The senior club championship kicks off this weekend and to be honest I am getting excited and a little nervous because of it. All the dreaming, planning, and orchestrating for a crack at winning the title will be put to its first big test on Sunday. The weather forecast is good and the fact that it is a long weekend should guarantee a bumper crowd at the games, which will surely bring a smile to the face of what is normally a very serious looking county treasurer! The real secret of the GAA's success is that it is so fervently supported at community level, and this weekend will see thousands turning out to support their respective clubs all over the county. You don't have to be interested in football — everyone goes to support their parish or their club. Gaelic is easy to watch. It is free flowing and robust with a lot of scores, and that's attractive for punters who are used to watching soccer where there is maybe one goal in the space of 90 minutes (Wednesday’s European cup final being an exception, when we could sit back and marvel at the flamboyant skills of Barcelona ). There are very few things in life that create the excitement of a good club championship match and I personally love the build up to championship Sundays.
I am lucky enough to have the privilege of being involved with the management of Crossmolina this year, along with two former greats of the club, Stephen Rochford and Damien Mulligan. One of the other nice things about the GAA is to see these lads and so many more former players giving something back to the organisation that gave them so much enjoyment on many different occasions down through the years. I genuinely believe we will have a great club championship this year as there are several teams that really fancy their chances of winning the title. Sunday will be a fair barometer and we should know a lot more about the true worth of the various teams’ potential once this first round of games is over. The Crossmolina game against Knockmore has the unusual throw in time of 6pm, but that will allow followers an opportunity to have a look at some of the earlier games around the county. There should be a great buzz in and around Crossmolina town all evening. Allow me to be a little biased here when I suggest that I honestly think this match will be a real cracker. As most of you are aware, Knockmore and Crossmolina have no great love for one another when it comes to Gaelic football. Theirs is a unique rivalry that goes back more than a few decades and, as a consequence, patrons are normally provided with a good dollop of entertainment when they clash. I have rarely left a contest between these two when there wasn’t at least a few hours of good healthy debate and argument about the game. However let me point out that games between the two are normally played with a great Corinthian sportsmanship with both teams giving their all to have the honour of shoving the chest out that little bit further in the winners’ enclosure after the game! Players during the match won’t revert to cheap shots like trying to catch an opponent’s windpipe, stick a finger deliberately in his opponent’s face, or kick a player off the ball. No, these two outfits rarely get involved in any of the ugliness that we so unfortunately witnessed on our TVs last Sunday. The one thing you can be guaranteed is there will be a manliness and an honesty about the aggression. If someone has an issue it will be dealt with up front! I hope Mel Kenny, the appointed referee, will let the action flow and if he does, then I know people will get good value for money.
Sides who give their all for their parishes
Both teams expect to be in the shake-up for the Moclair Cup later this summer, and the team that comes out on top this weekend will go forward with a spring in their step. The losing outfit will of course have other opportunities of progressing with two more games in the group, but winning this particular match means a lot to both outfits. We in Crossmolina will have our work cut out trying to second guess their line up and at the same time identify a game plan of our own that might keep them guessing too! Knockmore are a formidable outfit at the best of times and always play with a great passion. This year they have returned to something like the form of old, and the returning Kevin O’Neill from St Vincent’s, I hear, has been in flying form in recent games. He is a huge boost to the club and will be a right handful for the Crossmolina defence. Trevor Howley is a formidable centre back and his return to full fitness is not only a bonus to their championship aspirations, but I believe it also has the Mayo management giddy with excitement. He is as strong as a horse and will relish the challenge on Sunday. Aidan Kilcoyne, Damien Munnelly, Declan Sweeney, and Kevin McLoughlin are others that will not bend a knee to the challenge. Unfortunately Ciaran McDonald is not available to Cross as he picked up a knee injury playing against Mullingar Shamrocks a few weeks ago. McDonald is a Gaelic superstar with the flamboyance and cult status in Ireland enjoyed by the likes of Paul O’Connell or Brian O’Driscoll at the moment. He has busted his gut in recent days to have himself fit for this particular encounter, but it now looks increasingly unlikely that he won’t be able to don the maroon and white on Sunday. And what a pity, because he is a player that could wreak havoc in this kind of an environment. So I expect a fair bit of huffing and puffing, shouting, and encouraging before we know who will leave the Deel Rovers ground at 7.30pm with smiles on their faces. Come along if you want to be a part of it!
Players have to go where the work is
I read an article earlier this week highlighting the number of current inter-county footballers and hurlers out of work. Unemployment figures have shot through the roof in recent months with the jobless figures escalating daily. There was a time in the bad old days when a call to an influential business person in the community would have it ‘sorted’, but that is no longer the situation. It is obviously a desperate scenario for any person to find themselves in. The last thing a player needs is the stress of worrying about the next instalment on the car loan or a mortgage repayment. You can be certain that particular players will not play to their potential with that weight hanging over them on match Sunday. Here in Mayo we are not immune to this issue as practically every club in the county is losing a few players. We in Crossmolina are losing two of our young footballing stars early next week. Sean Kelly and Ian Rowland have decided to accept an invitation to work and play in Boston for three months during the summer. It’s hard to blame them. They are two young students without any chance of a summer job here at home, and there is nothing we can do to help them. That unfortunately is the reality as we have experienced a total meltdown on the jobs front. As Sean suggested to me last week, his mother doesn’t want him tripping under her feet all day every day for the summer. These two lads will no doubt enjoy the experience of greener pastures and a summer in Boston. Unfortunately we will not have them around the place to strengthen our chances of progressing in the championship. The only consolation, as I mentioned, is that every club will be that little bit weaker too!
A shameful day for football last weekend
I remember serving overseas with the UN in the summer of 1995 and being so proud on one particular occasion when I organised an evening barbecue for colleagues from Norway, the UK, Sweden, Canada, and Austria. I had the two All Ireland finals sent to me from Ireland and I wanted to showcase our national games as a spectacle to these people. They were two cracking matches and the consensus from the assembled crew was they had witnessed something unique that evening in the ‘Hibernia club’. They were brilliantly contested games, played hard but fair. Last Sunday I witnessed a game in the Ulster Championship that was ugly, cynical, and nasty from start to finish. I was ashamed watching it and it genuinely put me in a foul mood for the rest of the evening. There is something fundamentally flawed with our game at the moment that requires immediate attention. As far as I am concerned last Sunday’s match brought the GAA into disrepute and the actions of both teams were a thundering disgrace. It requires action now before it festers our game.
