Belfast ‘overlooked’
The seat of government for Northern Ireland is home to almost 300,000 people, yet it has just one senior hurling club operating in the current top flight of Antrim hurling, St. John’s.
Why, then, is the GAA not focusing as much attention on Belfast as it is on Dublin, in the promotion of hurling? That’s a question that vexes former Antrim county board chairman John McSparron, the man who was hugely instrumental in bringing the Saffrons into the Leinster championship.
“Belfast has been overlooked by the GAA. There’s no major push here as there is in Dublin to improve hurling. There isn’t anywhere near the same investment. That’s something that deserves to be looked at. Even if you take away the half of the city that doesn’t play gaelic games that still leaves you with a massive population. And that’s the key to improving the games in Antrim — Belfast. The north Antrim clubs are maximising their potential, and there’s great credit due to them for that, but if we’re going to make strides forward we need the city clubs to be up there too.
“St. John’s are there, St. Galls are improving but Rossa are struggling at the minute, and no-one else is making any great inroads. Half the population would have an interest in the GAA so there is massive potential if it was looked at properly, but the investment isn’t there, and that needs to be addressed. I ask the question, what investment went from Central Council to Dublin hurling, then ask the same question about Belfast – is it comparable? Not within an asses’ roar. I know there’s massive investment being made all around the country, but we need to look at Belfast city.”
Of course the Lord helps those who help themselves, but at the moment, says McSparron, the GAA clubs in the city are struggling financially.
“I hate to go on about it but the Troubles left the clubs in Belfast in a difficult situation. During the Troubles a lot of people wouldn’t go into the city centre so the GAA social clubs thrived; now nobody goes to the social clubs, everyone goes to the city centre, and I would say if there’s one club of the 26 in Belfast not in financial trouble, that’s about the height of it. You don’t have the parish boundaries here that you’d have in the country so the traditional way of generating funds isn’t there. We’ll get around to it eventually, we’ll sort out these problems, but in the meantime something has to be done to harness the potential that’s out there. There’s an impression out there that Antrim have big numbers anyway — that’s a misconception, we certainly don’t. Apart from Rossa once and Loughgiel last year, only two teams have dominated the Antrim senior championship for the last 20 years — Dunloy and Cushendall. So it hasn’t been competitive.”
Entering the Leinster championship has been good for the county, and their first win in their three years of competing, a couple of weeks ago in Portlaoise, against Laois, was a huge boost.
“It’s been very positive. It has raised the profile of the county team and has the added benefit of giving the players quality games in the provincial championship before going into the All-Ireland series — we saw the benefit of that last year, against Dublin. We need to replicate that at minor level, to play in the Leinster championship. The indication from Leinster is that they don’t have any objection to it. What mitigates against it is the difficulty in getting approval across the board, but it has to be pushed. Another problem is travel. Having to go to Wexford Park tomorrow after playing Laois in Portlaoise — is it fair to ask Galway and Antrim to travel to the opposition ground all the time? I’m not saying they should come up here, but what about a neutral venue?”
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