Celebrating all GAA clubs on Patrick’s Day
It’s a good idea. The motives underpinning the change are entirely noble – and county boards need to support it. Croke Park, however, doesn’t want to create the impression that they are railroading this change through Central Council.
Perhaps conscious of the criticism over the executive decision-making that surrounded the deal with Sky Sports, the management committee is exercising extreme caution. County boards with concerns about the proposal have been asked to submit a written document to Croke Park.
The resistance to binning the St Patrick’s Day finals is entirely understandable. It’s a good occasion, the matches attract decent crowds, and the fixtures are engrained in the national consciousness.
While all those points are true, we still shouldn’t get carried away. By any stretch of the imagination, St Patrick’s Day is a fairly mundane national holiday. Drooping shamrocks wrapped in tinfoil.
The Hibs. Bands. Bright gaudy uniforms and grey, forlorn skies. The stark contrast is ever so slightly depressing. The crowning glory is supposed to take place in Dublin city centre. Floats. Ugh. Rio de Janeiro– it is not. The cold, brutal truth is this: in our failure to create a proper national festival on St Patrick’s Day, the All-Ireland club finals have slipped into the void and gained popularity.
Put simply, there is nothing else on. The finals in Croke Park provide a much-needed talking point. Walk into a house or a pub, and the channel will be on TG4 though many people will not have a clue what is being said. The level of engagement can be very limited.
In pubs, Manchester United and Liverpool on a Sunday afternoon would generate a lot more volume from the patrons.
In the end, the All-Ireland finals are an historic day for the clubs that are involved. The rest of us are on the outside looking in. Last Friday night I had the privilege of being a guest at a talk night that was held in Slaughtneil. The BBC’s Mark Sidebottom was the host and the other panellists were Joe Brolly, Anthony Tohill and Greg Blaney. The hall was packed.
The pride, excitement and apprehension around the place was tangible. As a member of a neighbouring club, I was hugely envious. It would a colossal mistake to deny any club the experience which Slaughtneil’s members have enjoyed over the past few weeks.
But does anyone seriously think that it would make a shred of difference if the All-Ireland finals were played before Christmas? An All-Ireland final is an All-Ireland final.
And Croke Park is Croke Park. As long as those constants are in place, it doesn’t really matter when the games are played. Given the lack of GAA activity in December, a pre-Christmas All-Ireland club final would be an instant success. Supporters from the clubs will attend regardless of when the game is played. Neutrals will come to Dublin for the weekend.
Christmas shopping on Saturday. The matches on Sunday. It’s an easy sell. And the benefits for the GAA are immense. The St Patrick’s Day final causes severe disruption and places ridiculous demands on players. For the privilege of appearing in an All-Ireland final, finalists must endure three months of training for two games.
That’s a perfect illustration of the crazy training-to-games ratio which has been inflicted on club players for decades. If the new proposals are passed for 2016, we could have provincial finals played on November 13, the All-Ireland semi-finals a fortnight later (November 27), and the finals on December 11.
Played in isolation from the league, those club fixtures would gain maximum exposure, and quick succession of matches would significantly reduce the costs for the clubs. And if the club championship is completed in early December, it will allow players rejoin county squads.
Deprived of the services of their Ballyhale and Slaughtneil contingents, is it any coincidence that the Derry footballers and the Kilkenny’s hurlers are on the brink of relegation? The main challenge facing the GAA is to come up with an event which will replace the gap left on St Patrick’s Day.
The proposal document includes a suggestion to play a league game between the previous year’s All-Ireland finalists. No doubt someone will make an appeal for the Railway Cup too. But the new GAA President Aoghan Ó Fearghail has already come up with a fantastic solution. In his address to Congress earlier this month, the Cavan man said: “We used to have a club day and I want to see that brought back in 2016.
I want every club to make sure that you have one day where you celebrate everything about your club.” That day should take place on March 17. For all the rhetoric about the GAA community, club members almost never come together under one roof. But imagine a St Patrick’s Day where the committee, senior players, underage players, parents and children met in the morning for a ‘Big Breakfast’.
In the afternoon, there could be a children’s sports day. No iPads. Races for youngsters. A skills tournament for underage players. The day would also be a perfect opportunity for the club’s main fundraiser – a sponsored bike ride. A sporting challenge in mid-March provides a much needed goal for anyone training in January and February. After the exercise, there could be entertainment.
This could be the day when the senior team meets for one last bonding session (binge drinking episode) before they make their final preparation for the league. The possibilities are endless.
In Spain, France and Italy – the procession through the town on a balmy summer night is magical. Watching some critter getting foundered while they stand on the back of a lorry just doesn’t hold the same allure. We need something different.
The GAA can provide an alternative. Instead of St Patrick’s Day being the national holiday when we looks with jealousy towards Croke Park, it could become the day when every club unites and celebrates the glory of its own existence. That would be a proper national festival. Failing that, we could just go and watch the bands.
Contact: @HeaneyPaddy
