We’re all crying out for a live game of any description

MY PHONE pinged with a message Sunday morning that sums up the feelings of so many GAA enthusiasts right now. A Laois friend in a WhatsApp group for match programme collectors wrote: ‘God I wish there was an O’Byrne Cup match to go to today’.

‘You’re not the only one,’ I thought to myself. I’d happily settle for anything at this stage, a match of some description to offer hope of brighter days to come.

It’s getting more difficult with every passing week to remember what a ‘normal year’ actually constituted, but I will always associate the month of January with the O’Byrne and Walsh Cups.

It was never the quality or importance of the matches per se; rather, it was what they signified: the beginning of another year and the promise of Allianz League matches coming quickly down the line.

And even when the Wexford selectors made an absolute mockery of last year’s O’Byrne Cup, I was still raring to go.

I remember leaving the house on the first Saturday in January last year to be greeted by the deflating sight (literally and figuratively) of a flat tyre. A mad scramble ensued before I made it to the Faithful Fields in Kilcormac for the game against Offaly, but it was worth the hassle.

What mockery unfolded, I hear some of you ask? That occurred when they decided to use some of the O’Byrne Cup games as a sort of trial for the county Under-20 team.

It resulted in the absolutely crazy situation whereby several players can claim to have taken part in a Senior football game with their county before lining out with their club’s first adult side.

That should never happen in my view but, you know what? If Wexford had a football game next Sunday and for some reason decided to field the best Under-12s in the county, I’d be the first one there.

The disappointments keep coming week on week. The cancellation of the Fitzgibbon and Sigerson Cups was inevitable but somewhat jarring all the same. At least a postponement offers the likelihood of something happening at a later stage, but there’s a numbing finality to wiping a competition clean off the slate before it has even started.

I attended my first Sigerson in 1990 during my days as a third level student in Dublin. It was hosted by Trinity College at their Santry Avenue grounds, with all teams competing in a feast of football from Friday to Sunday at the time. One of the highlights of that era was the match programme, and more specifically the player profiles that would rip the character of practically every squad member to shreds.

Nowadays the PC brigade would be up in arms over some of the stuff written at the time about drinking habits, relationships and the like. No subject was off topic, and most of it was laugh-out-loud funny.

The person writing the programme pen pictures was an essential component of any Sigerson or Fitzgibbon backroom team. Even those of a sensitive nature were routinely ripped apart, with absolutely nobody spared.

I consulted with Donal McAnallen’s authoritative history of third level GAA, ‘The Cups That Cheered’, to remind myself of some of the great players I watched over those three days on Dublin’s northside, more than 30 years ago.

Kerry great Maurice Fitzgerald scored nine points for UCC in a quarter-final win over Maynooth, while Tyrone’s Peter Canavan the best footballer I have ever seen - scored six points to help St. Mary’s to dismiss UCD. Joe Brolly was the star man for the hosts, but their hopes were undone by the wizardry of Down’s James McCartan who went on to assist Queen’s to victory over St. Mary’s in the first-ever all-Belfast final.

It would soon transpire that I actually attended the last-ever Sigerson weekend. That multi-game format over three days was scrapped after a function in the Dublin University Boat Club in Islandbridge that Saturday night descended into chaos and resulted in the gardaí being called to clear the premises. The GAA authorities took a very dim view, particularly when Trinity were left to foot a bill for over £10,000 in damages - huge money at the time.

Forget that off-field messing, though - just one Sigerson game would be worth anything right now.