The Season is Upon Us

January through March are horrible months in Ireland. The weather is bad, money is in short supply after the Christmas excesses and all the economic forecasts for Ireland in 2008 are in the gloom and doom category.

In sporting circles however, January means that it not far away from the start the Gaelic football and hurling season. Spring and summer beckon with all the usual anticipation and discussion from the county teams down to the Junior 4 club side. The summer in Ireland will be defined by how your club or county performs.

Weather is irrelevant. The GAA supporter is a hardy animal and in the playing months (usually March to October) he or she are possessed of an almost manic religious fervour.

The GAA organization and its games are unique in the world of sport. Nowhere are there as compelling and attractive games to watch, played by amateur men and women to very high fitness levels and a huge degree of skill. These games attract massive audiences within Ireland, and yet remain virtually unknown in any country worldwide. With the exception of ex-pats organizing games in the US, UK and Australia, these wonderful games are ignored by mainstream media the world over. And boy, what are they missing!

For those who may not know of the national games of Ireland a brief introduction is in order. Gaelic games are basically divided into football, hurling, camogie (effectively ladies hurling) ladies football and handball (akin to squash without racquets). The first two mentioned are the main games, played by men.

The core of the entire GAA system is the parish club and the amateur ethos. The parish is an area within a county the borders of which were originally defined by the Catholic Church. Generally, what is known as the “parish rule” applies in that if a player is resident in a particular parish he is obliged by rule to play for the club that exists there. Of course, many parishes are large towns in which there are multiple clubs and in such cases, players have a choice from which to play.

No player in any of the sports receives payment. Only at the top administrative level do officials who occupy full-time jobs get salaries and expenses. A grants system is about to be introduced in 2008 to compensate inter-county players. This has attracted controversy and it remains to be seen how it works out. In many ways, this has come about because GAA has become a victim of its own success with huge demands on players from county and club.

There are over 2,500 clubs in the 32 counties. The game is structured administratively by an All-Ireland Central Council and then on a provincial basis through to a county board command role down to the club itself. The best players from clubs are picked to represent their county in the provincial and all-Ireland championships.

The volunteer aspect of the organization is incredible. Mentors and officials at club and county level work passionately to ensure the continuation of the games through generations, as other sports vie to attract the kids. For a sport that is confined to the 32 counties, the attraction and huge power it wields is a phenonomen not seen any where in the world of sport.

The amateur aspect is also the key to its success. Gaelic sporting heroes are tangible, ordinary men and women who perform heroics on the field of play, watched by thousands, and by a vastly larger TV audience. Yet, they have jobs to go to on Monday, whether it is a building site, or an accountancy practice, a teaching job or a university place. These young men and women are touchy, feely people that you will meet down at the pub having a pint, largely ignored by their local peers, but mega stars in the national media. They live ordinary lives with their feet kept firmly on the ground. There is little room for posers in the GAA dressing rooms and the down to earth attitudes of most players, famous or not, is one that is implanted in them from a tiny age. .

As a huge force for good in every community, whether it be a tiny village or a large town, it is impossible to calculate the enormous cultural and personal benefits that emerge from the presence of the GAA club.

At a higher level, the success of the game has enabled the GAA, and Ireland, to have one of the great stadiums of the world - Croke Park. This stadium has a long history but the foresight of the upper echelon of the GAA to demolish it in stages and rebuild it completely was a truly fantastic feat for an amateur organization. If only these people would take over the running of the country from the dimwits that are doing it now. Croke Park is now an excellent stadium seating in excess of 82,000 people. Not alone though is there Croke Park, but also many excellent stadiums around the country. Venues such as the hurling stronghold of Semple Stadium in Thurles and Clones in Monaghan spring to mind as good examples of regional stadiums.

It speaks volumes for the quality of the people running a huge amateur organization when you compare them to their counterparts in the FAI.

This supposedly professional body has made a complete shambles soccer at local and national level, despite the great years of success in the 80’s and 90’s. The FAI never capitalized on the high profile and success that Jack Charlton brought to the team and the country. The incompetent imbeciles that parade as professional administrators in the FAI could take a lesson from what the soccer brigade sneer at as the Grab All Association.

It could be more correctly described as the Give Away Association when one sees the funds that filter down to ground level, creating high standard amenities in every little village and town land, whilst the soccer clubs are still togging out behind the ditch and the national team is homeless!

The some what archaic administration system where the existence of County Boards, Provincial Councils, and Central Council management tiers is often criticized for the inability to move issues along quickly. There is more than a degree of truth in that, and this has often led to stalemate in trying to reach important decisions. None more so than the thorny and controversial decision to open Croke Park to facilitate the playing of soccer and rugby, games that were once alien to GAA culture because of the British occupation of Ireland at the founding time of the Association in 1884.

This mindset was reinforced by the memory of a barbaric act by the British forces in 1921 when they entered Croke Park in armoured cars, and opened fire on both spectators and players without warning. Thirteen people were killed on that day of shame, including one player, Michael Hogan, whom the Hogan Stand is now named after.

Thereafter, members of the British forces were not allowed to be members of the GAA. As the state evolved into what it now is, a Republic of Ireland of 26 counties and a separate 6-county province of Ulster, governed by the British, the ban applied up until recent years to members of the then RUC (now the PSNI ).

The most controversial aspect of the GAA rules that carried through from the 1920’s was what was known as the “Ban”. This rule prevented players of Gaelic games participating in what were termed “foreign games”, this meaning soccer and rugby. These two games were considered to be British games and therefore alien to Irish culture. It was the most ridiculous rule ever invented by the GAA and was broken so many times, by so many different methods, that public opinion forced the organization to revoke the rule in 1972.

That the rule lasted that long is not something of which the GAA should be proud.

Thus, the controversy about opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby was rooted in the events of many years ago. It took three years to get the motion approved to allow this to happen, and showed that history can be a great restrainer of progress. However, happen it did and one of the great memories of this scribe was watching Ireland beat England in the 6-Nations Rugby Championship at Croke Park in 2006 at a packed and indescribable cauldron of emotion and pride.

Let it be written in stone so that none may forget. Gaelic games are the face of what make Ireland wonderful and unique. We should, as a nation, be intensely proud of the GAA and therefore proud of ourselves as individuals involved in any role that may be as a mentor, supporter or player.

Roll on the summer of 2008!

We can handle the January blues with the mere thought of the joys that might be ahead.