February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Any day now, a bright spark in Sky Sports will surely catch a tape of last year’s All-Ireland final and propose a compromise rules game between Tyrone and the Bradford Bulls, the Leeds Rhinos or some other rugby league outfit. There would be actually very little compromise required given how much the codes now resemble each other.
Consider this then. In January, Westmeath and Longford drew 14,612 to Cusack Park in Mullingar to watch them do battle in an O’Byrne Cup match. That’s more people than saw Cork shock Kerry in the 1983 Munster football final at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. When Tyrone played Donegal in a McKenna Cup game in Ballybofey a few weeks back, there were also more than 14,000 in the ground. Little wonder there is serious talk of moving the Ulster final to Croke Park because Clones’ capacity of 30,000 just isn’t sufficient anymore.
We came across these remarkable figures in an insightful column by the Sunday Life’s Michael McGeary, and it brought home yet again the wonder of the GAA. At a time when Sky, the Premiership, and the Champions League appear to be growing bigger and bigger, the largest sports organization in Ireland continues to surge ever upward. And still, the majority of the coverage the GAA is getting of late has been uniformly negative.
Even President Mary McAleese has come in for unfair stick for preferring it to soccer. The cheek of her. Didn’t somebody inform her she’s not allowed to remain passionately interested in a sport she grew up with and has followed her entire life?
We’re not saying some of the criticism hasn’t been justified. Although there appears to be a grand plan in operation regarding a plebiscite of all clubs at a later date, it’s difficult to understand the politicking going on regarding the motions to Congress about opening Croke Park. Whatever it’s supposed to achieve in the short term, it gives the critics an easy stick to beat the GAA with. It also confirms ignorant suspicions held by many Dublin 4 types that the Association is a clandestine group akin to the Freemasons.
There is no doubt either somebody deserved to be carpeted for the foul-up at Croke Park on St. Patrick’s Day. But the nature of that debacle was rooted once more in the burgeoning popularity of the club finals as a spectacle. The organization’s hierarchy simply failed to realize that on fine days, for many casual fans, a trip to Jones Road has taken on the status of a social event, regardless of what’s on there. Forgive me but isn’t that a logistical problem the Eircom League and the AIL would die for?
The truly galling thing here is the RTE apparatchiks who will fill the airwaves over the coming weeks about the GAA depriving Robbie Keane of the opportunity of playing in Croke Park only ever seem to raise the GAA in a negative context. It used to be the ban on RUC members. Now it’s Rule 42. Here’s a thought: Why is it the only time you hear the GAA mentioned on “Questions and Answers,” it’s in relation to a controversy like that?
How come the producers of that show never throw in a question like: “Is the GAA the single greatest sporting and cultural organization in the history of Ireland, and what can the IRFU and the FAI learn from it?” I have no problem with members of GAA clubs ranting and raving about facets of the
organization that bother them. They are entitled to have their say because they (and there are three-quarters of a million of them) are the reason the GAA is so bloody successful.
It’s a pity some of these people are a touch Hezbollah about other codes, but every club in every sport has a lunatic fringe. The GAA’s problem is that — because it’s such a democratic entity — one of their lunatic fringe can stand up at a county board meeting, say something ridiculous and have it trumpeted all over the newspapers as symbolic of the entire association.
This is rubbish. We’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again. The truly great people in the GAA are genuine sports fans. Their preference may be hurling or football, but most of them will have played and followed soccer or rugby in their time. That’s the wonderful thing about most sport in Ireland. There is an ecumenical core to it. Many of the Cork people going to Thurles for a Munster hurling final will flock to Turner’s Cross to watch Cork City or to Musgrave Park to see Munster. Just as long as they are all winning.
If a plebiscite is held and the GAA’s rank and file vote to allow soccer, rugby and whatever else to be played in Croke Park (which they most likely
would), it will prove yet again the strength of the GAA. Were they to vote against opening it up, that’s their prerogative too. It doesn’t make them bigoted or insular or old-fashioned. I reserve the right not to rent my house out to you even if a first-time buyer’s grant from the government helped me buy it.
Should the FAI gain access to Croke Park any time soon, it will be hilarious to watch them squirm as they entertain the might of the Faroe Islands and the undeniably attractive Cyprus there. Since the GAA estimate they need more than 32,000 people to walk through the gates to meet the