SHANE McGRATH: WAITING A FEW MORE WEEKS WON’T BREAK US
FEW CHILDHOODS are nourished by dreams of a life in sports administration. Kids in schoolyard kickarounds want to be star forwards or powerhouse midfielders, not treasurers or secretaries or honorary presidents.
There is no glamour in the dry work of bureaucracy.
We’ve always intuited that organised sport cannot function without it, but it was a bit like appreciating that a chicken dinner can only be enjoyed because somewhere along the line, someone got their hands very dirty in an abattoir.
As the return of sport draws nearer and excitement finally builds again, though, paperwork will be central to a successful comeback. Admin is the new frontier in Irish sport.
The guidelines released by the GAA on Friday night for its safe return were impressively detailed. It is obvious after reading them that efficient record-keeping and detailed organisational skills will be required.
Players and officials will have to complete an online education programme. Covid supervisors will have to be appointed in clubs, with responsibility for keeping attendance records and ensuring data is stored appropriately.
Time sheets governing who uses facilities, and when, must be kept. Extensive physical changes to grounds must be implemented, too, which will include the availability of isolation rooms, appropriate signage, and the provision and replenishment of hand sanitiser.
These are not the aspects of sport people were wishing would return, but the thrills will only be possible once the duller business is completed.
Some reactions to the GAA document reveal a level of complacency that the guidelines are designed to guard against. Everyone wants everything back as it was in January.
Open everything now, is the cry. A month ago, the idea that club matches would be played by the end of July and an All-Ireland series could be under-way in the third week of October sounded fanciful.
But much wants more.
Now that the framework of a season has been produced, impatience is a reflexive response. By midSeptember and the return of intercounty training, there will be calls to open the stands and let fans in.
Despite the improving public health situation, no sport will dare to hope that its activities will see spectators in attendance.
The GAA president was hopeful on Friday night that there could be fans at matches, but he acknowledged numbers would be restricted.
There is a week’s worth of outraged editions of Liveline in that issue, and good luck to the officials that have to decide who is allowed in and who must stay outside.
However, the impatience about the speed of return are, in their own way, signs that sport is present in people’s lives again.
Some golfers were annoyed yesterday morning at news that competitions will not be permitted until later phases of the road map.
Under plans initially drawn up for the sport’s return, June 8 had been cited as the day closed-club competitions could resume.
That has been overruled by the expert group on sport’s return set up by the Government, and the decision has not played well.
But a fortnight ago, Ireland’s golfers were teeing up for the first time in months as those in other sports looked on in longing.
These kinds of reactions are inevitable, and they will be echoed in other sports because as soon as some semblance of normality is introduced back into lives, demands for more will follow.
Tempering those calls is the job of the administrators.
Behind the regulations and the rows, the sanitiser and the criticism of the cautious, lurks the dreadful possibility that Covid-19 could re-emerge in our communities.
Whether that is likely or not is immaterial; the procedures and the lists of dos and don’ts are all designed to minimise the chance of any sport contributing to that risk.
And it is worth savouring what happened over the last 48 hours, too.
An Irish summer is defined by Gaelic games. There will be no matches during the high season of June and for most of July, but by the end of next month club games will be resuming. Come September, an All-Ireland series of some description will be only weeks away.
People have endured months of sacrifice. Waiting another few weeks for the games that give us meaning won’t break us.