Proper order.
Don’t fight in car-parks if you can’t do the time. Ballyholland and Downpatrick won’t play a part in the Down senior football championship for 2019.
The bizarre thing about the Division 1 fixture of the Down GAA All County Football League was that it had been abandoned the week previous after some unsavoury scenes first time out.
They went at it again in the replay, and even though the game was finished this time, with Downpatrick winning 1-11 to 1-8, the game was marred again by some off-the-ball antics once more.
A row broke out on the bank at the side of the pitch involving spectators and a ball boy, and what followed was a mass evacuation of players from the pitch, who sprinted in the direction of the scrap.
It spilled out into the car park and it all turned aggressive and extremely ugly quickly in Kilcoo.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/1049026681862856706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1049026681862856706&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsjoe.ie%2Fgaa%2Fballyholland-downpatrick-brawl-erupts-car-park-180327
There has been a number of rows and scraps of similar ilk taking place in club GAA games all over recently, but the general consensus was that this one was as bad as it got.
As a result, there had been calls for Down GAA to come down hard on the offenders from both teams and with The Gaelic Life reporting that both teams have been thrown out of the championship for 2019, they couldn’t have come down any harder.
That’s a nightmare for any club. It’ll teach them a lesson though, and fair play to the Down county board because it should also stand as a watershed moment and indeed act as a stern warning for any other teams and for any other counties.
A strong punishment like this should help to stomp this unwanted and unnecessary trend out of their games.
