Voting to maintain discomfort for camogie players. Really?

TIPP'S Eimear McGrath in the All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford at UPMC Nowlan Park in Kilkenny. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

A WhatsApp SOS was sent out to the three sisters. It didn’t matter that two of them were at a wedding in Rome and the other was watching the Galway footballers in Ruislip. Their only brother needed help and educating.

I grew up watching the three of them playing camogie without ever once inquiring about the apparel. So, just what is it about the camogie skort. Why so uncomfortable and so unloved?

First off, and for those not familiar, the latest iteration of the skort has a short sewn into them that is hidden underneath the outer skirt element.

The sisters came back in dribs and drabs. Here’s a flavour of their response.

“The material. The fit. No freedom in them. Quite a lot of fabric compared to a normal pair of shorts. No give in them. They constantly travel up you.”

A fourth camogie player consulted came back with the comparison of a male player wearing boxers and then having to put a pair of Lycra bicycle shorts over them before heading out to play a hurling match. No thank you.

Back to the sisters. Beyond the clear discomfort, they asked the question of why do we even need to wear them to begin with.

The simple answer to that is the rulebook demands it. The rulebook and those with the power to rewrite it were not in the mood for change at Camogie Congress on Saturday.

There were two motions put forward in relation to the skort. Meath and Great Britain wanted shorts added to the list of approved playing gear alongside skorts, whereas Kerry and Tipperary proposed that skorts be removed from the list altogether and replaced by shorts.

Both were beaten. The compromise motion from Meath and Great Britain came closest of the two, defeated 55% to 45%. There just wasn’t enough willingness to compromise among delegates at the Westgrove Hotel in Clane.

Camogie players don’t train in skorts. Most don’t wear them in challenge games either. It is only when the rulebook forces them.

Last year, London club Thomas McCurtains launched their “shorts not skorts” campaign. A survey of 240 players found that 82% preferred to wear shorts over skorts when playing camogie.

But how many of those surveyed and how many inter-county players who have publicly complained about the skort in the past lobbied their county board delegates to support either of the motions going to Congress?

That, of course, is not to excuse the delegates who spectacularly failed to read the room at Clane on Saturday. They voted to uphold tradition. They voted to uphold an archaic and outdated dress code. They voted to uphold discomfort.

Ciara Houlihan of Limerick

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Camogie Association has shown itself to be out of touch with its playing membership.

This is an association that wouldn’t allow “minimal contact on an opponent’s body from side-on” until three years ago. And that was only after a full season of the rule change being trialed and Camogie delegates being shown quite clearly that no female player wound up in an emergency department from a bit of shouldering.

This is the association that last year organised an All-Star trip to Canada two weeks before the All-Ireland championship threw-in.

There are an endless catalogue of fixture clashes we could allude to. Of course, the LGFA shoulders equal blame here.

The All-Star trip never went ahead because Cork came out and said they wouldn’t go. The same Cork players threatened strike action back in November 2021 if a dual player fixture clash wasn’t resolved. The clash never came to pass.

Camogie and ladies footballers engaged in protest action last summer to achieve a minimum standards playing charter. They withdrew from media events organised by their respective governing bodies. They delayed championship throw-ins. They got their players charter. They got their 50 cent per mile.

Maybe strike action is the road that must again be travelled to bring an end to the skort. It’s a sorry state of affairs that the nuclear option might be their only option.

The All-Ireland Camogie Championship commences on Saturday May 25. If all counties involved on that opening weekend took to the field in shorts, the delegates and officials who this weekend hung onto the past would be powerless to stop those who want to achieve a comfortable and common sense future.