New York have every right to be a part of it
Championship entry isn't enough payback for what the Big Apple has done for GAA
THIS might sound like the most patronising sentence to ever trip from a Kerry tongue, but there is a big part of me that would love to be a Leitrim footballer for a day.
Well, for today anyway as they tog out at Gaelic Park for a Connacht Championship match that has the scent of an ambush to it.
You see, New York was my first and is still my favourite playground.
Like most of the best things in my life, Kerry football introduced me to the place.
I had no sooner joined the panel when Páidí winged the whole lot of us over to the Big Apple at the end of 2001 when the city was so raw it was still bleeding emotion after 9/11.
We were kind of raw ourselves as a footballing tribe after we were humiliated by Meath in that year’s All-Ireland semi-final and the very first place he took us was down to see the ruins of the twin towers.
I could pretend that Páidí was seeking to pass on some kind of subliminal message about how, when a great citadel of power is brought to its knees, it always finds the resolve to build itself right back up again.
But that would be glib; Páidí bought us there because he loved the buzz of the place and I have inherited the same grá for it.
It is hard to explain why, but I think it is because it is the kind of place where you can be totally anonymous in one minute, and the next have the feeling like you are walking through the streets of Dingle.
I have lost count of the number of times I have been back, but it has become the source of yarns – some taller than the Statue of Liberty and others that still make be blush.
Like the time I booked into Fitzpatrick’s Hotel near Grand Central Station, went straight out in the town and was poured back out of a taxi at some crazy hour.
Totally oblivious to my surrounds, I headed up the elevator only to find that it stopped at the 15th.
I went back down to the night desk to enquire as to why my room, and the entire 18th floor had gone missing, only to be informed that I was in the wrong Fitzpatrick’s Hotel, which was down Third Avenue.
You can take the man out of the bog...
But for all the late night bars and melt-in-your mouth steakhouses, it is the Irish in that city that makes it so special.
Now, those people out there who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, will tell you that today’s fixture adds nothing to our Championship.
They simply don’t get it. The most fanatical Kerry supporters I know are all paying their property tax in New Jersey, the Bronx, Boston, San Francisco and even California.
They live for the games, they open their wallet at will to travel crazy distances and when we travelled over there, the pride they took in us was something I had never experienced before.
One evening, when we were over on a team trip and dined in a rooftop restaurant in the Empire State Building, a Kerry supporter with deep pockets and even deeper influence had the whole building bathed in green lights.
More often than not, though, money had little to do with the warmth we experienced.
I never played over there, with the exception of All-Star games which are closer to a circus than a contest, but I would love to have had that experience, which is why I am a slightly envious of Leitrim today.
It will be a huge source of pride for all Leitrim folk in New York that their county is in town and it also provides a rare carrot for that county’s footballers to be the headline act on what is a cultural – as well as sporting – weekend.
The result will matter but I have long grown weary of the argument every time New York ship a heavy defeat, that the plug should he pulled on this fixture.
On the contrary, I think every county should experience playing a Championship game in the Big Apple.
I accept the logistics of doing that are taxing, but let’s be clear New York should not be indebted to the GAA for being allowed to take part in the All-Ireland Championship.
If anything, it works the other way. When I hear people complain of the cost involved of counties travelling to New York, it makes my blood boil.
Far from costing counties – their trips are subsidised – most end up using the trip as a fund-raiser as well.
Kerry have done very well down through the years in that depart-
First up, Páidí took us down to the ruins of the twin towers
ment, not least in the generosity we experienced in raising money for the recently-developed centre of excellence.
I really don’t think that providing New York with one game a year is sufficient payback, but I accept it is a challenge to do much more under the current fixture schedule.
But there is a date provided in the masters fixture list for a preliminary round All-Ireland qualifier and I believe New York should be included in the All-Ireland series.
For obvious reasons, it would not be possible for New York to come over here to fulfil that fixture, but the county that comes out of the hat to play New York should have their expenses covered to fly to the Big Apple and fulfil that fixture.
And I believe that the cost involved in funding that could be met by placing a levy on every county that holds a fund-raising initiative in the United States. It should be collected by Croke Park and used to subsidise the county that has to travel over there.
Any shortfall should simply be made up by central funds because it is time we started giving back to those who have been giving to us far too freely and for far too long.
New York and its team deserve more than one day in the sun. Two would be a start.