Postman had big surprise in store for medal winners

THE G.A.A. always claims it has a special bond with players. I love to start the year with the pre-season games, building up to the league and championship both at club and inter-county levels, leading into the warm days of summer. I am quite comfortable with those days, even after so many years.

But 2020 has been a strange year, with all the magic of spring taken away from us, particularly when Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced the lockdown of the country back in March.

The visit to rural sporting venues ended, and we didn’t know for how long. The long walks through woods and the nature of spring was no longer accessible, which in turn led to the elderly cocooning, and offices closing down, with work from home where possible.

This led to an enormous amount of spring cleaning, not to mention good days and bad days, but for many Wexford inter-county players it brought a real surprise over the past week to ten days.

There is a long-held belief that the postman is never more welcome than during difficult times, let it be bad snowy weather, or even at present through the current pandemic.

And the postmen on their daily deliveries carried something more special for some local players over recent days and weeks. It would not be quite normal to be carrying a prized G.A.A. possession, something even the recipient must have long forgotten about.

When Ireland began to shut down, a long-planned catch-up with jobs that should have been completed many moons ago, suddenly took priority. Nearly everyone has a bad habit of hoarding material, pushing it to the back of the desk, drawers, cabinets and safes.

So, it took a global pandemic for Wexford G.A.A. players to finally get hold of their long-awaited possession.

It may have been an early morning delivery, with most people either at home, working from home, or temporarily laid off, or perhaps it could have been the appetiser one needed prior to lunch, a special delivery from the postman.

Wexford players, on opening the envelope, came across a note and, yes, that ‘missing medal’ from so many years back.

Many things may have changed, but not in the way Wexford G.A.A. does its business. Some players were pleasantly surprised to see a medal dating back to 2013, when Wexford began its Under-21 hurling journey with a Leinster title.

Others were the recipient of a medal for winning the provincial Junior football championship, and it’s not often success wings its way down to the Model county in that code.

Suddenly those around the dining table had an unexpected conversation, with a medal won some seven years ago eventually finding its rightful home.

They tried to figure out the reason behind the delay. Perhaps the medals were found at the back of a safe, so it was left to the postman to make that special presentation.

Some felt there is little new in this, but that didn’t last long. The Senior hurlers held a special banquet for receipt of their 2019 provincial medals last December, while the Minor hurlers were gathered in a room, before being brought in next door before the Coiste na nOg county Convention to receive theirs.

Others asked, why were the Under-21 hurling and Junior football medals left to lose colour in the back of a safe in the county’s G.A.A. office for so long?

Every day one gets some kind of an alert regarding the importance of players to the Association, or to any given sport. But why did it take a worldwide pandemic for those particular Wexford players to receive their hard-won pieces of silver?

What I am describing is the different treatment of players. Those medals for the Under-21 hurlers and Junior footballers meant as much to them as to the Senior recipients.

Incidentally, some of that Senior squad were given medals in the same year to mark their 2019 win, while having to wait seven years for their Under-21 achievement to be acknowledged.

They started the sequence of a three-in-a-row of provincial titles in 2013, while the Junior footballers recorded back-to-back Leinster wins for the first time in 2015 and 2016.

The players deserved, even a gathering for tea and sandwiches when the lockdown eases, if not a banquet.

Little did the postman realise he was carrying a piece of silver valued perhaps in the region of €100 to €200.