Are we really all in this together?
- From the poem ‘John Quane’ by Gabriel Fitzmaurice
I have a friend of Kerry extraction who was reared in Limerick and lives in Galway. This man values greatly his right of blood to give unequivocal support to the footballers of the Kingdom. Circumstances have brought him to four championship games this summer. He was in Pearse Stadium for Mayo’s annihilation of Galway, he was in the Gaelic Grounds for Cork’s facile victory over Limerick and he made the trips to Killarney to see Kerry dispose of Tipperary and Waterford without breaking sweat.
While he believes that no discerning man would ever view as an imposition the chance to watch Colm Cooper play football, having done the math, he was feeling a little sorry for himself when we last spoke.
“That’s four games and if you add the winning margins together it comes to 78 points. It must be some kind of record,” he said despondently.
I tried to give him a bit of perspective: “Imagine what it’s like to play in one of those games,” I said.
He couldn’t, so I told him a story I heard from a Waterford defender at Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta in Rinn ua gCuanach last Monday.
Towards the end of the previous Saturday evening’s game Colm Cooper asked the referee how much time was left and was told that five minutes remained. Kerry were 20 points to the good at that stage and the Waterford players might have been forgiven for thinking that Cooper had grown bored of bamboozling the opposition or that he had felt a pang of compassion for their plight and wanted the whole sorry affair brought to an end as soon as possible. Much to the dismay of the Waterford defender, Gooch turned to plead with his team-mates: ‘Lads, five minutes left! Four more scores!’ By the final whistle Kerry had scored a further goal and three points.
My mate thought this was a wonderful story, a worthy addition to the legend of Cooper and a great omen for Kerry’s fortunes in 2013. But imagine being that soldier? How could anyone hold it against that Waterford defender if he had decided there and then that he would be better off sipping a tall cold one in a downtown Manhattan bar, watching Colm Cooper bamboozle someone else?
There’s been a bit of talk in recent weeks of the apparent disparity between the haves and the have-nots of Championship 2013, but the steady trickle of players packing in the inter-county game and heading abroad for their summer football hasn’t really caused a stir.
Even before this year’s national league had wound down, Down saw three of their players, Paul McComiskey, Arthur McConville and Darren O’Hagan opt out to travel abroad and a fourth, Peter Fitzpatrick, away to Australia.
Barely a few days after the opening round in the Ulster championship, Armagh lost Declan McKenna, Peter Carragher and Gavin McParland after they were given job offers in the United States.
A week later Kevin Meaney and Gary Walsh of Laois departed and they were joined just a few short days ago by their team-mate, Brendan Quigley. Things are not much better in Offaly as Brian Connor and John Moloney are headed Stateside and based on the sanction lists available to view on the GAA website, there are many other counties seeing the talent drain first hand since the start of the summer.
All sorts of reasons have been put forward for the exodus including the six-week gap between provincial defeat and first round qualifier. Others don’t hold out much hope for ultimate glory. Unsatisfactory training conditions within various camps are cited, as are itchy feet yearning for travel, a banjaxed fixtures plan that sees little club action during summer months, and of course, the continuing lack of employment opportunities for young footballers.
In Armagh’s case, their manager, Paul Grimley asked “that supporters do not judge these players harshly without being in possession of the full facts.”
The manager went on to say that he “regards them as fine young men who have given great commitment to their county in the past.” Understanding and magnanimous words indeed from a beleaguered manager.
Grimley has, of course, seen this before when, as assistant manager to Donal Keoghan in Cavan, three of their players, Seánie Johnston, Martin Cahill and Paul Brady took flight across the Atlantic after defeat to Down in the Ulster championship six years ago.
That was a different, more prosperous era so could we assume that players left because of youthful exuberance and a desire to see more of the world as opposed to any financial considerations? It must be acknowledged that there is a great deal of work being done by individuals and by clubs in the promotion of the games in the United States and that having inter-county players out for a summer greatly enhances the image of the game over there.
The perpetual counterpoint is that the nurturing of grassroots movement among the American-born presents the best chance of a sustainable future for Gaelic games in the States.
It’s hard to blame many club players for wanting to take up on an attractive offer for two or three months of the summer, especially in cases where the club scene is put on hold to facilitate the inter-county action. In certain instances, players can take off in early June secure in the knowledge that they may only miss the very odd county league match between now and September.
But the county player’s situation is a bit harder to fathom. Having put in the effort all winter and into spring it does seem strange that an elite player would want to jump ship as soon as things got rough.
Writing on these pages a few weeks back, John Riordan said that “it’s only the top clubs with the biggest budgets in Boston, Chicago and New York that can offer the lure of a 60-day sanction, a job, cash and probably even a roof under which to sleep off the endless hangover.”
Inter-county players eligible for a J1 visa have until July 20 to apply for an official sanction for eligibility under Rule 6.11 (b), so we could see a few more high-profile defections over the next few weeks.
The only deterrent on the horizon is the new immigration reform bill going through the US Senate which stipulates that J1 visa applicants would have to secure prospective employers or sponsors before arriving in the States. The bill also proposes a new €500 visa fee and potential employers could have to pay this additional cost. For clubs who believe that the best means of promoting the games lies in attracting young inter-county footballers out for the summer, it is a price worth paying.
But surely, as former Laois stalwart Joe Higgins said of his own county’s case this week, “lads should see it out to the end. We’re either in this together or we’re not.”
Another friend of mine, who still yearns for the steadfastness and the truth of the John Quane era, texted me on his way out of the Cork v Limerick game in the Gaelic Grounds recently: “Truly shocking,” read the text. Expressing my own surprise at the result, I asked if he had stayed until the bitter end: “There is a saying in American sports that fans leave early ... supporters stay until the end.”
Until some of our friends in the departure lounge get that, very little will change.
