by
Norman Freeman

Unpleasant story, this. It began with an unpleasant row during a hurling match between fierce parish rivals. It continued unpleasantly for over two months when a group of four beery fellows followed a player round to every game, shouting abuse at him from the terraces. And it ended when a resourceful girl decided that enough was enough and took an action that had most unpleasant results.

Let’s start at the beginning. Intense parish rivalry at club level over the years spawned a long history of rancour between two neighbouring teams.

“Ah they were always a rough crowd. The father got the two front teeth knocked out near the end of the county final. And the fellow who did it, you’d see him walking round today, bold as a dog.”

These two sides met in an early round of the championship, which was played on a league basis. This was a hard match, with lots of charging, bumping and boring going on a lot of the time. Near the end, one of the players from the home team – let’s call him Murphy - got involved in a fist fight with his marker. Murphy was coming out by far the worst when he managed to land a haymaker to the jaw of his opponent, felling him.

Neither the referee nor the linesmen or umpires saw the incident and actually the two men made it up there and then and shook hands. However, many of the spectators saw the row. It aroused old angers and resentments among some supporters of the rival team. Four fellows, who drank together and went to matches together, started going to matches in which Murphy was playing. From the terraces they shouted abuse at him.

“Get out of that Murphy, you thug you,” was the least abusive phrase that was used by these barrackers. If the player fumbled the ball or was beaten to it by his opponent, these fellows jeered him unmercifully.

For Murphy it became distressing. It definitely affected his game. The chairman of his club issued a statement to the media saying that it was most unfair that any individual should be consistently barracked in this way, match after match, venue after venue.

Everyone knew who the Gang of Four were. They were regarded as rough types, layabouts, even in their own parish. In fairness to them they were not born with silver spoons in their mouths. They were the unfortunates who were last to be taken on in the meat plant and first to be made redundant.




“I don’t know what to do about them,” Murphy said to Amy W., a girl he used run into at social events in the club. It never occurred to him that this small, plain girl might be keen on him. She made subtle advances but he merely thought she was just being friendly in an ordinary way.

This time she said, in a light-hearted, playful way, “I’ll put a stop to the Gang of Four shouting at you.”
“How will you do that?”
“Never mind how. But if I succeed you have to take me to the Rod Stewart concert in Nowlan Park”
“Fair enough,” he said, not really thinking that Amy could fulfil her part of the bargain.

Two days later each of the Four got a typed note in the post. It read: ‘Medical science has shown that some of the emotional and mental poisons in the abuse-shouter can find their way into the intestines, causing serious problems in the digestive system.’

When they met in the pub that evening they waved the notes about, falling around the place laughing. They thought it was hilarious. And when they went to the next hurling match in which Murphy was playing they gave him an even harder time. Some of the spectators around them grumbled their disapproval. Others moved away from them.

The next match was a semi-final of the county championship. Murphy’s team was playing. A good crowd began to gather and among them, gathered like vultures on the terraces of the town end, was the Gang of Four.

During the minor game a slight girl in a white cloth coat and wide-brimmed white hat began to move among the spectators. She was carrying a tray of orange drinks on a tray suspended from a strap round her neck and giving them out, apparently in a sampling exercise, the kind we often see in supermarkets. Quite obviously she was wearing a blonde wig and a large pair of dark glasses.

It was a warm day and nobody refused her offer of a small bottle of orange juice. When she arrived at the Gang of Four these greedy fellows almost snapped the bottles out of her hand. What they didn’t notice was that, unlike the other bottles, there was a tiny blue identity label stuck to the top.

The sampling girl then picked her way back quickly through the gathering crowd, went out the gate and, unseen by anyone, hurriedly divested herself of her white overalls, cap and wig and sped away in her small car.

Within a few minutes the Gang of Four were showing signs of intestinal distress. They were holding their stomachs, belching and burping and passing wind in a most unmannerly way. They started to hurry themselves away to find the nearest toilet but it was too late. The powerful laxative with which the orange had been laced had the effect of violently scouring their bowels. Their clothes were destroyed and people in their vicinity were appalled by the smell.

This event effectively put an end to their abuse-shouting, even though the doctor assured them that emotional poisons were unlikely to spread to the digestive systems.

“Did you get anything to eat from one of those fast-food vans outside the grounds?” he asked. When they told him they had had several pies he nodded his head knowingly. “Those outlets are notoriously unhygienic. Botulism and salmonella are often on the menu along with curried chips and burgers. You’re lucky you didn’t end up in hospital.”

They actually gave up going to matches for a long time out of shame that they might meet someone who had been visible and nasal witness to their distress. And when they resumed attending there was never a peek out of them whenever Murphy was playing.

Of course, during the semi-final game Murphy became aware that he was no longer being barracked. He gave a great sigh of relief. He actually played a lot better. After the game he went to see Amy. They sat together in the club-house over a cup of coffee.
“I don’t think they’ll bother you any more,” she correctly predicted.
“How did you do it, in the name of God?”
“I might tell you after we come back home from the Rod Stewart concert,” she said, putting her small hand just above his knee, and winking at him invitingly.
“Oh right, right,” he said, looking at her cautiously from under his eyebrows, wondering what he was letting himself in for.