KERRY GAA legend Pat Spillane has told how he’s been hounded at games – and even attacked by a woman with an umbrella outside Croke Park over his punditry.
Templenoe man Pat won eight All-Irelands, nine All Stars and 12 Munster titles during his glittering Kerry tenure.
And the retired schoolteacher said the “ultimate” in life is getting paid for your hobby through the media career he carved out on RTE’s Sunday Game and with newspaper commentary after hanging up his boots.
But the dad-of-three, 65, has received plenty of criticism for his sometimes controversial GAA views over the years.
Pat said: “When I criticise teams, now it is social media, in those days it was the letters. A letter posted in Armagh addressed to Pat the b*****ks Kerry was delivered. Now that either tells you am I that big a b*****ks or that the postal service is that good between Armagh and here…it landed in my door.
“In the letters I would be threatened to be shot, a woman attacked me with an umbrella outside Croke Park one day, she was from Mayo, I’d given out about Mayo.
“There was another year with Ger Canning, I had to hide in the backseat of his car under a coat so that supporters from a certain county didn’t see me because they wanted to kill me. They certainly didn’t want to give me hugs and kisses.
And he told how when his wife of 33 years Rosarii joined him for a Kerry v Armagh All-Ireland final at Croke Park, he had to get a garda escort to his car.
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Pat added: “Kerry got beaten by Armagh, there was a lot of angry Armagh supporters outside Croke Park. I had to get, with Rosarii, a garda escort across the road to my car, into the car park.
“Poor Rosarii, she never again came to a game with me.”
Although the GAA legend isn’t on social media, he is aware of how relentless online commentary can be.
And he said while it doesn’t bother him, his children – daughters Cara and Shona and son Pat Junior – have been affected by online abuse directed at him.
ONLINE ABUSE
He told Lucy Kennedy on Virgin Media’s Living With Lucy: “Social media is tough now. I’m not on social media but I’d sometimes flick through it.
“Now I know with my children, they’d be watching and they’ve been affected, even Rosarii.
“I’d sort of say, why did someone at five o’clock in the morning post this s***e about me? Keyboard warriors are faceless cowards.”
And Pat said he has the last laugh even if he’s wrong with his commentary, as he gets paid to explain why he was wrong on TV again the following Sunday.
He joked: “Fellas would say ‘ah Spillane you b**ks, you were wrong again last Sunday’, and what’d really piss them off, I’d say ‘Ya, but do you know what’s going to happen next Sunday? I’m going to get paid for explaining why I was wrong last Sunday’. That’s cracking the system.”
LIVING with Lucy airs on Virgin Media One tomorrow (Monday) at 9pm.
