They Said It ....

February 2004

Money, Money, Money. It takes more than a few bob to run a club these days. And insurance as The Fermanagh Herald reports is not helping matters. It is set to soar.
The financial burdens on clubs regarding player insurance is set to increase substantially following the decision to fold the Voluntary scheme which had failed to attract sufficient subscribers. In its place will be an upgraded Players Injury scheme.
Funding for the scheme will come entirely from club and GAA resources with an estimated annual cost of 7.3 million Euro. This will come into effect at the start of next month and it is hoped that the scheme will go a long way to compensating for the now defunct Voluntary scheme.
The Voluntary scheme had over 21,000 subscribers last season but this number was not sufficient to make it a viable proposition.
Some counties had taken up the scheme enthusiastically with Cork leading the way with almost 4,000 players participating and there was strong interest in other counties, notably Galway, Kerry, Mayo and Down.
The financial implications of the failure of the Voluntary scheme for clubs are both hefty and immediate. The updated scheme, for which subscriptions will be mandatory will see the insurance cost of adult teams soar to £450 while youth teams will cost £138, these premiums representing a huge increase in the region of 100%.
Around two million of the cost of the scheme will be raised from the six per cent levy on the gross gates receipts from National League and Championship.
The GAA have emphasised that the new format is not an insurance scheme and does not seek to fully compensate for injury, but is intended to supplement any personal cover that players or club members may have themselves.
Croke Park have stressed that in their view what is being offered is good value, “the benefits are self evident. There’s no numerical restriction on the team’s panel size, they could have thirty and there are no names required, it’s whoevers with the panel on that day in organised training, or in any kind of match whatsoever.
It also extends to the club referees, coaches, voluntary officials provided they’re club members doing voluntary work.”
The scheme will continue to be administered by Coyle Hamilton Ltd. with whom a three year deal, subject to review after the first year, has been negotiated.

There was very little insurance some years back and there definitely was no problem with such things as motorways. But as Suzanne Pender reports in the Nationalist, Tinryland GAA club in Carlow are in a real cul-de-sac situation.
The future of Co. Carlow’s GAA Club of the year hangs in the balance this week as the NRA steam forward with their plans for the N9/N10 motorway.
Tinryland GAA club has this week lashed out at the National Roads Authority and Kildare County Council for what they called their “complete lack of understanding of the club’s plight.”
Club members were reeling in shock when the announcement for the extensive motorway indicated that the route passed directly through the club’s property.
This move would, according to members, obliterate a juvenile playing pitch, which is currently under development at the club and run immediately alongside its premises at Rathcrogue, Carlow.
Club officers and the National Safety Council of the GAA have also expressed major fears for the safety of the club’s 400 juvenile and adult members.
“It is nothing short of a scandal that a public body can hold a small rural community to ransom in this manner,” stated club chairman Ned Deane.
“We have bent over backwards over he past two years in an attempt to achieve an amicable resolution to the appalling situation which the NRA have placed us in but to date we have received no co-operation whatsoever in return,” he stated.
If the road proceeds as planned juvenile members travelling to the club will be forced to negotiate a complex “dumb-bell”, interchange junction immediately outside the club, which will involve crossing two roundabouts and two south-facing slip roads.
“We will continue to fight every inch of the way to ensure the safety of our members and the viability of our facilities,” argued Mr Deane, who added that he was encouraged by the growing level of support for the club position in its confrontation with the NRA.

They don’t give a damm about insurance or motorways in Longford. Well not at the moment anyway. At the time of going to press the canny midlanders were top of the world (sorry league).
Westmeath beaten in their own backyard and the mighty Kingdom slain. John O’Dowd gives a Longford view in the Kerryman and describes that particular win as “the biggest victory that we’ve had since creation.”
Long after most of his players had departed the scene, Longford manager Denis Connerton still remained in the winners’ dressingroom at Pearse Park on Sunday, obviously basking in the glory of one of his side’s most famous victories in their history. “It’s a terrific result,” he said. “We put so much into the game that we felt we deserved something out of it. It would have been very disappointing for us to get nothing after kicking 13 wides to Kerry’s three,” he added.
As time ticked away, it seemed that Longford would end up with nothing but along came Stephen Lynch to billow the Kerry net and the two precious points had been secured.
“We worked and we worked and we worked and, on another day, the breaks we got would have went against us. Maybe this is the turning point in Longford’s upward surge.
The Longford manager admitted that the sending-off of Kerry’s Tom O’Sullivan had certainly helped his side.
“I’m very disappointed when any players gets sent off. I’m not being political on it but there were lots of bodies in front of me and I couldn’t see the incident. Of course, it had a huge bearing on the game but our second goal helped as well as it came at a vital time in the game,” he stressed.
Even when Kerry responded and moved three points clear in the closing stages, Connerton never lost hope that something special would happen for his side.
“These points are very important to us. We found it very hard to get to Division One and, hopefully, we can retain that status,” he added.
Not wishing to single out any particular individual, Connerton, when asked, paid a glowing tribute to his centre-back David Hannify, who was particularly inspirational when his side needed him in the second half.
“David is a wonderful footballer. He has given so many fine hours and he was tremendous today. He fielded some great ball and carried it out of the defence on several occasions.”
The Longford manager admitted that beating Kerry was an almost surreal experience for this county.
“It’s the biggest victory we have had, maybe since creation. Kerry are Gods as far as a lot of people in this part of the country are concerned.
They’ve got huge players that everybody would have the height of respect for and it’s great just to beat them.
“However, we have to get back down to earth now and prepare for the big local derby next weekend against Westmeath.”

We could not let this months column go through without mention of TJ Flynns excellent piece on Kerry Long ago and printed in the Clare Champion.
We are sure TJ will not mind us using his effort in its entirety.
When I was a young buck of six or eight or nine, I’d spend my free time on the grandparents farm deep in East Kerry country.
It lies at the foot of a mountain with a wild and beautiful name; The Token Fire, and on he edge of the Abhainn Uí Croí river, which flows into the marauding Flesk.
It’s easy for a lad to get carried away in such an environment, what with the trout in the river and the rabbits in the fields.
And then there was a meadow on the farm known as the ‘Football Field’ which was enough to make a young buck salivate through his milk teeth.
I heard stories of those who came to the field, tales of games past, of old All Ireland winners who covered this very grass. Here was my primitive vision of Valhalla.
All these lost souls battling on this field which no longer had any resemblance to a sporting venue. The football posts were long gone, but you could somehow imagine lines of spectators gathering under the surrounding ash trees.
It was on the pasture of the ‘Football Field’ that the seeds of the club now home to Irelands best footballers were sown.
My grandfather’s old man was named Paddy Healy. He was a turf cutter, otter snarer and All Ireland medal holder and he founded the Headford GAA club in 1925. These days, the club is called Glenflesk and Seamus Moynihan wears their number eight jersey.
Football, camogie and hurling were all played at the old Headford club and the emphasis was an inclusion.
Locals from nearby townlands flocked to the ‘Football Field’ to participate in the sports and witness the action. All were invited and in those post civil war days most made good on the offer of some light distraction.
The great Dick Fitzgerald would often cycle the eleven miles from Killarney town to represent his club and of course he always drew a crowd.
Football in Headford became part of the weekly diet but that changed when a dance hall started up at nearby Ballinadega. Some of the players scattered from the ‘Football Field’ like the flu and ignored training for vices of music and porter which were available at the dance hall.
The Headford club was in a bind.
Some Sunday’s they couldn’t even muster a full 15. Something had to be done to bring the locals back to the football. A bright idea came to one of the hardcore Headford men. His notion reeked of brilliance but like all great schemes it was doomed to failure for no apparent reason.
“Give them the music while they’re playing the football,” this genius suggested. And so, the Headford men built a wooden platform at the corner of the ‘Football Field’. It was enough to hold eight set dancers and a musician who was paid each week to play a few tunes while the footballers trained or competed.
Just picture it, this scene of madness and beauty rolled into one. I loved the idea of a moustachioed musician fiddling like hell in the corner of the pitch while the 30 players divided their attention between the dancers on the platform and the flight path of the heavy pig skin.
I’d always ask if the genius idea worked. “Christ, no”. I was eternally told. “How could it? Sure football and dancing can’t go together.”
I’d slope off back to the world of rabbits and trout still smiling to myself at the fiddler with the moustache who did his best to keep football alive in East Kerry.
The Balnadeega dance hall remained but it was the Headford club that continued to prosper, despite the failure of the set dancers and fiddler.
It’s ironic, though and somewhat sad, how things can change as the decades progress. Inclusiveness is now a term which some associated with the GAA are unable to grasp.
These biggots are probably the exception, yet they are tainting the association. On Friday, I attended a formal sporting ceremony, all swank and glamour. I stood out like a clown at a funeral, but that’s a whole different story.
Unfortunately, I had the bad luck to be seated beside on of these GAA bigots for the duration of the lengthy speeches. His affiliation is to the modern club which grew from the work of Paddy Healy in the 1920s.
The Glenflesk man recognised my face and with bile-laced words proceeded to tell me I had turned my back on the club of my forefather because I had played instead, and rather poorly in fact, for the club of my own home.
Though more wrinkly, yet still as prejudiced, I recognised the old man in the shabby suit as the fellow who tried to prevent me and my kin from kicking ball for the under eights of our local club. He used to bawl that we were from Glenflesk and probably stayed awake at night at the thought of a couple of young lads having fun.
This caricature of misery quoted parish boundaries from the seventeenth century and through starts and fits told us we were at least three yards inside the Glenflesk line.
The tragic thing is, he prevented a couple of us from playing any type of football for a year or two while a quasi-investigation was carried out by the board.
We were eight or nine years old.
What an introduction to the world of the GAA. But where’s the message, you say, the relevance to Clare, the relevance to anything? Listen, and I’ll tell you. This county is endeavouring to improve its GAA structures. One piece of humble advice: learn from the Paddy Healy school of GAA.
Build a dance platform at the corner of every football field in Clare, or even a bloody bouncy castle if that’s what it takes to attract kids to the games. Make it fun. Keep all involved. Create structures that embrace the masses.
Ignore the antiques who think the GAA shouldn’t be about enjoyment.
It’s time they died off. Leave them alone to swill from their glasses of sour milk.
Because who knows what might happen if you keep the marginal talent entertained with the GAA.