Geaney launches Super Games Centres initiative
Paul Geaney has been lending his support to a couple of worthy causes of late but he also remains committed to winning the All-Ireland title with Kerry. He spoke to
WE dare say Paul Geaney has enjoyed warmer, fuzzier times on Washington Street than he did there last Saturday night. Notwithstanding his status as a top footballer with UCC in his college days there a few years ago - or maybe because of it - it’s safe to assume that Geaney has sampled the hospitality of The Wash and The Courthouse bars and possibly even Reardon’s Nightclub across the street.
Last weekend Geaney was back on Washington Street in the wee hours, only this time he was looking at the students and revellers at large spilling out of the pubs and clubs rather than being among them. The reason being that the Dingle and Kerry footballer was lending his support to Gaelic Voices For Change, a social action movement of current and former GAA inter-county players passionate about making a difference, which organised a one-night sleep out across several towns and cities last Saturday to highlight the homeless crisis in this country.
Geaney is under no illusions that the gesture by a few hundred GAA players is just that: a gesture, but it’s something he had no hesitation is signing up for. That he personally raised over €1000 is commendable, but he is also aware that as a prominent Kerry footballer, he can use his status and celebrity for good causes.
“I just felt it was something I could weigh in on,” he says of the Gaelic Voices For Change movement. “I haven’t done anything other than just promote it on my Twitter and Facebook and try and raise funds and take part in the sleep out. It’s just something I can do to help change things a small but, it’s not going to change anything major. It’s not going to solve the crisis but it’s getting people to talk about it and put the pressure on a small bit to effect change.”
Geaney was speaking to The Kerryman in advance of that night sleeping out on the steps of Cork city courthouse at another initiative that he is putting his GAA celebrity behind.
In his role as a Sky Sports ambassador the past couple of years, Geaney was in Tralee CBS last week to launch the GAA Super Games Centre in partnership with Sky Sports. The Super Games Centres - based all over the country - were set up to reduce the drop off in sport and fitness participation by teenagers, something Geaney is keen to support.
“It’s a great initiative. I suppose at fourteen years of age all your enthusiasm is there and then between fourteen and eighteen that’s when kids start to drop off so it’s important that initiatives like this are started and kept up,” he says. “Obviously obesity is a huge issue in the country and it’s one that is taking a back seat because you don’t instantly see fatalities or the mortality rate with it. It’s other things like heart disease and cancer, all these off-shoot diseases, because you don’t die from being obese you die from the effects of being obese. I think it’s important going forward that we change the culture and this is definitely something that is a good starter for that.
“The Sky Sports part of it is just getting kids going out and getting them involved in sport. Sky Sports is a huge brand name and it’s a good way to use it. If a kid gets a t-shirt and there’s nothing on it they’re not going to wear it but if you put Sky Sports on it and you get that for participating it’s nice and it’s cool to wear. It’s just a little added incentive to keep participating and if you hold on to kids as they’re fifteen, sixteen going through school it’s a vital period in their lives. There’s a lot of drop off (from sport) in this stage of their lives so school programmes like this is a very good start to try and keep the interest there. Obviously it’s not the only thing, there’s lots and lots of other steps along the way but one of the building blocks is to keep that fire lit, that enthusiasm they have as twelve and thirteen-year olds in primary school. Once they go from primary school at twelve into secondary school there’s a big step down in physical activity in that one year. That 35 to 40 minutes of activity is gone and they say all you need is half an hour of activity a day.
“The most practical thing at that age is diet. If you have a good diet at that age it takes very little to stay fit,” Geaney says, but adds that regular exercise is just as important. “The second thing is thirty minutes of intense physical activity. I’d actually cut it down to twelve to fifteen minutes a day of intense physical activity, that will keep you super fit. Recently I’ve been around the world and you take more notice of where Irish society is at to what I would have before. There are so many variations of sport, you don’t have to play Gaelic football or hurling, you don’t have to play the common sports. There are the enjoyment sports, things people wouldn’t even have heard of. It doesn’t matter what it is, just find something you like and do that.”
As a Kerry footballer Geaney understands the demands of senior inter-county life, and he has no issue with the workload and sacrifices required at the elite level. Having studied physical education in UCC and having come up through the underage ranks in the Gaelic football stronghold of Dingle, the 28-year also knows that for the age bracket these Super Games Centres are targeting, there can be too much emphasis on winning at too young an age.
“There was (too much emphasis on winning) but it’s not anymore in my club, which is right. It’s about participating, enjoying it and not feeling at twelve years of age that you left your team down. It should be about competing but being happy at the end of it, that you did your best. I think that goes right the way to under-16,” he explains. “Our club philosophy is that we want to produce senior players so it’s not about winning at underage, it’s about progressing our youth and getting them ready to play senior, getting their skills up to the highest standard they can be, and then hopefully they’ll come through as senior players. I think a lot of clubs worry too much about their under-12s winning the county league division one or whatever.
“At senior inter-county level, however, I think the players enjoy it. When you immerse yourself in trying to get to that level it’s fiercely enjoyable. But when you look at it from a club point of view and you don’t have your county players it’s frustrating. It also filters down to clubs when you have club managers trying to emulate what county teams are doing and it’s just not viable or feasible at all.”
But is the inter-county game sustainable as it currently exists?
“I think as it is right now it is (but) if it goes further I’m not sure. It depends on whether all the players are prepared to keep going with it in the future. I’ll be fine, my generation. This is totally sustainable for me, then again I’m in a privileged position to be living at home in Kerry and have a flexible job that I can do it. But it might be different for a guy who might be a doctor in Cork and have to travel home to Kerry, or be a chemical engineer up in Limerick and leaving there at four or five (in the afternoon), getting down to Kerry and then having to make up (work) hours on a Saturday or whatever, that can be draining.
As Kerry’s only All Star this year and as the team’s torch-bearer in attack throughout the Championship, Geaney can be suitably pleased with how his year went, but - as ever - success is measured by where the All-Ireland title goes, so he is understandably sanguine about the year that was.
“At this stage it’s well documented what I think of the (2017). It was great to have won a National League medal, it’s one that I’ll cherish when I retire because we hadn’t won one in quite a while. Another Munster to add to the collection, it’s important to own your own patch, and then obviously the All-Ireland was disappointing but we’ll learn from that. I played well enough, yeah, but there’s room for improvement in me. I’m looking forward to that task and improving myself as a player for the next year and try to get over the line next year but that’s the excitement of the year that’s coming. I’m looking forward to next year, it’s going to be an exciting year.
Is Kerry far away from reclaiming the All-Ireland title?
“Not at all. I don’t think any of
the top three are, top four, maybe, depending on what strides are made in the coming year, but I think they are closely grouped together, obviously with Dublin out in front at the moment, with a grip at the moment, but once that grip starts to loosen you never know. It’s just up to us to try and loosen that grip.
“Every year I come back I’m extremely confident. I say it out right that we’re going to win the All-Ireland this year. It’s my complete belief every year I’ve been involved that we’re going to win the All-Ireland. Now, unfortunately, we’ve only done it once since I’ve been a Kerry player but it’s exciting and all the rest of it is history now. Whatever I did last year is history now as well and I’ve to better it this year. I’ve definitely to better it to keep my place in the team because the youth that is coming is exciting and if they live up to the promise, and I’m sure they will, I’ll be shoved out the door.”