GAA launch initiative to increase urban participation

THE GAA hopes to increase its membership by 20% by 2016, and has targeted urban areas with little tradition of Gaelic Games as the main source of these players and volunteers.

The Association yesterday funnelled €200,000 into its National Urban Programme to fund a pilot scheme designed to encourage children not currently members of a club to play Gaelic Games.

Fourteen existing Games Promotion Officers have been seconded to take charge of the pilot scheme which will run for a 12 week period in Galway, Sligo, Dublin, Athlone, Drogheda, Bray, Belfast, Derry, Cork, Limerick and Waterford.

“We want to increase our share in these urban areas,” said GAA President Christy Cooney yesterday.

“We have a significant share but we want to get more and more people playing. Not just up to U14 level, but to keep them playing up to U18 level which is the key age-group for every sport.

“After the 12 week pilot has been completed, we’ll sit down and assess the results and then hopefully be in a position to extend the programme in a significant way.”

Sligo county footballer, Charlie Harrison, is overseeing the implementation of the scheme in his home town of Sligo, and at the first coaching clinic last week brought together over 80 children who are not a member of a GAA club.

“In Sligo a lot of the kids are getting coaching and have the basic skills already, it is just getting them into the clubs that’s the challenge,” he said. “There’s a problem getting the school/club link going. So the idea of this is getting them altogether in one area, that’s what we are doing in Sligo anyway. It’s getting the skills back up to scratch so they are not going into the clubs and feeling inadequate if they don’t know the skills. We are going to train them up and link into the clubs and hopefully they will stay with it and get the parents involved too.

“We’ll also try to train the parents as coaches and hopefully everything will all link up together well.”