Kennedy is ace of the Month

HANDBALL got a rare shot at the limelight yesterday, as Eoin Kennedy, currently setting the standard in the GAA’s minority game, was named Vodafone Player of the Month.

While some might think handball died with Sports Stadium, the game still breathes in small pockets around the country. Kennedy’s talent was nurtured in the Blanchardstown club of St Brigid’s, under the watchful gaze of his family and Shay Reilly, one of many people trying to keep the game alive. He was named the Vodafone GAA Handball Allstar for 2002, after becoming the first player in history to compete the “All-Ireland singles treble” last year, winning the senior titles in 60 x 30 and 40 x 20, as well as the Irish Open 40x 20. At 24, a big future stretches out before him in the game, but in the past two months, he has started to work behind the scenes to ensure the game does have a future. When handball carried out a strategic review at the behest of the Sports Council recently, it was decreed that the development board should include a player under 30 from each province. Kennedy was the Leinster representative and has begun to formulate ideas about how to resurrect the sport.

“The whole management structure needs to be looked at,” Kennedy said. “It is not like the information or the promotional tools aren’t out there to develop the game, but the information is not reaching the relevant bodies. That needs to change, we need to be selling the game more to media outlets.” Most people probably don’t know, but Ireland also hosts the World Handball Championships in October. However, in a year when anyone with something to spare in the corporate coffers is hitching onto the Special Olympics, sponsorship has become a headache the organisers don’t need. After all, they have to facilitate dozens of visiting American, Canadian and Mexican players. Kennedy is realistic, though. The problems handball faces are similar to any small-time sport in Ireland.