Volunteer ethos is the association’s most sacred quality
Selfless role of GAA in our communities must be recognised
‘THE GAA DOES NOT NEED A BALL TO GET ITS HEART PUMPING’
THE right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing. It is a truth that should not be lost on Croke Park, even if all the right notes were sounded last week in launching an appeal to ‘Club Together’ in order to help the elderly and vulnerable at this appalling time.
‘SuperValu, Centra and the GAA are making an urgent appeal to GAA clubs across the country, to volunteer to be part of Club Together,’ read a statement last week.
‘GAA clubs are calling on their members to join a local task force to assist the elderly, who are dependent on the goodwill of others for their food shopping needs.
‘GAA clubs will then partner with their local SuperValu or Centra store.’
It takes a particularly virulent strain of contrariness to find fault with that, and yet it grates on a couple of levels.
That it is the right thing brooks no argument. At this time, the need for us as a government and as a people to look after the most vulnerable hardly needs stating.
However, this is a message that has been heard loud and clear by all, not least by the GAA, from the top down to the bottom.
The decision by the GAA leadership at national and county level to instantly make its stadia, including Croke Park, county grounds and centres of excellence available to help facilitate a now stuttering Covid-19 testing process, was laudable.
Even more so, however, was the GAA’s instinctive response at grassroots level as it went from a sporting association to a community support agency in the blink of an eye.
Gifted with a forensic knowledge of its community, it has been allembracing in reaching out to those most in need, delivering food and shopping, collecting pharmacy prescriptions or simply checking in on those who live alone.
The instinct to reach out is not exclusive to the GAA.
There has been widespread evidence of wholesale acts of kindness from other sporting codes, voluntary groups, professional services and local business along with individual acts of generosity right across society’s spectrum.
However, it is in the GAA’s DNA at grassroots level to react like this, and not just when we are in the grip of a global pandemic.
It is why when tragedy or misfortune strikes at the heart of a community, the likelihood is that someone in a GAA hi-vis vest is either helping to park the car, shaking a bucket or selling a raffle ticket.
And it never needs telling.
To be fair, the ‘Club Together’ initiative did not seek to give off that impression – GAA president John Horan making the point that its clubs had led the way in responding – but it just did not ring right.
What jarred is the GAA’s most sacred quality, its community volunteer ethos, is now being shackled to commercial branding, with SuperValu and Centra official sponsors of the inter-county championships.
There may be a certain logic to that – after all they now offer not only essential commercial services, but critical ones – as does Aldi, Lidl, Londis, Dunnes Stores and Mrs O’Brien’s local Spar shop.
If supermarket managers, irrespective of what signage they use to hawk their wares, need assistance in getting deliveries out into the community, the natural thing to do is ring their local club and ask for that help because everything we know about the GAA tells us they are unlikely to be disappointed.
And if they don’t know that, then they don’t know their market or their community.
And the GAA’s grassroots certainly don’t need a press release as a call to arms or – for that matter – to be directed as to which commercial entity they should be aligned. If that sounds petty, there is bigger point at play here.
Soft words come easily at times like this as the instinct, when faced with societal trauma on this scale, is to put aside all critical thoughts in the interests of unity.
That is why Leo Varadkar could not only get away with telling us that ‘not all super heroes wear capes’ but was lauded for it, when the reality is he left them in their overcoats as they took to picket line to demonstrate how they were overworked and undervalued.
On a far less important level, the clubs are the GAA’s front line. They have always represented the best of it as a sporting, cultural and community-based association but have been squeezed into the margins for far too long.
Those who have felt the impact of the club, either on the pitch or in the community, never had to be told of its selflessness or value.
There were times, though, when others appeared to take that for granted and moves to give clubs the time and space they deserve has been forced and laboured.
If there is anything to be learned from this crisis, and it will be hardearned and come at far too high a human cost, it is that a postCovid-19 world awaits and the hope is that old values should be the new currency.
And that will hopefully ensure a new-found respect for those who always seem to do the right thing at the right time.
Wexford chairman Derek Kent recently said that, in the event of action resuming on our fields later this year, the club and inter-county seasons should flip places.
It makes sense given that the lifting of restrictions, including those on mass gatherings, will be on a phased basis which would be more suitable to the club game.
Indeed, fears are growing that an inter-county championship will not be played at all – the prospect of 80,000 people congregating in Croke Park for All-Ireland finals is almost impossible to envisage at this point.
That will be a great disappointment to a lot of people, but whatever the GAA endures this season, it will always do something more than survive because the last few weeks have shown that it does not need a ball to get its heart beating.
And if it should come to pass the only ball to be kicked or pucked in anger will be in the club game this year, in a way that would be appropriate.
After all, the GAA stripped down to its bare essentials will never look more beautiful.