Pat Spillane publicly apologises for ‘puke football’ remark and changes his noughties team of the decade

Anyone else have to reset their TV settings to make sure they were hearing him right?

In 2003, Tyrone shocked everyone by beating Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final with a dogged relentlessness, and disciplined system of play. Pat Spillane famously labelled it as "puke football" and well, the rest is history. That tag followed the Tyrone team for the entirety of Mickey Harte's time in charge, and is now a common phrase in the vocabulary of GAA people. Yesterday evening, before Tyrone took on Kerry, Pat Spillane took the time to make an apology that nobody seen coming.

"That word 'puke football', I only mentioned it once ever in my life, and it's something that's stuck to me and that's fine. "The shortest fully consented sentence in the English language is 'I'm sorry.' https://twitter.com/TheSundayGame/status/1431618521860030471

"I'm sorry for saying that, and I have apologised publicly on telly for saying that, I shouldn't have said it, I was wrong, and I'll tell you why I was wrong. "Because it was used as a stick to beat that Tyrone team of the time, and I will say this about that Tyrone team, and I've said it before, it's not because of Sean.

"A brilliant team, play some of the best football I've ever seen, of any team in the modern era, and as regards individual players - up there with the greatest.

"I do sincerely apologise." Well, nobody saw that coming, but I'm sure Tyrone fans will appreciate the sentiment at least, and if they didn't, then they will appreciate what he says next about choosing the noughties team of the decade. "We thought 'we were Kerry, teams will come along, they will let us play football, and we will come home with our All-Ireland and be singing our tunes.' "But this time Tyrone turned up and said 'we're not partying with you, we're going to take you on,' and they did, and we weren't happy with it.

"And also I remember afterwards, wearing my Kerry hat, 'the team of the decade, Kerry, because they won five,' I'm now revising history, the team of the decade in the noughties was Tyrone."