Cork Feen's Guide to Waterford Shams

24th Jun 2004

Cork Feen's Guide to Waterford Shams
Danny Elbow


If you managed to endure the hardships of standing outside Pairc ⁄i Rinn last Monday evening for your Munster Final tickets then fair play to you. Several times a year dedicated sports fans in Cork must endure this penance in order to pay homage to their idols and heroes.

Players salute fans after last year's destruction of the Deise

Munster fans, GAA fans and more recently soccer fans have been spotted doing time outside St. Colman's Park in Cobh waiting for their chance to see Cobh Ramblers versus Cork City at Turner's Cross later in the summer. A heavenly reward some might say and one must admire the religious dedication of some fans. While queuing may be described as hell by some it's really more like purgatory - there's a long wait but you'll get where you want to go if you put in the time.

Se·n ”g: denies Chelsea are interested

With a certain smugness some of us hurling fans more familiar with the internet and credit cards have managed to put those terrible days behind us - exchanging six hours in a queue keeping tabs on anybody who might look like their trying to jump the queue for a seat, computer and an internet connection.

Waterford's forwards wait in vain

With credit card number learned off by heart for extra speed - we wait like predators pressing refresh every few seconds waiting for the prey to appear. Suddenly with the simple click of a mouse button (or F5 for the real geeks out there) the "buy now" link appears and the who-can-type-quickest race begins. After a minute of furious key banging and mouse clicking you can finally sit back with the words "thank you for your purchase on the screen". Ahhhh!

You can enjoy the weekend while the computer illiterate spend the next few days worrying about babysitters or how angry their boss will be while they spend their entire Monday queuing for tickets - not to mention the physical battles as handbags and hurleys are used in the scrum to win a precious stand ticket.

What do you know about Waterford though?

Most Corkonians do not know any people from Waterford. Waterford-onians, or whatever they call themselves, come from a plot of land lying to the east of Youghal. Nobody knows where it ends. It has a fairly small but robust population who make very few appearances in Cork. Many of them are regularly turned away at the border by Peoples Republic of Cork militia for security and culture reasons.

Waterford Crystal: some shit the old lade would like.

Their accents are difficult to understand and not are not as musical as the Cork accent. If you don't pay great attention to what their saying you may just hear something like "ahhhhhhh". The word 'Waterford' is pronounced by the more articulate Waterford fans something like 'Wahfude'.

Every building in their city is either a pub, a bookies or a chipper which gives you a stark incite into their way of life. You will find that many of them will say things like "C'mon de Deise!" (pronounced day-sha) and will try to sell you pieces of crystal they have smuggled out of what seems like their county's only employer: Waterford Crystal. To be fair, their food industry also employs and feeds a huge percentage of the population:

A player demands more chips to continue

Although the national census doesn't assess arse size you can be sure that this crowd would win if it did. They just love chips. While hardened GAA fans from Cork, Tipp and Clare might set up their primas at the back of their cars before and after a match for a dose of sausages, pudding, drisheen or just plain old sandwiches and tea Waterford fans have a different agenda.




They simply can't get enough greasy chips. Its likely that as you read this that chip vans with W registration plates are already pouring into Thurles to battle for the best positions - hoping to make enough money to put their children through college such will be the takings collected from grease hungry Waterford fans.

While drinking might be something most county boards might wish to discourage among their players in Waterford it is rumoured that the county board have imposed a ban on players heading for the nearest grease house after training. Any player caught nipping in for a double cheese burger and chips while they're still in the championship is banned (guess that means they can eat all they want in August and September then!).