There's been a raft of new faces at officer level in recent days at Belturbet GAA but Benny Corby has been a fixture for many years now. Kevin Carney reports. Few within Belturbet GAA can remember such a wholesale changing of the guard. The club's Annual General Meeting in December 2006 saw a major shift in personnel at the top table. The floor underneath would have been awash with blood except that it was so harmonious. There was neither a battle(s) of wills nor minds. Bonhomie could almost be seen blowing across the bows of the famed Rory O'Moore's biggest meeting of the year. The positions of Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Assistant-Secretary and Assistant Treasurer were vacated and then, in a few instants, occupied by new blood. Among the few officers to stay put was Benny Corby. The business of promoting good Public Relations would be his again, at least for another 12 months. But considering the fact that he's keeping the good side of Belturbet GAA out for the guts of the last ten years, one more year will hardly tax him too much. Surely the job of PRO is one of the most demanding of posts within a GAA club? "I don't find it that time consuming," says Benny. "Definitely not as time consuming as, say, the job of Secretary or Chairman. "I had never any hassle doing what ever bit of writing I had to do on the seniors or the minors down the years." One suspects though that the bould Benny would say the same of the other posts he held way back yonder; such as Chairman, Secretary, County Board rep and selector of various teams. Benny held the post of Chairman from 1990-94; a position he found the most demanding of his roles to date. There was a great deal of satisfaction though in holding fort at that time. The setting up of the Lotto, for instance, was a move of great foresight by the committee of the time and an inspirational move to a lot of other clubs in the county. "I think we were the second club, after Kingscourt, to run the Lotto. "I remember some people weren't so sure it would be a runner and that it mightn't be worth doing but it was very lucrative and still is to this day. Now most, if not all, clubs in the county have the Lotto." And even though the amount of money that takes to run a club like Belturbet GAA has snowballed in the period since he abdicated the Chairman's seat, Benny is proud to say that his native club continues to speculate to accumulate for the long-term good of the club. In that respect the provision of a state-of-the-art gym at the club's grounds will act as both a source of income and a welcome addition to the armoury which the club's playing personnel can hopefully use to steer them the way of silverware in the coming years. Mindful of the part if plays in the local community, the club has ensured though that organisations such as the badminton and scouting bodies will still have room to operate alongside the new gym. In terms of what's next on the agenda for the GAA park, Benny says that additional draining is likely to be carried out on the pitch in the coming year. The new drainage will help to complement the existing training pitch which runs alongside the main pitch. It would be great if some silverware could be collected in 2007 to adorn the surroundings at O'Moore Park. "We plan to win something every year," Benny insists. "We should have done better in 2006 and could have had we beaten Cavan Gaels in the championship. "We got our chances in the game, including a penalty, but didn't take them and still lost by only two points. "It was the same kind of story against Killygarry in Breffni when the win was there for the taking but the lads just didn't bite the bullet. "Those were two missed opportunities." The Gaels game was quite a stormy affair? "There were a couple of flashpoints alright but that's not the way our matches against them normally work out. "There's no history of trouble between the clubs and last year's championship match was really a one-off." The county town side have, of course, been the team to beat at SFC level for years now and Benny confesses, like the rest of us, to having been surprised that they failed to notch a four-in-a-row. "Micheal Lyng was a big miss for them," Benny opines. "I think they'd have lost out on the title in 2005 as well had Lyng been out injured. "They're not the same team without him. They definitely weren't nearly as good in 2006 as in previous years. Benny enthuses about the potential that is inherent in the current Belturbet senior team and recalls how the maroon and whites left the would-be 2006 SFC winners Mullahoran marooned in a league match. "It was just before the championship; they were at full-strength and so we were we and it was a good match and a good one to win with a last minute goal from Jason (Reilly) doing the trick." So maybe the team's true worth would lie somewhere in between their display in going down to Cavan Gaels in the championship and their aforementioned performance against Mullahoran? "I think you wouldn't be far away with that analysis," Benny replies. "The team hit some really fine form in the latter end of the league, winning eleven out of their last twelve games. "If it hadn't been for such a bad start to the league when we were in the relegation area, we'd have finished a good bit higher than the fifth spot we found ourselves at the end of the year." For the 2007 season, Belturbet will be looked after by the outgoing management team of Mark Lawlor and Co. But one wonders what have been the missing pieces in the jigsaw over recent times? "We could do with a few more big men," Benny avers, "plus a couple more scoring forwards." Belturbet were out of luck on a couple of fronts last year, especially at minor level where defeats in the finals of the championship and league were the club's lot. Interestingly, it was two amalgamated teams in each competition, Parnells and Dernacrieve, which played out the roles of party-poopers. What's Benny's take on the business of amalgamations per se? "We amalgamated with Drumlane at under 16 level in 2006, so you can't have it everyway. "Overall, I'd be in favour of amalgamations, particularly where one club or another finds it impossible to get together enough players. "We amalgamated at underage level for years with Redhills and that worked well too but I suppose the ideal thing is for each club to be able to compete in competitions in their own right. "Clubs naturally liked to keep their own identity," adds Benny, a member of the Annagh amalgam which annexed the SFC title in 1973. Benny, of course, goes back a long way in his spectating, coaching and administration of football affairs and he remembers being present at the 1966 All-Ireland SFC final between Kerry and Galway. He was also present at Croke Park for the 1977 All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Kerry and Dublin - labelled one of the best ever championship matches seen at headquarters. So how does he feel the Gaelic football compares to the halcyon days of the sixties and seventies? "I'd say football at present is generally of a higher standard but for all the coaching and fitness training, you still get a lot of bunching in a game and very few fellas able to catch the ball cleanly. "But in looking back at matches years ago, it would be fair to say that there's a lot of people who would look at games from the past with rose tinted glasses." And as for the perception that club football in Cavan is somehow much more inferior in quality than that featured in other counties is also something of a myth, according to Benny. He says he has seen county finals in Donegal, Cork and Kerry in recent times and genuinely believes that the 2006 blue riband decider in Cavan was just as good with regard to the standard of football exhibited. But there is the fact though that no club in Cavan has ever managed to triumph in the Ulster club championship. "I don't have a theory as to why that's the case," Benny confirms. "Crosserlough had a got at it when they had a great team and Bailieboro were very unlucky and I think most people thought the (Cavan) Gaels had a good chance of winning it recently but it didn't happen for them. "Cavan Gaels have won provincial honours from under 10 up to minor over the years so you'd imagine they have the talent to give it a good shot" The Gaels will win the 2007 SFC title then? "Who knows, but they will definitely start as most people's favourites to go the distance." And his expectations for his beloved Belturbet? "I'd be disappointed if we didn't at least make the semi-finals of the championship. "We have a couple of good minors coming through and if we can improve our scoring average, we'll not be that far away." With the core of the squad which helped engineer triumphs in the JFC (1995) and Intermediate (1996) championships and which propelled the club to SFC semi-finals in 1997 and 1998, there is a feeling abroad in Belturbet that the club must make a bold bid for SFC honours sooner rather than later. Long-time club servant Corby doesn't disagree that time isn't on the current team's hands. "There are a lot of those fellas from the mid-nineties period still playing so it wouldn't be wrong to say that time isn't on their side. "I think they still have the ability and there's enough good players around them to do very well this year, especially if we can get three or four of the minors from last year to make an impression." Fulsome in his praise for the help rendered by a few of the club's young members in getting the new astroturf facility at the old railway station up and running, Benny believes that there is a vibrancy and a work ethic in Belturbet GAA that augurs well for the future. "We'll do our best to keep things moving forward and hopefully we'll get that bit of luck to make a difference," Benny concludes. Tweet

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