Chairman Carroll aims to continue to do his best to make Sligo GAA better
Coolera-Strandhill GAA Club’s Sean Carroll is looking forward to a fourth year as chairman of Sligo GAA as he looks back on a year of progression
FOR ANY chairman of Sligo GAA, the goals are simple. Keep the ship steady, plan ahead, be pragmatic yet ambitious, be prepared for choppy seas and, if at all possible, leave the County Board in a better place when it is time to move on.
Sean Carroll, the first member of Coolera-Strandhill GAA Club to chair Sligo GAA’s Executive Committee, is on track to make further progress in the year to come.
Elected to this important role at the Sligo GAA Convention of 2020, an event held online due to Covid-19, he has already spent three years at the helm and is relishing a fourth term. 2023 was a unique year for Sligo GAA. The county’s senior and U-20 teams experienced success and Carroll’s own club, CooleraStrandhill, regained the Owen B Hunt Cup for the first time since 2005.
With the County Board’s financial health a constant burden, as well as the maintaining and upgrading of Markievicz Park and the Sligo GAA Centre of Excellence at Scarden, along with a host of other issues, being chairman is no easy task.
But Carroll brings a focused determination to the role and has surrounded himself with astute individuals.
“The challenges are different now from when I started as chairman [in 2021]. It is a case of continuous improvement – there were things that had to be put right and I think we’ve put some things right – but that just opens up the next challenge and then the next challenge.
“There are always lots of things to do,” he says during a candid chat at the plush Sligo Park Hotel.
“We’ll have paid off on Scarden eventually and that date is not far off. That will free up cash flow for other things. Finances are obviously a challenge – a lot of the challenges we face are because we are a smaller county.”
Sligo GAA has been going through a revival at intercounty level. Loyal and long-suffering fans have savoured a breakthrough at Minor level in 2021, when Sligo won the Connacht GAA Minor Football Championship title for the first time since 1968, brilliant backto-back Connacht GAA U-20 Football Championship triumphs (2022 and 2023) as well as the county senior team’s promotion to Division Three of the Allianz Football League. The costs associated with preparing intercounty teams are rising. Other counties are constantly raising the bar in terms of what can be
GAA GIG: Sligo GAA chairman Sean Carroll, at an event in March of 2022 to present the medals to the Sligo squad that won the Connacht GAA Minor
Football Championship title in 2021. added, enhanced or tweaked when it comes to its county team management and backroom teams.
Sligo GAA have to battle on the pitch, usually as underdogs, and also off it as other counties have bigger sponsors and deeper talent pools.
Sligo, therefore, has to be extremely careful how it develops its talent, no player can be left behind. That is difficult, however, when a certain percentage of talented underage players simply won’t make it at senior level. Others may be injury prone, opt for other sports in their teens or just move away because of study and then work.
Carroll stated: “We probably feel that we might have been underresourcing our teams in previous years. At the moment we feel that we are resourcing them pretty well.
“We are lucky in that our managements understand the situation and they are very practical in how they deal with matters.
“I don’t think our teams are wanting for anything. I’m sure there are additional things that other counties can afford to have and if we [Sligo GAA] had unlimited resources then we might do that as well.
He continued: “That’s the challenge for us – we have to be accurate in what we do. We have to nurture our talent. We have to do our absolute level best to bring through talent [from underage teams], keep them involved and keep them interested in wanting to play for Sligo.
“If the likes of Mayo, Galway, Kerry or Dublin lose a particular player then there’s another guy just as good to step in – we have to have that continuity.” While there are certain aspects that the GAA can’t control – Dublin’s population for example versus that of Sligo, Leitrim or Monaghan – the Sligo GAA chairman thinks that a cap on County Board spending could help to level the playing field so to speak.
“In theory that would be a good idea but I doubt that it could be enforced.
But, in terms of sponsorship, I think some of that income should be pooled and distributed to other counties. “I would be very concerned about the future for the 10 so-called ‘smaller’ counties. There are 20 counties or so making a profit and then there are eight to 10 counties struggling to make ends meet and making losses. “A County Board shouldn’t be in debt in terms of its day-to-day running costs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make sure that this doesn’t happen in a county of our size. It is very difficult to raise the money that we need to cover everything.” He stated: “For the vast majority of people involved in the GAA, their club is the top priority. That is what the GAA is built on and this outlook is 100%.
“In other counties people will just get involved for the sake of the county or the County Board. They aren’t really involved at club level – that isn’t the case in Sligo.
“The worry isn’t to much the debts that we have to pay off [on Scarden],