I’M DONE
Former Ireland team boss Patsy McGonagle doesn’t watch athletics on TV any more and fears that if Irish heroes stop climbing the podiums the public will switch off too
‘THE PUBLIC DON’T CARE ABOUT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL’
PATSY McGONAGLE doesn’t watch much athletics on television any more. Having stepped away from his role as Ireland team manager, he now wonders if he will watch any that doesn’t have Irish interest next year. He’s not sure what it means.
‘I just know, as someone who was Irish Olympic team manager, that if I was sitting at home now, I wouldn’t be bothered watching athletics if there was no Irish involvement. And I am someone who 20 or 30 years ago would have watched every bit of athletics that I could.
‘When I am at a championship with athletes, I am still keyed in to what we have to do, but outside of that, I wouldn’t be too bothered with it.
‘I don’t know what that means. Just because some man in Donegal won’t turn on the athletics doesn’t necessarily mean the sport has a problem.’
McGonagle is more than just ‘some man in Donegal’ though.
For two decades, he was the face of Irish athletics as the team manager, a constant presence for the good times – and the bad. ‘We had some emotional days. And some lonely days too,’ is how he recalls it.
All too often, he was the voice of reason, providing context and perspective. As in London, when Rob Heffernan thought he had agonisingly missed out on an Olympic medal again.
‘We haven’t heard the last of this race. Rob will get his medal yet,’ McGonagle assured a group of Irish journalists, referring to the cloud over Sergey Kirdyapkin, the winner of that 50K walk. He was right.
A year later, McGonagle was at the finishing line when Heffernan became world champion. It is one of his fondest memories.
‘I had been with Heffernan the whole way through, had seen all the heartbreak, so to be there when he won it against the Russian athletes, who had been so tainted by drugs, in their back yard. Special moment.’ Derval O’Rourke’s and David Gillick’s magical moments, Olive Loughnane coming through the Brandenburg Gate to win what was subsequently gold in a world championship. They are all stored in McGonagle’s memory bank, but watching Sonia O’Sullivan finally winning an Olympic medal in Sydney stands out. ‘It was great to be there with Sonia that night in that stadium. She had been through the mill, but there was magic in the air that night because Kathy Freeman, who had lit the Olympic flame and was under such pressure to win gold as Australia’s only hope on the track, she had won the 400m earlier and then we saw an Irish athlete battling for a gold medal in a race later on that evening.’ Reflecting on all the success down the years begs the question of where Irish athletics now stands. RTé’s Ireland’s Greatest Sporting Moment should only be viewed as a bit of harmless fun but it did highlight how a great athletics achievement can capture the national imagination, whether it be John Treacy in Los Angeles or O’Sullivan in Sydney.
At grassroots level, the sport is healthy. Athletics Ireland announced this past week that they now have over 60,000 registered members – a record number. As McGonagle points out, there is probably that same number again of recreational athletes around the country.
But Joe Soap has no interest in grassroots sport. They want to see the podium finishes. The Irish tricolour being hoisted at a medal ceremony.
‘The sport is in a healthy place in rural areas and a lot of urban areas. But of course, the public don’t care about grassroots level, they are only interested at what is happening at senior level. That is where it makes an impact. And over the past 12 months, the performances haven’t been encouraging.
‘I think we need to see a good performance at next year’s European championships in Berlin. That is the event where Irish athletes need to target a podium place. I think the sport needs to see some good performances in Berlin.’
McGonagle believes that the world of athletics is ‘a more brutal and far lonelier place’ than team sports, which dominate in Irish society. Unlike some others involved in Irish athletics, McGonagle likes his GAA and is an avid Donegal supporter – he trained two different Donegal teams in the 1990s and 2000s.
But he concedes that the dominance of Gaelic Games across the country had probably robbed Ireland of some top athletes. He sees it all the time – a Gaelic footballer or hurler who would have made the ideal 400m hurdler or distance runner.
‘I trained two different generations of Donegal footballers and from working with them on a training field, it would hit you like a bolt of lightning. There would be something in a guy’s stride or running rhythm and you think, “This guy could have made an internationalclass athlete.”
‘There are a lot of people out there playing GAA who could have made international-class athletes.’
McGonagle, who developed the Finn Valley Centre in Donegal, which caters for all sports, thinks that Athletics Ireland should be making more of an effort to get into primary schools. ‘Youngsters should be getting the opportunity to try out athletics, as well as Gaelic or hurling or soccer or whatever team sport the school is playing.’
Talent-identification programmes have worked well in the UK, where competitors are taken from one sport to another that might suit them better. But McGonagle isn’t so sure that taking someone out of their Gaelic team at 13 to try long jump or hurdles will work.
‘I’m not sure about talent identifi-
4 Patsy McGonagle managed Ireland’s athletes at four Olympic Games and six World Championships
cation. Firstly, I don’t know if there are the resources for it and secondly, if some youngster is used to playing team sports and being part of a team, to pull him out of that environment and into that of an athlete, which is a much lonelier sport, and tell him that he should be good at throwing, I don’t know if that would work.’
There’s also the recognition factor. McGonagle is concerned that the gaping hole left by the absence Usain Bolt’s personality will see track & field retract more in the public consciousness.
‘If you are a good GAA player and line out for your county in a rural area, you will be recognised. People will want to talk to you in a pub, they will admire you, laud you as a hero. If you are an athlete, you are out on your own, it’s a lonely existence and you need a stronger mentality.’ Athletics is still struggling to regain its credibility in light of the Russian scandal. It is harder to believe what we see on the track.
McGonagle accepts that the sport needs to get its act together but believes that Seb Coe, who has been widely criticised for his handling of the scandal, is doing his best.
But unless the public can start believing what they are seeing once again, more will join the former Ireland team manager in just switching off.