SIDELINE CUT: The GAA are probably right to end the wonderful bedlam of fans stampeding across the Croke Park sward. We'll be safer, but where's the fun in that?

THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the GAA effectively banning post All-Ireland final pitch invasions not only brings an end to one of the great GAA customs, it must leave many moseying Kilkenny men feeling as if they have been cheated.

The stripy folks are a notoriously laid-back bunch and they are also expert on post-match decorum. On the past three September Sundays, the field at Croke Park has been theirs, and theirs alone to roam. It would be wrong to describe the moments after a Kilkenny hurling victory as an “invasion”.

What occurs is closer to a reunion between players and their families and friends. The various Kilkenny tribes amble down from the stands in their own good time and form patient cues to congratulate the players on their win. Many of them have probably played here on All-Ireland winning Kilkenny teams and so trotting up to the Ard Comhairle is nothing new to them.

True, a few of the more excitable fans may form a “chair” for Brian Cody but such is their expertise you feel no fear for the redoubtable Village man. When counties less experienced achieve a rare All-Ireland success, attempts by supporters to “chair” their men off the field are terrifying to witness. The poor manager or the top scorer looks like a man being tossed about in a rough sea as the supporters try to form something that resembles a seat.

Invariably, the object of their worship is thrown several feet in the air and then he disappears altogether. When he next surfaces, his cap or sweatband may have gone missing, his shirt is askew and although he is smiling, a vaguely terrified look has appeared on his face, as though he now fears he just might die before he gets to see the cup lifted.

Then there is is the reserve army in the background, all filled with the burning need to thump their hero very, very hard on the back to convey their pleasure and admiration.

Often, victorious players, when chatting to Marty Morrissey on The Sunday Game, will attest "it was very physical out there." They neglect to add the match itself was a breeze in comparison to the wallops they received from the supporters afterwards.

The Kilkenny crowd, though, are so practised in the art of winning that their back slaps are orderly and more often than not, handshakes suffice. And when they chair their hurling men off the field, the players might as well be sitting on thrones taken from the palace in Versailles.

And not all of the Kilkenny cognoscenti take the field anyhow. Some beat a retreat to Kennedy's of Drumcondra. Others keep their place in the stands just long enough to see the silver raised into the autumn afternoon and then walk briskly to their cars, which are parked facing south. After all, there is not much point in heading down onto the field every year. It would take from the occasion. You can be sure many Kilkenny folks, particularly those in the higher altitude sections of the Hogan and Cusack mountains, had not planned on walking the green swathe until after the five in a row had been completed. But now, it seems their chance of gathering under the Hogan stand to sing The Rose of Mooncoinhas evaporated.

The GAA’s announcement that this year’s celebrations are to take place in the centre of the field was substantiated by several sensible reasons. Nonetheless, it was disappointing.

The main reason for ending the practice of the crowd invasion is money. The GAA revealed they have shelled out close on half a million notes arising from injury claims made by people involved in the post-match euphoria.

It has to be acknowledged there is a certain element of madness to some post All-Ireland celebrations, particularly among counties for whom winning is a novelty. In those instances, the final whistle produces a reaction that, viewed from the upper Hogan, resembles a panicked crowd fleeing from something large, reptilian and plainly hungry.

Human beings just scatter in every direction. All they know is they want to be on that field. What they do when they get there is another matter entirely.

There is a certain honour – much like the Sioux system of counting coup – in being the first fan to “congratulate” the manager.

Archive footage has documented many examples of guys who clearly have not run for many, many years, covering the width of the Croke Park field in a time that would make Usain Bolt sit up and take notice. They have spied Cyril Farrell or Brian McEniff or Kevin Heffernan or Joe Kernan or Páidí or John O’Mahony or Ger Loughnane and they are heading towards him like a torpedo. In that instance, they are half-club secretary, half-pit bull terrier. Often, their match day accoutrements – a flag or a straw hat decorated in county colours – will be lost in their vapour trail and when they reach the manager, they will greet him with a kind of passion not captured on film since Robert Doisneau took that photo in Paris.

In those moments of ecstasy, they will place their manager, the cult heroes, in an unbreakable headlock and will beam straight into the camera – they always seem to know where it is – as if to say, “Look at me now”.

Because by becoming the first man on the scene – by communing with the manager before the team captain or the poor man’s wife has had a chance to – the fan is sort of indelibly associated with the victory. Chances are he will be always be shown in newsreel footage and, in the years and decades afterwards, the myth will develop that this fan was held in special regard by the manager. He will be asked what the manager said to him in those precious moments and he will just smile enigmatically. If he told the truth, the answer would be; “I’m choking. Please. I can’t breathe.”

The GAA were clever in their timing of the announcement that this wonderful bedlam must end. They resisted declaring a new Champions League-style celebration but that is what it will amount to. A hokey platform, in storage since Red Hurley was last booked for half-time, will be wheeled out and garlanded with advertisements and the cup will be presented there.

Chances are that the fans of Kilkenny and Tipperary, blue bloods on these All-Ireland days, will be able to muster the necessary restraint. But it won’t be the same.

The lap of honour does not sit well with Gaelic games teams. The old way – the slow walk up the fabled Hogan steps and the raising of the cup before the gathered masses below marked the completion of a perfect day. Those twentieth century images of black and amber men, of blue and gold men standing there lighting celebratory smokes and boasting dandy quiffs or unfeasible sideburns, depending on the decade, are part of GAA lore.

Ultimately, the GAA are probably right. Ending it may be safer for everyone. But where is the fun in that?“