Tommy Martin: While everyone else is sportspreading, the GAA has shrunk its borders
KINGS OF JULY: Oisin Conaty of Armagh is tackled by Cein Darcy of Galway during this year's All-Ireland SFC final. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
“I like chips and egg on a Tuesday,” says Shirley Valentine’s husband Joe in the eponymous tale of middle-aged yearning. “It’s Thursday. Where’s me steak?” It feels like that at this time of the year when the bit of the GAA calendar long reserved for the steak of All-Ireland finals is instead filled with the chips and egg of club championships and structural reform chatter.
As Joe is at pains to point out, there’s nothing wrong with the latter, but on a Tuesday, not on a Thursday. It might have escaped your notice that on this week, in olden days, media outlets would have been filled with colourful All-Ireland football final homecoming content – unguarded interviews with sozzled heroes, heartwarming vox pops with star-struck kids, tactical breakdowns of who-done-what on the podcast feeds.
