SPORT? MORE A WAY OF LIFE

As we prepare for a weekend of GAA action, one writer says we should never forget how lucky we are, for our own national games — and the community spirit they foster — are still untarnished by the cash culture that has poisoned every other sport

MAGIC moments. There have been plenty of those this summer. Setting aside the fairytale weather, most of them have involved unlikely colours raising unexpected trophies. The sky blue of Dublin might be a familiar enough sight on the steps of the Hogan Stand, but Dubs swapping hurleys for a provincial trophy is a rare and wondrous occasion. Limerick, it is said, still hasn’t recovered from its hurlers lifting the most competitive of the provincial titles, prompting one of the most joyous pitch invasions in memory.

London’s footballers, underdogs of underdogs, went on an astonishing run through Connaught ending in a first-ever appearance in a provincial final, and last weekend, the good people of Monaghan gave Limerick a decent run for their money in the pitch invasion stakes when their footballers efficiently dispatched the All-Ireland Champions, Donegal, from the Ulster Championship. Tipperary’s starry hurlers were early casualties in the race towards the Liam McCarthy Cup and this evening, almost unbelievably, Kilkenny fight for their title in what the GAA has billed as a quarter final but everyone else knows is a qualifier. In other sports, they consider these events ‘upsets’. In the GAA, we call them wonderful surprises.

Sports used to surprise us more often. Back before mega-bucks entered the arena of most sporting endeavours, underdogs were far more likely to prevail. The history of the Olympics Games is littered with the names of no-hopers who came from nowhere, and took home gold medals against the odds. Our own Ronnie Delany barely made the Irish Olympic squad in 1956, when he won his historic gold medal in the 1,500 metres.

These days, it is almost impossible to imagine an athletics gold being won by a competitor so completely off the radar. Meanwhile, sports like Formula One and — as we’ve seen again in this year’s Tour de France — cycling have become so focused on the performances of cash-rich teams rather than those of individuals that fairytales have become practically extinct. Even Roy Of The Rovers would be hard-pressed to deliver a comic-book twist these days: the Premiership has never been won by a team that didn’t have a massive investor behind it and you’ve to stretch all the way back to 1980 before the roll of honour gives up a team from outside the top division (and even then it was West Ham; scarcely Melchester Rovers) winning the so-called giant-killing FA Cup.

BUT t he GAA cons t antly t hrows up unlikely heroes. Who, at the beginning of last year’s football championship, would have tipped Mayo and Donegal for the final? Who had money on Galway’s hurlers not just winning Leinster, but drawing against a resurgent Kilkenny in the All-Ireland Final at the first time of asking? And it’s not just in the blue riband competitions that Gaelic games throw up unlikely results and configurations. Summer supporters might not have noticed that Donegal, All-Ireland Cham- pions, were relegated in the National League earlier this year, or that the Meath team that put up such a spirited performance in the Leinster football final played in lowly division three in the National League, and were beaten in their divisional final by, well, Monaghan.

Would any of these starred stories have been possible if GAA players were paid? The arguments for paying inter- county players who make massive sacrifices in their personal and professional lives in order to serve their jersey — and they are many and persuasive — rarely take into account that professionalism in the sport would invariably usher in transfers. The alternative, occasionally mooted system, whereby players would be paid but not allowed move from county to county would be both desperately unfair and would quickly lead to players using sleight of hand to move home and club in order to be available for a county offering higher wages. Given that most county boards can barely cover the cost of hiring a bus, players would use any means necessary to move counties; in other words, transfers would become the norm, even if we didn’t call them that.

So consider, for a moment, a fully professional, transparent system, i n which footballers would be free to sign and play for the highest bidder. Inevitably, the counties with the fattest chequebooks would be the ones with a track history of success in provincial and All-Ireland competitions. And so, within a short while, all the best footballers in the country would play for Kerry or Dublin or Donegal and the hurlers would be queuing to sign for the Cats. Is it conceivable that Joe Canning, one of the greatest hurlers of his generation, would remain in Galway for lower wages than he could score in Kilkenny? Would Dessie Dolan have spent so many years playing for Westmeath when the green and gold could have made him a richer man?

APROFESSIONAL system might make some people and some counties very rich, but as we’ve s een in Britain, once serious money enters the frame, the net result is the impoverishment of the game as a whole. When I was growing up, back when English footballers were paid wages that just about passed as decent, the start of each new football season brought with it a level of excitement and expectation that lifted all boats. Back then, as August

loomed, any one of a dozen clubs might conceivably be still in the title race come the business end of the season. Now, with the 2013/14 season almost upon us, it is taken as a given that only three clubs could possibly win the Premiership and — perhaps even more depressingly — that the four European places will only be contested by, at most, six sides.

Meanwhile, each passing season brings fresh financial woes for literally every football club outside that top six. The net result is a woefully lopsided system that doesn’t just favour the rich, but actually manages to simultaneously penalise the poor. Now, where is the magic in that?

Another inevitable result of professionalism i n the GAA would be the dilution of county loyalties. Again, we’ve seen this across the water, where Manchester United fans are as likely to live in London, Glasgow, rural Devon – or, indeed, Dublin – as they are in Manchester. When you are no longer cheering for people who share your accent, t hen l oyalty l i nes become blurred. This is why the club championships r emain t he bedrock of the GAA — people will always cheer for their own parish ahead of the neighbouring one. It might be a national organization, but the heart of the GAA beats to a tribal tune: when Dublin’s footballers won the Sam Maguire in 2011, it was difficult to tell whether the people celebrating in my own club that night were cheering the county team or the fact that it was our clubman, Kevin McManamon, who scored the winning goal.

Conversely, while my son is proud to be taught in school by one of the Dublin hurling team, he was more excited to see another player, Danny Sutcliffe, hitting sliothars on the green the other day, because unlike his teacher, Sutcliffe plays for our club.

But once you start messing with where people belong, they become less focused on the local and less likely to run onto a pitch because people from their parish are on the park ahead of them. The GAA understands that better than any of its critics which is why, happily, even imagining a shift to professionalism remains purely hypothetical. There is a down side to this, of course. If you can only play where you’re born — or, in latter years, where you live and work — then there are probably legions of long-forgotten players whose talents were never acknowledged because they played for so-called weaker counties, whose endeavours were played out away from the national spotlight.

EVEN the roll of honour of those great players who never won an AllIreland — the likes of Dermot Earley, Ciarán McDonald and Ciarán Whelan — tends to be drawn from counties who were experiencing a brief drought in trophies rather than a perpetual famine.

But with all sympathy and respect to those players, theirs is a small sacrifice for a greater, healthier picture. Everyone who has pulled on a county jersey in Ireland has done so for the love of that county, for the good of their team, for the excitement of the game. Does Robin Van Persie kiss the crest on his Manchester United shirt before he pulls it on? Or does he spend those t ense pre - match moments calculating how many more goals he needs before he can afford another swimming pool?

So here we are, approaching the business end of the 2013 hurling and football championships. Dublin’s hurlers are one game away from an All-Ireland Final; the footballers of Monaghan are two. There are three counties who still have teams in both championships and one of them is Laois. And any day now, Kerry will start playing. If that doesn’t make pulses beat faster up and down the country, then I don’t know what can. It will all end on the steps of the Hogan Stand in September, but right now, there’s every chance that it started in a damp field near you.

That is the magic, the beauty and the draw of the GAA. Your neighbour, your teacher, your son. It is probably the best thing about us and it gives us all — players and supporters alike — the chance to be heroes.

Even if it is just for one day.