Tense exchanges between Avondale GAA Club and CCC over permission refusal

COUNTY BOARD MEETING

THERE were tense exchanges between Avondale GAA Club delegates and a member of the CCC and County Chairman Martin Fitzgerald during a discussion over permissions for a number of their players that had been denied by the governing body.

‘This year we have only five players available (for under-17), so we as a club looked at where they were going to play. We approached Roundwood (An Tochar), our guys go to school in Avondale CC, so they go to school with the guys there. So, we put our permissions in and we got refused.

‘We asked why. The CCC came back, there were only four people at this meeting, and they came back and said that we should go and play with Avoca and Aughrim. Now, we as a club should ask and request where our players should go. The CCC came back and said Avoca and Aughrim and we asked why. There was no answer back. It was just end of story.

‘We go out the gate here (Ballinakill) and we go left we go for Aughrim and Avoca, we go right for Roundwood, similar distance. The club decided that we wanted to go right. What I’m asking here tonight is why three players cannot go and play with Roundwood when unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers to make our own team,’ he said.

Conor Doyle said that after last year, the new CCC committee felt that they had to lay down a marker in terms of permissions for 2020 given the situations that arose last year and the criticism that permissions had drawn on social media and at county board meetings.

‘We felt that they would be best served by playing with Avoca and Aughrim,’ said Doyle who also highlighted an historic connection between the three clubs.

The CCC representative said that if the they granted the permissions of the three (he suggested that it had originally been five or six) then the three Avoca players and 10 Aughrim players would have no team to play with.

‘Where are those Avoca and Aughrim players going to go?’ he asked. ‘If we don’t take a stance on this where does it stop?

‘The answer is still not a good enough answer for our club,’ said the Avondale delegate. ‘Annacurra and Aughrim, neighbouring clubs, Annacurra lads go to Tinahely. Why not look at that scenario? Why can’t Aughrim and Annacurra come together?

‘Just because Avoca and Aughrim have 13 players, you’re saying why don’t you just go there. That’s not the decision we made as a club. We had talked to Roundwood. And it wasn’t just going to Roundwood. Our guys go to school with them, they’re playing on the schools team and have been playing together since they were 13 years of age. That’s the reason.

‘I’m sort of puzzled that a decision can be made for our club by four people when there are nine or 10 people on that committee. And the answer that came back is that it’s cut and dried, that’s it, don’t ask any more questions. For me that’s not democracy,’ said the Avondale delegate.

Martin Fitzgerald said that the minutes of the Coiste na nÓg meeting had already been proposed and seconded and that the matter was now being brought up at the end of the meeting.

He also added that the Avondale GAA Club had the right to appeal and they didn’t appeal.

A second Avondale delegate said that they had sent in an appeal.

Martin Fitzgerald said that they had appealed to the CCC but that they should have appealed to the Hearings committee.

Another delegate asked when it came about that the CCC could go around creating group teams without even consulting clubs.

Clara Gaels are obviously defunct, Derry Gaels, that’s gone wrong, but at what point did we all sit down and agree that we were making new clubs without consulting everybody or without ratifying it here.

Martin Fitzgerald said that didn’t need to be ratified.

Conor Doyle warned that this would become an issue a few months down the road.

‘We have to make decisions. There were four of us there on the committee. GAA rulebook says that there has to be a minimum of three people. If people are not happy with that, that’s grand. it

The County Board can put new members in (to the CCC) If you don’t trust our integrity. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. We’ve been trying to be proactive with the different things we’ve had to look at. If we allow three or four or five – the number has been changing – to go to Avondale to An Tochar, we then have a much bigger problem. Every other single delegate in this room are going to be coming onto our case saying where are those 10 players in Aughrim going to go play. It’s not an easy decision, but where do we stop?

‘We got absolutely lambasted by clubs, delegates in this room, on social media, slating the CCC with regards to making decisions. We had to make the hard decision. Where do we send those 10 players from Aughrim and three from Avoca. There’s an historical relationship...’

‘There’s no historical relationship between Aughrim and Avondale,’ said the Avondale delegate. ‘At the moment we have a problem with Aughrim and Avondale with three senior hurlers and yet Aughrim are looking to get some of our players to go play with them. How can we work with that?

‘Our club decided, not one or two individuals, decided that we wanted, and we talked to the parents as well, we decided that Roundwood was the easiest direction for us to travel and yet our club were told ‘no, you can’t do that’. And all they want to do is play football.

‘What you’re trying to do is make a team, you’ve said that. Now that’s not the position of the CCC to make up a group team. We want to bring our players to Roundwood, that was our decision and I think it still should be our decision. It’s common sense. I’m asking that this be looked at again,’ said the Avondale delegate.

Martin Fitzgerald said that the matter was already decided and that the minutes of the CCC meeting had been passed earlier.

An Avondale delegate described that as a ‘technicality’.

‘That’s why the County Board is in the state that it’s in,’ he said.

The second delegate explained that they had been told that the matter was closed. He said that they wanted people to know what was going on.