Tuesday Football

26 May 2009

by Jerrad Peters

Media are shirking Coleraine tragedy

My gaze has been trained on a small town in Northern Ireland this week. I'm writing this ahead of the Champions' League final. A big deal, to be sure. But not nearly as big as what happened here just days ago. What happened in Coleraine. Where a man was killed by fans of a rival football club.

Coleraine, for starters, is a small town of 25,000 in the north of Northern Ireland. It's just a few miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean and is famous for the Causeway Coast, Mountsandel Forest and Golden Globe-nominated actor James Nesbitt.

On Sunday afternoon, Kevin McDaid was lending a hand as authorities removed barricades in Coleraine's Catholic neighborhood of Somerset Drive. Rangers had just won the Scottish Premier League title, and local police were concerned about possible sectarian violence.

McDaid, however, helped convince them to take down the barricades. As a volunteer youth worker, he had often encouraged young, Catholic people to co-operate with the largely Protestant police force. He saw physical barriers as extensions of social ones, and he was working to remove them when a motorcade of Rangers fans—drunk after celebrating the championship—turned onto the street and ransacked everything in sight.

The gang was probably incensed by the Irish and Celtic flags and banners of the Catholic corner of the predominantly Protestant town. That said, it would never have taken much to set them off. As many as 70 loyalists were soon on hand, many of them looking to pick a fight.

They began by destroying property. That's how McDaid got involved. As the mob closed in on his neighbor's house, the 49-year-old intervened and was soon surrounded by thugs.

"I ran across to help him," recalled his wife, Evelyn, who was injured in the melee. "They beat me while they beat him. My neighbor had to step in to save me. She was pregnant and they beat her. She shouted, 'I'm pregnant,' but they didn't care. My sons tried to work on him. The ambulance was phoned. But he was dead. I knew he was dead. It was his colour and he couldn't breathe.

McDaid was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. He had suffered numerous kicks to the head, and his wife and Damien Flemming—a neighbor—were also hospitalized. Flemming remains in critical condition.

"I was there when it happened," said McDaid's son Ryan. "We heard screaming and shouting and Damien Flemming was lying on the ground. There was a gang of about 70 people arrived. They came up in cars and taxis and jumped out. There were about 20 of them running about and about 10 doing the real damage. We were totally outnumbered. There was nothing we could do."

Nine men have been arrested and charges are pending. At least one murder charge is likely. A second may be added if Flemming does not recover.

Complicating matters is the allegation—levied by a witness who refused to be identified—that the Coleraine police had advance knowledge of the impending violence. Presbyterian minister Rev. Alan Johnston admitted, Monday, that many Rangers supporters "were drinking heavily while watching Sunday's Rangers victory at pubs in central Coleraine." The witness claimed that police were warned an hour ahead of time that loyalists were congregating at a pub. Nevertheless, he said, only one police car was on the scene during the violence. Four land rovers and a riot squad arrived when it was too late.

Billy Leonard, a former police officer and Sinn Fein politician, believes it was only ever a matter of time before sectarian violence claimed a life in Coleraine.

"This is raw sectarian hatred," he said, "and Coleraine will now have to come to terms with this reality. There is no room for denial and excuses."

Denial, unfortunately, seems to be the modus operandi in most media outlets as far as this story is concerned. No major UK newspaper ran the details of McDaid's death in its sports pages on Monday or Tuesday. In fact, only a handful even broached the subject.

Reporting sectarian deaths triggered by football matches is all well and good if it happens in Uruguay, Argentina or Italy, it seems. But when it's in our Anglo-centric world—and involves an uncomfortable religious dispute—it's easy enough to sweep under the rug.

That's a shame. Sure, the death of Kevin McDaid was as old-hat as The Troubles, but it was a football story, too. And for better or worse, it's the responsibility of football writers to report the events that have taken place in the name of the sport.

That's why my mind will be on Coleraine during the Champions' League final. The game will be a big deal, no question. But while we're celebrating the spectacle in Rome, let's not forget to think about the McDaid family. They've just experienced football in its ugliest form.

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