‘I should have taken the card off him and given it to him’ – Brendan Devenney on famous referee push

Former Donegal forward Brendan Devenney said that he should have taken the red card off of referee Joe McQuillan after he received two yellow cards against Fermanagh in a 2004 All-Ireland qualifier.

Devenney received a second yellow card after a hard foul and was subsequently dismissed by McQuillan but not before he pushed the referee multiple times. Croke Park’s Games Administration Committee (GAC) enforced a six-month ban for the push and Devenney said that in hindsight he should have just taken his card if he was going to go the length of pushing him.  

"I should have taken the card off him and given it to him," said Devenney on The GAA Hour LIVE from Letterkenny. "It was the only time in my life, soccer or gaelic, that I've ever been sent off. From underage all the way [up]. "You're on about rivalry, I think you think that because you're a Leinsterman," Devenney told host Colm Parkinson. "That's like you talking about some game between Laois and Westmeath in some game in 2004, I don't know shit about that. "It was a tight rivalry between us and them and there were plenty of bad manners on the pitch. It was funny, he [Marty McGrath] was giving me plenty of it at the time but it was him that ended up shepherding me off. "I saw a picture a few weeks later of Marty as if he was the peacemaker. I was like that bastard. I have since apologised, of course you shouldn't do that, but there was a lot of stuff going on at the time. "I was kind of getting a wee bit fed up playing gaelic."

Devenney also recalled his hearing with the Games Administration Committee at Croke Park and said that then Donegal manager Brian McEniff acted like a court jester at the hearing.

"I landed up to Croke Park, I'll never forget it," added Devenney. "I have a serious problem with authority, I don't like anyone telling me what to do. You see hierarchies and that, it's not for me. I landed in and McQuillan came up and he was a wee bit like a court jester and he said 'I'm throwing myself at the mercy of the GAC'. "He did this wee humble thing and I'm kind of sitting there going 'fuck you'. I got six months which was right enough."