At last Monday night’s meeting of the Mayo County Board it was revealed that Mayo manager James Horan will be sitting down with the county board early next week to discuss his future in the role. At the meeting, county board chairman, Paddy McNicholas told the club delegates that “As regards James Horan’s position, we have arranged to meet him next Tuesday. To review the year to see what’s going to happen for the coming year. James has two more years to go as per the contract or agreement he has with the county board. That meeting will take place next Tuesday night.”
One delegate asked that Horan be brought before the delegates, because he believed that there were questions to be answered by Horan, but the proposal failed to get traction or support from the other delegates. While another suggestion that if he wished to come in before the delegates, he be offered the opportunity to do so, also failed to get off the floor.
Speculation has been mounting in the county since the All Ireland final that Horan was considering his position and whether to stay on for another year in the position, he has two more years left on the deal he agreed with the county board last year after the All Ireland final defeat to Donegal.
Second All Ireland final ticket for Cáirde Mhaigheo may not happen again
The main issue of discussion of the board meeting was centred around tickets and the number and quality of tickets that were distributed around the county to the clubs. The county board expected to get an extra 2,000 tickets for the final on the 2012 allocation with the minors also being in the final this year but that didn’t materialise this year, according to county board vice-chairman Mike Connelly who told the delegates, “When we got into the All Ireland minor and senior finals together, we thought we’d get an extra allocation of 2,000 tickets and that didn’t happen.” While chairman Paddy McNicholas said that “Maybe looking back on it possibly a mistake was made in giving out the extra ticket, because this year we had 1,200 members and the majority got two tickets.” He went on to say that “I think looking back at it we should have given only the one ticket, because if you read back what you signed up for originally, it guarantees one ticket for the All Ireland senior final if Mayo are in it.
Connolly also told the meeting that “We presumed that when the minors were in the All Ireland final, we’d get an extra 2,000 tickets, which would have covered the minors and their families and would have covered the second ticket for the season ticket holder. We made that decision at a county board meeting prior to the All Ireland and we felt we would be very comfortable to do that and deal with the clubs in the same way as we did last year. That’s what caused an awful lot of problems.”
McNicholas also pointed out to the meeting that Cáirde Mhaigheo tickets are bought by people in Mayo in the majority of cases and those tickets end up in Mayo people’s hands giving an example saying that “It has to be remembered those tickets went back to people in the clubs in Mayo, I know of one club that had 34 people join Cáirde Mhaigheo and if they got two, that’s 68 tickets. Those 68 tickets went into that club or parish area and it’s a fairly small parish.”
McNicholas also apologised at the meeting after one delegate raised the treatment of one club officer when he called to MacHale Park to collect tickets prior to the final, by security personnel on duty saying. “I’m sorry, what happened at the gate shouldn’t have happened.”
