Frankie says he’s not sure if restrictions should be relaxed

LIKE many others, St Enda’s football manager Frankie Fitzsimmons had become used to being off the hamster wheel that is year-on-year involvement with Gaelic games.

Since he came in as selector to Liam Bradley with the Antrim senior team for the 2014 season, he has been involved in the nuts and bolts of a never-ending season.

By 2015, he had succeeded Bradley and managed his county for three seasons. After that, he fell in with St Enda’s who, along with this coaching partner Pat Hughes, he brought to an All-Ireland intermediate club football final in 2019.

The duo had already been in the thick of a busy pre-season when the GAA shutdown came into place in midMarch, but last Wednesday they began a second pre-season ahead of a return to games on the weekend of July 18. And things felt different, for sure.

“I wouldn’t have cared if the season had been declared null and void to be honest,” says Fitzsimmons.

“Going back the other night, it was like going back into a job after being away for years. I didn’t know really what to expect. Once you get into it you enjoy it and after the session you are already starting to plan things. You get that wee bit of hunger back.”

Reflecting on the wider disruption and loss of life, he adds: “So many people lost their lives and that was sad. I don’t know if there was scaremongering at the start, but there was talk of a 9,000–15,000 death toll. I think we got very lucky here. A lot of people stuck to the guidelines.

“I was in work every other day and there were a few kids in because their parents were doctors.”

Schoolteacher Fitzsimmons (right) is not sure, however, about the latest relaxation of restrictions. “Once all these kids come back to school, it is concerning. The bars opening again… I spoke to lads who like a pint but they say they are going to leave it for a few weeks to see what happens.”

At home, he has to be careful. His daughter Emma has just one kidney and other complications with bone development. In truth, what the future has in store is worrying him.

St Enda’s club members were made painfully aware of that after their vicechairman, well-known solicitor Niall Murphy, was stricken by Covid-19 and recovered successfully.

“I am just wondering what happens if someone gets it? I would say that if anything like that happens we would have to shut down again. We obviously had somebody in the club with it; Niall Murphy.

“It was scary for a few weeks there. His wife was only getting bits and pieces of information from the nurses over the phone. They couldn’t go to see him and it was touch and go.

“We have one player who can’t come back until August. Michael McNamee is our full-back but his two parents have received shielding letters and they are not going to be able to come out of isolation until August 1.”

What is concerning is the unreliability of temperature testing, something that caused the shambolic treatment of former GAA player Conor McKenna in the AFL after he return a positive result in a run of negatives.

“I thought it was very unfair, the treatment he got,” Fitzsimmons says. “They were talking about his contract being terminated and a couple of days’ later he tested negative.

“If it happened to someone here in the GAA, it would be very hard for the club not to close down.”

As with everything else, we have to tread carefully for now.