The last time you were in a fight

[Fagan_ODowd]

@Brimmer_Bradley

1990. I was coerced into playing for an interfirms football team.
      Without giving too much detail I’d turn up at training sullen and sulky at the thought of being told if I wanted to play on the hurling, I’d have to also play football.
      Anyway during one training session I was put marking a little slip of a lad, a Galway county senior footballer, he wasn’t up to my shoulder but was roasting me in mid.
      He was sniggering at me too. Fuck it says I if he passes me again I’ll flatten him, I duly took the legs out from under him when the next ball came in. I thought as he hit the ground he’d never get up, the wiry little cunt, he fucking bounced right up and nearly took my head right off with a right hook. I was dazed and trying to get my bearings as the various departments and counties duly took their opportunity to settle old scores against their teammates.
      Yer man still managed to get another few digs at me in the chaos of the melee. The cunt.
      As the manger ushered/ linked/carried me away he conceded that it might be best if I didn’t bother with the football again that year.

I decided that night that putting a junior A footballer against a county player was silly
and assuming small lads were easy was also silly.

I am struggling with the concept of that actually happening.

[Tassotti]

poor brimmer mitty, crying out for some attention

[Brimmer_Bradley]

Oh it happened alright @Fagan_ODowd.
No shame in it though, he was a heralded minor football and made a decent senior set up.
The only shame I felt was that I was silly enough to take him on in a half hearted manner. I should have done the job properly.

[Elvis_Brandenberg_Kr]

Venue: Semple Stadium
Year: Circa 1994/95
Event: Limerick v Tipperary Munster U21 championship.

A spirited display saw a Limerick team, who were massive underdogs, turn in a mighty performance against a highly-rated Tipp side. Limerick led from the off but were systematically reeled in in the closing minutes. When Tipp hit the front with a late goal an ignorant roaster behind me, who had heretofore been shocked into silence, started bawling “Hon Tipp boy, sow it into the cunts” ad nauseum.

I was prepared to tolerate his bellowings given the circumstances, however a moment later a Limerick player mis-timed a challenge and was sent to the line by the referee. This prompted a flurry of references to “knackers, tinkers, can’t take ye’re bating” etc. This was an insult too far and I turned around and told him to shut the fuck up. His riposte of “they’re all only tinkers” was the catalyst for me to draw the right hammer and connect as sweetly with his jaw as a roast chestnut with a drizzle of orange chocolate.

To the credit of the Tipp supporters in his presence, they intervened with no more than a quiet “ah here” and a nearby steward’s policing amounted to a “I know he’s a bollix but you can’t be doing that, lad”

Suppose you couldn’t really call it a fight as he didn’t land a blow, but it was my last time involved in violence other than being on a field on which I was a player myself.