Paul Rouse: Ageing gracefully - Masters football proving to be best in class 

Former Mayo footballer Brian Moloney gets his shot in despite the attention of Dublin cornerback Mick Coyne in the All-Ireland Masters semi-final played in St Brigid’s Club, Kiltoom, Co Roscommon, on Saturday, October 16. Picture courtesy of Martin McIntyre, Kilmeena GAA Club

Most people stop playing football too soon in their lives.

The worst examples of this are when children stop; more than half of the players playing Gaelic games at the age of 12 will have stopped by the time they reach 21. This ‘retirement’ is the greatest sadness in sport; much worse than any defeat.

At the other end of the scale, there are many players who enjoy a long span of playing football through their 20s and into their 30s, but also regularly stop playing too early in their lives.

In essence, people can get pushed out the door — or push themselves out the door — too soon.

This is as true for club players as it is for county players. And the impact on a life can be very significant. The loss of an essential part of a person’s identity is not straightforward.

Something you have done across the length of your memory has ended and filling that hole is not always easy.

The most significant aspect of stopping playing is usually the mental one, but it also deeply physical. Without a formal framework of organised sport that helps structure a life, the tendency to drift into unhealthy habits is normal and widespread. Part of this drift is rooted in a sense that you minded yourself for long enough and now it is time to loosen the buckle on the belt. And once the buckle begins to loosen, the direction of travel is often only in one direction.

In general, accepting that you are no longer playing competitive games is no simple thing for many players. There are, of course, those who move on without a backwards look, but many more struggle. This is revealed in studies of retired athletes who slip into depression. The mind and the body are unable to cope with the loss of a lifetime of play. Even many years after finishing up, this is a feeling that can grab hold of you at the most surprising of moments.

This need not be the case. While the great bulk of players stop playing at the highest level by the time they reach their mid-30s, there have always been outliers. Tom Healy, played in the first All-Ireland hurling final in 1887 and scored the winning goal for Tipperary (who were represented by their champion team, Thurles). Leap forward to the Twomileborris team that won the Tipperary championship of 1900; Healy was then 39 years of age. Indeed, the last days of Healy’s career came during the most successful time in the history of Tipperary GAA when they won five All-Ireland senior hurling titles and two All-Ireland senior football titles. Another of the players from those years was Denis Walsh. He ended up with a total of five All-Ireland medals won over a 21-year period (the last when he was almost 40), as Tom Hunt has written.

At the same time, the Blackwater team who won the Leinster Championships for Wexford were recorded as having two players who were aged 40 on their team.

A century later, the Down footballer Mickey Linden played in an Ulster final at 39 years of age and was still playing Ulster club championship football at 45.

At the core of this matter is how a sports organisation should cater for all of it members who wish to play games. The challenge is always to provide games for players at an appropriate level.

This is where the work of the Gaelic Masters Association comes in. It was in 2018 that the GAA’s management committee cleared the way for the use of its grounds for the playing of matches between teams of men aged over 40.

There had previously been a masters’ competition for some two decades until 2009, when problems around insurance (and possibly ill-discipline) led to its abandonment.

Sixteen counties entered teams in 2018. Among the players to compete at masters level on its return in 2018 was Mick O’Keeffe, a corner forward who once performed with distinction for Kilmacud Crokes and on occasion Dublin.

He is the manager now of the Dublin masters team that will take on Tyrone (starring Stephen O’Neill) on Sunday, a repeat of the 2018 final which Dublin won. He is also still playing club football in Dublin: “I play because I love it. I grew up with it. I suppose I’m addicted to it. My wife jokes that I have now retired six times, but that I then go and have to find a new team whenever a new kid comes along. There’s no division lower than the one I’m playing in. I’ve nowhere else to go, I’m on the fourth team in my adopted club of Raheny. It’s great fun. Most of the lads on our club team are over 35. Nothing beats the buzz of playing a football match. Maybe you probably should pack it in if you’re really letting yourself down. But I really enjoy it. There’s also no messing in it now and no silly stuff as there used to be. Basically, as long I can, I will.”

He joined the Dublin team three years ago: “Played in the Masters in 2018 when we won it. In 2019 then I was down the pecking order. They asked me to manage the team — it was a nice way of telling me I would not be playing! In terms of time, I found a way of doing it. It helped that it has been a short season. There’s training but it’s not too onerous. It’s actually just really enjoyable. It’s a great bunch of players. I knew most of them from before, from playing club football.”

And this is not simply a trip down memory lane: “The Dublin panel is mainly really good club players who have kept themselves in good nick. It’s not just for former inter-county players. For us, there are a lot of lads playing still at a high level in Dublin. These are fellas still playing Division 3 and Division 4 football in Dublin, and lads playing junior championship.

“For a lot of inter-county players, the training took a toll on their bodies and they’ve just stopped playing. We have a lot of lads who were at the level below that. And they’re very proud of it. They love it.”

This weekend, Tyrone and Dublin meet again in the masters final, with Cavan and Roscommon playing off in a shield final, with both matches taking place in Fr Manning Gaels GAA Grounds in Drumlish, Co. Longford.

“The standard this year is way ahead. It has gone to a new level. It’ll be two fit and well-organised teams. We barely beat Mayo in the semi-final and it has just been a brilliant competition. There’s more to it than just this. There should be club Over 40s football around the place. The GAA has never really managed to crack that space of recreational play.”

It will matter who wins, but only to a certain point.

The great success is that the last few weeks have seen the tiered (there are four!) Masters competitions kick back into action. Last weekend saw Donegal beat Westmeath and Antrim beaten by an amalgamation representing Longford-Leitrim.

An observer described it as “a great day’s football played in the right spirit”.

There’s something timeless about that.

A prediction: this competition will grow and grow. Most counties will enter teams and it will also lead to the playing of similar club competitions. The best teams will end up playing matches live on television. Basically, it will become a thing of some significance within the GAA calendar of play.

- Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin.