I donât understand getting drunk for a hurling match. The sport is too fast, youâd miss the most of it and wouldnât recall half of it after. A pint before to soak up the atmosphere maybe. Pints after to chat back through it are great.
I think Iâd a big feed of pints watching the WC final between Brazil and Germany in 2002 in some pub in Cork before we lost the Munster Final to Waterford. I was on the terrace .
Iâd say Iâve never had more than a few before a game of hurling since.
Iâve seen up close and personal the âelementâ of the Limerick terrace support and itâs an embarrassment. Drunk, legless townie gobshites who wouldnât know whether a sliotar was stuffed or pumped. Soccer chanting, goading opposition parents/kids returning to cars after games, fighting among themselves, and the overriding feeling is that theyâre an embarrassment. Iâve seen them in Ennis in particular, in Thurlas and in Croke Park. God knows where they get their tickets because theyâre not hurling for clubs.
Iâve also noticed the recent surge in support for Cork has carried with it a completely different element, more boisterous, more aggressive, more confrontational. A friend who works in law enforcement, ahem, has seen cocaine use among this cohort in PUĂC. Young lads be young lads the world over and Iâve no doubt itâs not just a Cork thing⌠Itâs the same on the Hill, probably the same among the Limerick townies, but, for all the games Iâve attended, I have definitely noticed a marked increase such boorishness from our soft, southern West Brit friends from Cork.
Iâm not talking about the scoreboard boys at all. Shur we all did a bit of that⌠thereâs a very aggressive and yobbish following following amongst the Corks currently. And itâs a large element.