Spotting the ball and sowing the seeds of a life in sport

Over the past four months, clubs around the country, in all sports, have done what they can not to let habits break. 

Getting ready for the return of underage GAA at Sarsfields Hurling Club, Cork, with hand sanitiser on site are Isabelle and Luke O'Brien with their father Finbarr, coaching officer, (left) and Ethan Brickley (white helmet). At back Tadhg Murphy, club chairman, and Daniel Kearney, senior club captain, who will assist with underage coaching. Picture Denis Minihane.

They ran a lovely scheme out in Sarsfields GAA club this lockdown. A fresh twist on spot the ball.

Coaching officer Finbarr O’Brien dreamed it up and, together with juvenile chairman Keith Mulcahy, put the underage coaches on high alert.

The pitch was off-limits, but any youngster spotted out in Glanmire with a hurley in his or her hand or a football under an arm would win a prize.

So the network kept tabs and reported back and many grips and sliotars and other tokens were won.

There was Zoom fitness and skills too, club role models like Daniel Kearney and Eoin O’Sullivan happy to help. 

Though Finbarr could see, as the months wore on, that it was in danger of becoming a little like homework, with all the extra screentime demanded by school too. 

They’ll be gentle welcoming back more than 700 kids to the pitch this week. And they hope not to have lost many. 

GAA president Larry McCarthy set the right tone today for the great reopening in noting that lifelong participation in Gaelic games shouldn’t be measured in cups or medals.

In Saturday's Examiner Sport, 17 respected GAA coaches offer their recommendations on ways to make sure youngsters fall back in love with their sport.

Derek McGrath wraps it in a nutshell.

"It's down to the warmth of the welcome, making the experience really enjoyable, showing that the club is a place where you have fun when you go down there."

Over the past four months, grassroots clubs around the country, in all sports, have done what they can not to let habits break. 

At Douglas Hall, international gymnast Andy Smyth turned young footballers on their heads, doing handstands. Saoirse Noonan didn’t forget where she started out, contributing skills videos.

Innishvilla FC did it all too. They’ll welcome back more than 200 boys and girls this week and director of football Shane Fitzgerald is confident they’ll return with a spring in their step. 

He does worry for the 18-year-olds, who have missed the guts of two seasons of sport, and may soon be leaving home at an age when lifelong participation hangs in the balance.

He'd love if they all had a clearer pathway back to playing games.

He worries too that coaches may have discovered other ways to spend Saturday mornings. That some of the heroes who carried clubs for so long realise they have no more to give.

On that note, sad news arrived from home this week of the death of a true volunteer, a legend of North Tipp soccer. John Freeman devoted many hours of his life to ensuring kids kept up a sporting habit.

I remember him from teenage days as a kind man who was never harsh when a gangly centre-half let him down badly.

The kind of man who helped sow seeds of lifelong participation that certainly wouldn’t be measured in cups and medals.

Thanks John and rest in peace.