ridicolous. However yes the use of flares maybe was a bit extreme although a group of 400 or 500 fans can not be held resposible for one fans actions. End of the day as a GAA fan i do not ever want to see stewarts at any ground act in the way they did yesterday it was barbaric. FACT

What's going on with all the Down posters joining with the number '1' all in their usenames?

As I said. It's an Ulster conspiracy.

Firstly I'll make it clear that I in no way condone the sort of behaviour that went on at Croke Park and I don't want to be defending those who were responsible for it

BUT

what we are talking about is 300 teenagers/young people coming out together to support their friends and school in an important final that they won.

everyone, whether they are a young person now or were in the past, will know that a large number of your mates being together to back a common cause that involves pride for your school/college (a place that, surprisingly, you become staunchly proud of being a member of) or any other place, there will be a great deal of camaraderie and happiness. The euphoria that is brought about by being with such a large number of your mates supporting something so personal and unique to you (and not that many others) is understandable and common in any situation.

recently my school celebrated it's 50th anniversary with a fairly naff music concert on the school field, I remember how the 250 or so students in my year packed together and bounced up and down to the younger kids' rubbish musical offerings. The feeling of happiness and togetherness that day was really infectious, and no doubt this is what the supporters will have felt at the match in Croker. Everyone joins together to sing, dance and make the most of the occasion. It's only natural, particularly when you're young and your somewhat distorted view of life in still in place.

As ALWAYS there is a minority of people who think they're cool or think they're impressing people and take things too far or in the wrong direction. This happened at my schools' naff concert - a few people in my year decided to start crowd surfing and throwing cartons of juice and Bourbon biscuits at the performers. Seems trivial to what went on at CP but it is effectively the same thing. A bunch of idiots taking things too far.

And people always naturally notice the poor behaviour and so unfortunately, however small the minority of d*ckheads is they will be seen by the onlookers and the whole group of people around them are automatically assumed to be involved. In fact, most of the group will be mortally embarrassed and will be thinking "come on lads stop being such pr*cks."

It is shame that things like this happen but not everyone is responsible. We have all made a lot of them guilty by association and I think that is pretty unfair. Not all the 300 at Croke Park were behaving like prats, just some of them.

Whilst there is no excuse for such moronic behaviour - as the expression goes - sometimes we shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush.

bluearmy1 wrote:As I said. It's an Ulster conspiracy.

There are Ulster posters on this forum and I can just imagine them shaking their heads at these 'Anti-Ulster' accusations. Bluearmy etc. some of your fans were a disgrace, no denying that.

this blog was posted on another very popular forum,by a member of this forum,and mentioned that he found it on this site.so thats probably the reason it's gotten so much attention,but it is quite suspicious alright.

Must read up on this properly before i comment on the alleged events at the Hogan Cup Final, no doubt that BBC NI will have a segment devoted to it if it is true!!!!

I've been lucky enough to play against St Colmans quite a few times in my colleges career, and i always found them to be brilliantly behaved supporters and the players were very hard and very fair. They have always been a credit to their college both on and off the field which makes me find these allegations very hard to believe.

Most important thing for me to say is Congratulations St. Colemans on winning the Hogan........again!!!

Dougal wrote:this blog was posted on another very popular forum,by a member of this forum,and mentioned that he found it on this site.so thats probably the reason it's gotten so much attention,but it is quite suspicious alright.

Very suspicious indeed! I would think there is an overlap of IP addresses here somewhere!

And there were alot of stewarts out of order and taking abuse of their power.....theres also no denying that!

dmackin661 wrote:And there were alot of stewarts out of order and taking abuse of their power.....theres also no denying that!

And why were the stewards getting frustrated? Because of the actions of some of your supporters!

bluearmy1 wrote:As I said. It's an Ulster conspiracy.

When the 1st man jumped on2 the pitch there was nothin done to offend stewarts but yet they still reacted in that way! it was fu*cking disgrace the treatment they were subjected to end of. ok they shouldn be on the pitch they were treated liike they were criminals and thats not fu*king on!

dmackin661 wrote:When the 1st man jumped on2 the pitch there was nothin done to offend stewarts but yet they still reacted in that way! it was fu*cking disgrace the treatment they were subjected to end of. ok they shouldn be on the pitch they were treated liike they were criminals and thats not fu*king on!

No, they were treated like people who had broken the rules-which they had.

Hi, I'd just like to say that Im so pathetic that I made four different accounts and then agreed with myself on this topic! Its really only me! Ive no life!

What crap, like was said already. This has been posted on other sites, including facebook and the Blue Army have decided to defend their name when so many others are lining up to unfairly attack their reputation! My conclussion of this debate is thus:

Mayo'51, you are bit too sensitive! But hey, your entitled to an opinion!

St Colmans College, MacRory Cup Winners 2010 18 Times
St Colmans College, Hogan Cup Winners 2010 7 Times

End of, Goodbye!

Blue Army!!

hogan2010 wrote:Hi, I'd just like to say that Im so pathetic that I made four different accounts and then agreed with myself on this topic! Its really only me! Ive no life!

What crap, like was said already. This has been posted on other sites, including facebook and the Blue Army have decided to defend their name when so many others are lining up to unfairly attack their reputation! My conclussion of this debate is thus:

Mayo'51, you are sh*t craic!

St Colmans College, MacRory Cup Winners 2010 18 Times
St Colmans College, Hogan Cup Winners 2010 7 Times

End of, Goodbye!

Blue Army!!

As I said earlier in this thread-it was obvious it was yourself. Here, we have an example of the idiocy of some of the supporters, just like the ones who were throwing flares.

If you lot would take the time to read through this thread you will find that there are several people who are talking a lot of sense which you will probably agree with.

However the embarrassingly titled 'blue army' appears to be assuming that every post and every comment is an insult or "anti-ulster." A bit pathetic.

Perhaps if you bothered reading what has been contributed here we could all have a civilised and worthwhile discussion about the whole matter.

As one of the other posters said here, there's a lot of camaraderie in schools. St Colman's College lives and breathes football. As Jarlath Burns said on TG4 yesterday, St Colman's is a school of traditions (e.g. always playing in white in the Hogan competition) and to have your picture on the hallowed wall of champions alongside such faces as Kevin Mussen, Greg Blaney, James McCartan, and of course Cathal 'Murr-inho' Murray is the dream that pushes every young footballer in the College. In St. Colman's we were taught fluid and dynamic football.....Down football. For the school to get back to the Hogan Final after so long brought out a lot of emotion and excitement.

"You can see that there is no sponsor on the St. Colman's jersey; because that jersey is sacred" Jarlath Burns after the match.

The cynics here are trying to label the College fans as 'hooligans' (lol) when in fact they gave an unrivalled show of support all season. Funny how UTV presenter Austin O'Callaghan said that the Blue Army brought a carnival atmosphere to the MacRory Cup Final on St. Patrick's Day but once the show goes south, up against fanbases who could never rival the College men, people start hurling the hooligan label at us.

We're talking about lads aged 11-19 who formed the majority of the Blue Army here......people should really get over it.

Lighting a flare is not hooliganism. There was nothing malicious to it. A smoke bomb doesn't hurt anyone. It actually added to the occasion. The chants about Galvin were not right but they were only sang by a small number of fellas probably seized after a trip on a wine-bus and I think at most it was sung twice. Galvin's a big boy, he can take it. At least no-one threw a duster at him ;-)

A smoke bomb got thrown on to the pitch at the end....wow.....a stewart went over and picked it up. Hardly a lethal weapon.

The Blue Army is proud that once again it cheered the latest generation of top-class College players to the ultimate prize. We are proud of our players, proud of our traditions, proud of our school, and proud to be Blue Army from the day we first put on the blue blazer to til' the day we die.

Obviously come September and Mayo win the All-Ireland there'll be at least one Mayo fan who'll be keeping his seat. And if anyone sets off green and red smoke bombs (which you would love....don't lie) I'm guessing you'll have to confiscate it. Or risk being called a hooligan....

some fair enough points above, integrated amongst more stupid "blue army" plugs and cynical comments.

seriously who came up with 'blue army'? It does sound so very silly.

There are no double accounts in play here. Everyone is entitled to present their opinion and are welcome to do so.

RMDrive wrote:There are no double accounts in play here. Everyone is entitled to present their opinion and are welcome to do so.

thanks RMD I was beginning to get very worried

Sami I doubt we'll have a worthwhile discussion because when it boils down to it, some here feel the Colmans support are 'hooligans' and we clearly dont. The past two pages have been filled with much of the same really! If we take a step back, the young lads had a great day at Croker which they'll never forget. The older folk took their 'this generation is a disgrace' stance and didn't like the smoke bombs. Fair enough, its quite silly to put them off in a stand but they aren't flares. Theres no flame, past inhaling the smoke the health risk is minimal! The three 'arrested' were merely escorted from the stadium, albeit in handcuffs (heavy handed some might say!), for trying to access the pitch which is an All Ireland Final day tradition! I dont think Ive ever seen a final without a pitch invasion to be honest! Great game of football, great atmosphere, great day at the home of football. Now lets all gather our toys back into our prams, agree to disagree and go discuss something meaningful!

Adh mór!

Embarassingly for SamiPremier, and I'm almost scared to reply to him in case he has another pop at my username (I wish my username was as cool as yours), I haven't used the term "anti-Ulster" once IF YOU CARED TO READ THE THREAD. The 'Ulster conspiracy' comment was obviously a lighthearted joke but obviously you noticed that, you being the genius with that UNREAL username! Grow up lad. And I haven't said that I feel insulted by anything written here. I just think it's all a pure exaggeration.

As for the lads who got arrested, they tried to get on to the pitch as all fans do in major finals (except Mayo fans of course coz winning All-Irelands just doesn't seem to be their strong point). The first lad to get over the barrier was wrestled to the ground needlessly by two gardai and actually handcuffed....I see no reason why those fellas had to handcuffed/arrested (and no more than 5 young lads got on to the pitch) and had to be kept in custody until 5 o'clock that evening. If you watch the post-match discussion with Jarlath Burns and the TG4 presenter you will see one of the boys being lead away by Gardai in the background. That lad is 15 years old. He tried to get on the pitch (what a hooligan) to celebrate with his fellow College men and was ARRESTED.

By the standards of some of the posters here, all those thousands upon thousands of fans who broke the rules and invaded the pitch on All-Ireland final days (not that Mayo fans would know much about it ....jaysus I'm nearly as clever as SamiPremier with all these wisecracks) are hooligans.

Hogan2010 posts the comment of the day.

And SamiPremier...you're too much for me.....

Are you Abbey in disguise??