What’s the most famous non-built football pitch in NEI? That’s easy – Casement Park. Rugby has Ravenhill, soccer has Windsor Park, Gaelic games has, um, a non-pitch. And yes, Virginia, it is true that Gaelic games, alas, are played almost exclusively by people from a Catholic background.
But there’s another non-built football pitch that is a serious challenger as a news item, and that’s the non-pitch at Lisneal College in Derry. According to the Belfast Telegraph, the school didn’t even make a direct application for funding for a new pitch, but after a meeting with Education Minister Paul Givan, crikey – the school gets over £700,000 for a new football pitch.
“Nice one!” you may say. Indeed. Then why was Lisneal’s College principal, Michael Allen, crying his eyes out on the Nolan show and saying he hadn’t slept for a week? That’s because people on social media were being very nasty and accusing him of getting the pitch, without having applied for it, because some 90% of his pupils come from a Protestant background.
Now, being a bit emotionally incontinent myself, I know how tears can ambush you and leave you weeping and embarrassed in a public space. And I certainly wouldn’t underestimate the impact of social media abuse being hurled at you. Been there, endured the twitterstorm thing,felt the pain. But if Mr Allen hadn’t slept “for a week” (a slight exaggeration,maybe?), was the Nolan show the best place to be, discussing the spanking new football field his school had been awarded? I could have told him: the BBC, whether it’s radio or television, just LOVES tears. It’s hard not to watch the screen when someone starts to cry. Just as it’s hard not to gawk at a car accident as you drive past. Nolan kept telling Mr Allen that he could see in his face that it had been an emotional time for him; the biggest-presenter-in-the-country nudged Mr Allen towards tears rather than away from them.
Mr Allen was particularly upset at the idea that he’d be involved in something that was sectarian, which apparently many social media comments had claimed. None of us can be sure whether sectarianism was involved when the DUP’s Paul Givan gifted Lisneal College with a £700,000 pitch without them making an application for it ; but it does give off a bad smell in a city like Derry where some schools are trying to patch leaks, repair out-dated classrooms and generally limp along. And the bad smell thickens when you recall how Paul Givan cut off funding for Catholic youngsters to go to the Gaeltacht to learn Irish, and in the same message wished one and all a Merry Christmas.
There’s word now that Mr Allen has considered retiring. BBC News claims that in February Mr Allen had an interview and was offered the job of Education Advisor at the Strule Shared Education Campus in Omagh, but has yet to decide whether to accept that job.
Sounds like a reasonably soft landing for the unfortunate Mr Allen…Wait a minute. Did I just suggest that being gifted a £700,000 football pitch when you hadn’t apply for it was a painful experience? My mind must be crumbling faster than I thought.
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to a tear-free Nolan interview with the aptly-named Paul Givan.
The cynic in me wondered at the timing of the tears – three minutes before the end of the very soft interview1
In his preamble to the interview, does my memory serve me right, that his self-deprecatory ‘poor me’, I’m not very good with words – and him a college principal, sounded rather hollow?
Was the whole interview scripted by Nolan?
Leave Mr Allen alone. From what has been publicised about him he is a decent man and done nothing wrong.
But if Mr Allen hadn’t slept “for a week” (a slight exaggeration,maybe?), was the Nolan show the best place to be, discussing the spanking new football field his school had been awarded?
why do you not go and ask Mr Richard Pengelly as to why Mr Paul Givan says that the EA made the decision.