The year 2000 was the year when Kerry regained the Sam Maguire Cup and Kilkenny finally buried the ghosts of All Ireland finals past, but what else will the last twelve months be remembered for when the history books are written? CIARAN MULLOOLY presents the A to Z guide to the GAA year 2000 for your perusal over the Christmas Holiday period. A is for AUSTRALIA They came, they saw and they conquered. October's series of International Rules games between the Aussies and the Irish at Croke Park managed to be both a staggering success and an embarrassing failure - and yes, it is possible to be both. After months of hype and quite a few bob invested in a series of high profile TV ads that ran all the way through September, more than forty thousand people turned up at Croke Park for the two games in the series so it must have been successful - right? WRONG actually. Under Brian McEniff Ireland were desperately disappointing and were well beaten on both occasions. Their weakness in the face of international opposition was not the only problem. The International Rules game also took a battering with more disputes over the lack of discipline and the enforcing of the rules. Throw in the confusion over what makes a tackle in this bastardised game and you begin to see what a mess it really was. B is for All Ireland B Time was when winning this little intercounty football competition actually meant something to counties, which had not previously recorded success in the All Ireland championship. Few will forget Leitrim's rise to success or Clare's arrival on the national scene when they won it. Over the course of the last three years the powers that be in the fixture-making department of the GAA have decided, for a variety of different reasons, to ditch the competition. By allowing fixtures to be played on Saturday afternoons and at obscure venues around the country that few have even heard of, the GAA has sent the message out loud and clear about the future of the All Ireland B competition: it has none. More's the pity and more's the shame on the GAC or whoever else is responsible. For the record Fermanagh won this year's B competition but who cared? C is for CAREY The greatest surname in the book of GAA hurling greats. The year 2000 was the year when D.J. Carey proved beyond any doubt that he is one of the association's finest exponents of the game of hurling. His performance in the All Ireland final was a revelation and all the way through the championship he made a superb contribution to the Cats. Top this with his seemingly never-ending appetite for the association. He played football with Kilkenny's inter county junior team at one stage in the year and he lined out with the International shinty team at Croke Park as part of the build-up to the International Rules series in October. Two years ago D.J. said he was retiring from the game of hurling. We can only thank the good God that he allowed himself to be talked out of that situation and I know that about fifty thousand Kilkenny fans will go to their graves with his face and that smile forever fixed in their memories. His likes will never be seen again - no matter what the selectors of the team of the Millennium have to say! D is for DUFFY Padraig Duffy made his return to the GAA scene in the year just past to take over a job where he will have supreme power over how the GAA's discipline is regulated and enforced. The former Monaghan county board chairman was selected by his fellow county man Sean McCague to take over as Chairman of the GAC and in the space of a few short months he quickly showed that he means business. The year just past has been a relatively good one for the GAC. When faced with controversy they acted as quickly as possible, getting in referees' reports in double quick time, summoning the guilty parties to meetings at Croke Park and then handing out the punishment. With the exception of the Antrim club final riot, when they were not the immediate body dishing out the discipline, they seem to have coped well and excelled themselves in the deep dark months of winter when they took Sligo and Cavan by the scruff of the neck for an unsightly free-for-all in the league. Swift punishments followed - even for those not spotted by the referee. Mr Duffy will have served the GAA well if he keeps up these standards. E is for EAMONN COLEMAN The Derry football manager is an old friend of this writer from his days as Longford team manager and showed that he had not lost any of his skills as a manager when he brought Derry to the National Football league final at Croke Park in April. The match against Meath ended in a draw but Coleman's men manage to defeat Meath in the replay six days later in Clones. Coleman went on to get himself into hot water with the GAA authorities later in the summer when he produced another first. Longford referee John Bannon was selected to referee the county's match against Antrim in the Ulster championship and the Derry manager managed to criticise the referee BEFORE the game in the national and local press. For his sins he suffered a long suspension from the line and watched his team lose out to Armagh in the latter stages of the championships. It wasn't all bad for Eamonn. In one of his numerous club roles he once again won the Cavan club final with Gowna but lost the Ulster club semi-final. F is for FITZGERALD Maurice Fitzgerald will remember the year 2000 for two good reasons. In the first instance he spent the first six months recovering from a very serious leg injury. Some said he would never play again to his former standards. Later in the year when the chips were down it was Fitzgerald that Kerry turned to when they needed inspiration in the final stages of the All Ireland championships. Even then he was no place near his former self, yet he did enough to help Kerry win a replay in the All Ireland final. To end the year Maurice made headlines again - this time appearing for the starting lineout for one of Kerry's memorable National League games before Christmas - despite the fact that he was actually heading to the sun for a well deserved holiday on the same afternoon. Without Maurice Fitz Kerry would not have enjoyed the sun either in 2000. G is for GALWAY Beaten All Ireland football finalists Galway will be disappointed but should not be over-disheartened about the year just gone by. After the disappointment of losing to Mayo in Tuam twelve months previously, John O'Mahony's side was clearly the most impressive team all the way through the All Ireland series and into the final. They managed to hammer New York and Sligo before dismissing Leitrim in the Connacht final. Beating Kildare in the rain at Croke Park seemed to be almost easier this time around and only a few clinical errors robbed them of a Sam Maguire success. All of this was achieved WITHOUT the services of the one forward who played the central role in their All Ireland championship success of 1998 - Ja Fallon. The good news is that Ja will be back next year. Watch out Connacht and Kerry. H is for HURLING The fastest field game in the world did not enjoy the greatest of years. Apart from Kilkenny's impressive solo run through Leinster and the All Ireland series 2000 was once again the year when serious flaws in the hurling infrastructure came to light. Promoting the game in some of the weaker counties continues to be a major problem with huge competition from soccer, basketball and other sports. Former Wexford Manager Liam Griffin summed it up best (as usual) in one of the national newspapers this weekend. "The kids in Limerick could have watched Man United in three live games on the television in the last three weeks" Griffin said, "their county hurling team hasn't appeared in three live games on TV over the last three years." Hurling's problems are numerous. Lack of promotion and proper coaching in the 3rd division counties is starving the sport and even in the so-called traditional strongholds there appears to be a lack of real interest and success in urban areas. If Sean McCague is to tackle one major issue in what's left of his term of office this is it. I for INTERNET 2000 was the year when the GAA went online properly. Apart from the association's own rather dim site, excellent new Internet sites are available for GAA fans at hoganstand.com, clubgaa.com and an fearr rua.com. Every county seems to have a website now and surfers on the Internet seem to have found club sites too for almost every club. This development is welcome on several fronts. Apart from making more information on games and developments available to followers at home and abroad, it also helps to stimulate more debate and discussion. Guestbooks on some of the county web sites are positively buzzing with debate and discussion boards are allowing the humble fan to express his/her opinion. Some of these days the powers that be in Croke Park will cop onto the revolution that is underway in the worldwide web and thank the Internet for it. J is for JIMMY BARRY MURPHY This was the year the great JBM formally retired as Cork Manager having brought his young leeside squad to the top of the hurling tree and watch them fall from grace in the Munster championship. Jimmy Barry was one of the gentlemen of the game - both as a player and a coach and to many people it is inexplicable that he has retired from the Cork job at such a young age. The fact that he was joined in the retirement stakes by so many more this year is certainly discouraging and should prove as something of an eye-opener for the association at top level. JBM blamed the exhausting level of commitment for his decision to go, but it is hard to accept that we will not see him again at some stage in the future. His achievement in bringing the Liam McCarthy cup south will not be easily forgotten. His skill and ability as a player is already sitting prettily in GAA folklore. K if for KILDARE It wouldn't be a proper review of the GAA year unless we reflected on another Kildare defeat and as if not to disappoint us, Mick O'Dwyer's side duly delivered by losing the All Ireland semi-final to Galway in August. It is true to say that the former Kerry manager has solved many of the Lilywhites major problems in football, but the one he has yet to crack is the inability of the team's forwards to ever quite hit form in the scoring stakes. It is rumoured that O'Dwyer and Kildare have now set their eyes on Tipperary's Declan Browne and that the Waterford IT man might take up residence (and employment) in Maynooth or Naas in the next few months. If he does not, Kildare will need to search even harder in their own stocks for replacement forwards as the county team still badly needs them and surely Mick O Dwyer could not survive another year if real progress in winning that elusive All Ireland final is not made. L is for LOUGHNANE Undoubtedly one of the greatest hurling team managers in the history of the GAA, Ger Loughnane, chose the year 2000 to throw in the towel. The Banner's defeat in the championship was followed pretty swiftly by the resignation announcement, but while the summer of 2000 will be easily forgotten in hurling terms, the great decade of glory masterminded by the Clare school teacher will never be forgotten by all true fans of hurling. Sometimes controversial, always passionate, Loughnane brought Clare out of the doldrums and into the top league of hurling aristocrats.His tactics and mind games made him a hated figure in many corners, but only the very ignorant could deny that his contribution to the GAA surpasses that made by any other hurling coach in the 1990s. One other thing can be said about Loughnane in fairly definite terms: he will not be back as a coach to any other county. He would die before doing it. M is for McCAGUE The GAA's new President Sean McCague took over the reins officially in April and immediately found himself with two of the biggest issues in the history of the GAA on his desk. The role of the Gaelic Players Association and the future development and use of Croke Park are potentially divisive issues for McCague and the GAA, but to date the Monaghan school teacher has shown diplomacy, intelligence and some sensitivity. The biggest test for the Monaghan man will come after he has sorted out these issues at next year's busy GAA Congress and is then asked to fulfil another promise on a playing ban facing RUC members and British army soldiers. I have a feeling that McCague will pass all three tests with flying colours and may yet be the GAA President who stands for "God Save the Queen" when the English soccer or rugby team plays at Croke Park. N is for NATIONAL LEAGUE 2000 was the year when the sponsorship of our favourite winter sport activity took a new name. After years of happy Sundays in the freezing Church & General leagues fans reacted with quizzical looks to hear that it was now to be known as the Alliantz league. Before the name change Meath and Derry played out a draw in the 1999 decider. Graham Geraghty paid the price for indiscipline in that game at Croke Park and his absence was not only to have an effect on the replay but also scarred the county in their championship campaign. As the year ended the leagues were up and running again through many counties seem to have lost interest since they lost the right in the lower divisions to compete for the national title. For Louth there was no such complaint. Their victory in the Division 2 final was one of the great moments of the year - giving Paddy Clarke and hundreds of Wee fans a major celebration and a holiday in the sun to boot. See T for further implications. O is for OFFALY As if there was any need for evidence to prove that the Offaly hurling job is THE toughest in the country the happy-go-lucky men on the Faithful county showed how unfaithful they could really be by parting ways with yet another hurling manager in the last twelve months. Offaly manager Pat Fleury paid the price for getting his team back into the All Ireland final and beating Cork when he was given grief in bucketfuls by players who should have known better and clubs who are just so full of their importance in Offaly that they have learned how power can be exerted after a defeat in an All Ireland final. To rescue them from the situation Offaly turned to an old friend in the management stakes and Michael Bond who passed over the chance to run the Galway team next year was only too glad to step into the fray. Now Offaly have the ingredients of a mighty year ahead: a manager with a point to prove to his native county and a team who got such an annihilation in an All Ireland final that they will surely bounce back. P is for PARK as in Croke Park Or Eircom Park for that matter or even Bertie Park. 2000 was the year when all of the main sporting organisations spent days talking about the need for a new national park or stadium where we could all come together every weekend and celebrate our sports in the company of about seventy or eighty thousand people. Leaking information that the building work on the new Croke park was running over budget by thousands of pounds was certainly one good way to make the GAA at grassroots level change their minds about renting out the theatre of dreams. At the end of the year county chairmen were tripping over themselves putting the pragmatic view of Peter Quinn that it would be better to let some of the rugger-buggers into the ground than have to turn around to seek a levy on every county board and club in the country. Liam Mulvihill, as usual, will be instrumental in forming opinion in the right places when it comes to a final decision but put your shirt on the next GAA congress giving a get-out-of-jail card to the central council from next Summer onwards. Q is for QUALITY If you're a hurling fan, 2000 was the year when the boom came to an end. Without Clare around the game with the stick just become so boring and predictable again and, truth to tell, the football was pretty woeful too at times. The Connacht championship won back the title of worst provincial scene despite the exertions of Galway football. I doubt if any television station has ever showed a live match that was so boring and one-sided as the Sligo-Galway clash in June. To make matters worse the provincial final with Leitrim providing the material for slaughter was equally depressing. The Munster scene was also pathetic. After the defeat of Cork Kerry knew that Clare would need a miracle to turn the tables in the final and this game was also forgettable. At underage level the fare was somewhat better and once again the All-Ireland Under 21 competition gave us hope when Limerick emerged from the shadows to prove that there is a lot of good coaching work going on in the wings and much to look forward to. R is for REFEREES This popular breed of decision-makers had another year of mixed emotions. The question of inaccurate injury time seemed to annoy most critics with John Bannon and Pat McEnaney taking most stick. Gerry Kinneavy from Roscommon made what was undoubtedly the boob of the year when giving the same Cork minor footballer two yellow cards (and the Leesiders despicably refused to give Derry a replay) while Galway's Michael Curley went into running battle with Larry Tompkins during and after the Munster football semi-final between Cork and Kerry. Tompkins hit the roof when Curley gave not one but two penalties to the Kingdom at crucial stages and to be fair there was certainly some doubt about the validity of the first decision. Curley's tactics in getting the former Lilywhite to calm down on the sideline were most impressive. He simply asked a team player to tell Larry to sit down and behave himself. After the game Tompkins ran into more trouble for letting his spleen loose on the referee in a newspaper column. He was then suspended for his sins and gave out twice as much about Curley. On the positive side there was evidence that some good new referees are coming through the ranks and in a very sensible move in the first few rounds of the new league in October the wise people in Croke Park put out a few new faces to take control of games and provided professional support by way of linesmen through the presence of top class referees such as Brian White and Paddy Russell. It certainly looked weird to see White and Russell on the line but it was a common sense move. S is for SHOCK And for the first half of the championship last year we certainly thought we were living in the year of all the great shocks. Offaly's dismissal of the 1999 All Ireland champions Meath in the Leinster championship was certainly not predicted in too many betting shops and when Leitrim traveled into Dr. Hyde Park in Roscommon the locals had their heads up awaiting another facile victory in Connacht. Instead it was the Lovely Leitrim boys who conquered. Antrim almost pulled off the big shock in Ulster when they held Derry to a draw and Offaly were responsible for the biggest hurling one of the year when they ambushed Jimmy Barry Murphy and the Cork side in the All Ireland hurling semi-final. I suppose you could say that the other big shock of the GAA year was the decision of the All-Star Selectors to pick Anthony Tohill in the midfield position. Quite a reward for a man who played very little championship football. T is for TURNSTILES When the National Football league re-started in October Central Council had already decreed that the asking price at the turnstiles around the country would now be seven quid instead of just five pounds. The reaction to the decision was one of disbelief in most counties where the flack is still flying in resistance to the move. Roscommon club delegates decided to turn public disgust back on the Croke Park heads before Christmas when they passed a motion to ask congress to return to the five pounds entrance fee. At a time when facilities for supporters are getting worse instead of better at most county grounds the decision to increase the admission fee was inexplicable. Don't be surprised if Roscommon find a few friends on the floor of congress when it comes to reversing this absurdity. U is for UNFORGETTABLE The only word to describe the day that Longford bridged a gap of 34 years to win the O'Byrne Cup title in February. OK, so this Mickey Mouse Leinster competition was played in hopeless weather and involved several understrength teams but tell that to Longford captain Enda Barden and his team mates who beat Kildare and Dublin along the way and defeated Westmeath in a thrilling final watched by 10,000 fans at Cusack Park in Mullingar. That night the streets of Longford were alive as fans that have waited for three decades drove around in pure joy with flags flying and horns hooting. Meaningless? No. Magic? YES. V is for VENUE Dr. Hyde Park in Roscommon was the venue for the Connacht final in July. Galway and Leitrim played out the contest on a wicked wet day and afterwards the losing players had to settle for cold showers after a mishap in the Dr. Hyde Park plumbing. Treatment like this only goes to show how far the GAA have yet to go in their behavioiur towards the stars of our games. 2000 was the year when the GPA and the GAA tripped over each other in trying to look after players. The early work of Donal O'Neill with the new GPA led directly to the introduction of a new flat rate of 30p in mileage for all county players and there are now signs that a marriage between the official and the unofficial player reps may well be possible prepare the shot gun! W is for WESTMEATH The Lakeland County had a quiet year by their own standards with no All-Ireland title and only the appoin-tment of a new manager Luke Dempsey to make the news ... until of course the national league clash with London in Ruislip before Christmas. What the players did or did not do at the British Midlands gate is still unknown. What we do know is that the GAA web sites had a field day out of it. With due solemnity Croke Park later decreed that all traveling county teams would have to escorted by a senior County Board officer in future. As if that will make any major difference. X is for X-RATED The off-the-ball tackle by Colin Regan on the Roscommon forward Francie Grehan in the Connacht senior football semi-final in June was soon to become THE X-rated moment of the GAA year on television. Anybody can lose their temper but to land such a blow when the ball had gone was well beneath the standards expected. Once exposed by TV Regan did the right thing, held up his hands and apologised. Stories about the motivation for the incident continue but at least the TV cameras were there. Y is for YOUTH At the death of the year a former President of the association was asking the modern day decision-makers to put youth ahead of financial gain when it comes to profits. Michael Loftus has spent weeks giving out about Croke Park's decision to take money from alcohol companies. Selling their soul while the demon drink plagues young people and their families is his principal charge. As a coroner who sees plenty of damage at the hands of those involved in drinking and driving he presumably knows something about the subject and when he resigned from his own club in Crossmolina after they sought a drinks licence he also showed consistency. Z is for ZEALOUS Defined by the Collins English Dictionary as enthusiastic, passionate, spirited, keen, eager, strenuous and ardent Zealous best sums up much of what goes on in the GAA world when the first whistle is blown and the games begin. Not to be confused with the disgraceful carry-on that went on at the Antrim county final. Here's looking ahead to more sporting days in 2001. Tweet

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