Dear Noel,
I brought the lads away for a training camp in Playa des Ingles last month. The club officers came along, too.

Things got a bit out of hand. Nothing major – just a few unexpected brushes with transvestism, two lads invited by the apartment manager to find accommodation elsewhere, some ground hurling with a Camogie team from down the country, complaints about the rattle of the steel cogs in the corridor at night, a burger thrown at a moustachioed bar singer from Co. Mayo just as he was winding up for the last chorus of Peaceful, Easy Feeling.

Nothing you wouldn’t see in any small town in Ireland any weekend night.
But the chairman’s made a song and dance about it. He’ll resign if players aren’t suspended. In hindsight, the lads probably shouldn’t have fired him up on the carousel in Waterford Airport.

If the players are suspended, we haven’t a hope in the divisional junior championship this year. The chairman has forgotten that both training sessions went great in Playa des Ingles. You can’t make hermits out of lads either.
What should I do, Noel?

- Lar, club manager, Co. Carlow

 Noel replies – I know that crooner. He was run out of Lanzarote when he left Swinford, Balla, and Keelogues out of the Boys of the County Mayo.

I’m impressed the lads only threw a burger at him. In Puerto del Carmen he was twice dangled upside down from an upstairs window.

The other stuff – minor details. No harm, though, to get the players to fund a bonding weekend in an isolated abbey out west. That should take the heat off.

Don’t worry about the chairman, Lar. I never yet met one who wasn’t in a permanent state of threatening to resign. If he digs in too much, tell him you still have his room receipt with those miscellaneous items on it.

Noel plays the ball, not the man. Reach him on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; www.knowledgeablenoel.com; Skype (knowledgeable.noel); and Facebook (Knowledgeable Noel.)

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