GRASSROOTS STRIKE BACK
Backlash over Miller match should persuade the GAA that it’s time to open its minds as well as its doors THE GAA AND HOW IT WORKS, FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM
NEVER meet your heroes? Dan Lucey would beg to differ. Back in the autumn of 2016, the Mayfield junior hurling team captain heard someone calling at the front door. With the big day out of a Cork county final looming, he strolled out to answer, expecting another well-wisher. Just not this one.
‘I just want to wish you good luck next Sunday,’ said Roy Keane, the man who put the northside cityscape on the sporting map via Manchester United and Ireland. A player who has never lost sight of his roots and remains idolised in the community just wanted to lend his support, unconcerned by sporting boundaries or prejudice.
Keane’s brief hurling career with Mayfield didn’t survive a clash of the ash in training at underage which sent a splinter shooting into the back of his leg and sidelined him for long enough to realise that soccer was his game. But he was home, and only too happy to jump aboard the Mayfield hurling bandwagon.
Maybe he thought of Dan Lucey this week as the GAA tied itself in knots over the Liam Miller testimonial game. Burned by a firestorm of criticism, and pressured over the conditions of state funding, the Association has been forced into an embarrassing public climbdown over the use of Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the fundraiser. On September 25, Keane will manage a Manchester United Legends XI featuring former stars such as Denis Irwin, Ryan Giggs, and Paul Scholes against a Glasgow Celtic/Republic of Ireland selection.
Like so many others, he no doubt is struggling to understand how it came to all this. Well, to understand why the gates of Páirc Uí Chaoimh initially remained closed, it is worth going back to the ground’s official opening last October.
As a snapshot of Irish life, the various dignitaries gathered to mark the occasion said it all. Dovetailing with the county hurling final between Imokilly and Blackrock and the replayed football final between Nemo Rangers and St Finbarr’s, the invitations went far and wide. On the pitch, a rostrum was specially constructed where the significance of the seating arrangements for the guests was in keeping with the top table at a wedding. This occasion too, was always going to bring a big crowd.
Take a look at the accompanying photograph (far right). There’s Frank Murphy in the grey suit, just right of centre, Cork county secretary dating back to 1972. Long since cast in the role of ‘Godfather’ to the family of Cork GAA.
With the reach and political nous of the character in the movie Marlon Brando made famous, just without any maltesers in his gums. He is so well versed in the intricacies and legalities of the rulebook that the association have turned to him to rewrite it and update it on various occasions.
A formidable but stern administrator with a keen intellect, you don’t mess with Frank. Unless you’re U2’s Bono, who tried to phone him live on stage during the Zooropa tour, one of the many money-spinning concerts hosted by Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
A photo opportunity like this wouldn’t be complete without Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross, who added himself to the cast of characters on the Liam Miller furore this week.
Bishop of Cork John Buckley was invited to bless the redeveloped ground in a scene that was like a snapshot of ’80s Ireland: Church and State and the GAA – the country’s three powerbrokers intertwined.
Except, rather than being a symbol of a confident, post-recession Ireland, the redeveloped Páirc Uí Chaoimh – with €30 million of the €80 million cost coming via public funding – has become a symbol of all that is wrong about the association when it comes to accommodating a fundraiser for the former Ireland footballer who died at just 36, leaving a wife and three children behind.
How has it come to this? This is a mess, in part, of Cork’s own making. Look hard enough and their fingerprints are all over it. The front and centre presence of the Catholic Church at the stadium’s opening was a salutary one. A body that has lost touch with its grassroots yet is determined to hold the line no matter what. Sound familiar?
There is a cultural and generational disconnect at the heart of the controversial GAA rule that bans rugby or soccer at all club or county grounds on this island, Croke Park being the only exception.
At the heart of the civil war on Leeside during the noughties and the corrosive series of strikes was a ruinous disconnect between officialdom and players. A failure to understand or recognise that the next generation’s priorities were
The scene was like the ’80s – Church, State and GAA intertwined