CUMANN CHAT

MY comrade in the Irish News Cahair O’Kane spoke this week about his disgust at rising membership costs. He has called for a £20 limit on juvenile membership, although he knows it won’t happen. Usually I agree with most things the Derry man says, apart from his soccer views, but I feel that the blame should not be put on clubs, but rather the rising costs of running a GAA club. Insurance costs and maintenance bills are sky-rocketing as clubs expand in numbers and facilities, and there is a shortfall. Firstly, GAA membership is very undervalued, compare it with any other sport in your area if you want to see that. Secondly, clubs need to raise money to meet the demand – and for many getting sponsorship is not an option. I predict that most clubs will substantially raise their fees in the coming years. In some cases it will be their only way to survive.

NIALL MCCOY

THE Premier League can always be relied upon to provide the GAA with more cautionary tales than you’d get in a season of Holby City. This week, soccer ball fans have been agonising over the attempts of six multi-million pound businesses to increase their market share by seeking greater exposure to a wider market. Some pundits see this as a betrayal of their fans. Considering that the six teams who are taking part tend to attractsupporters from far beyond the city limits of their stadium, you could frame this move as reaching out to their grass roots across Europe. The whole thing is about money, and just like Joe Brolly believes that loyalism needs the GAA, so too does the local communities who have made soccer their home. Cast off the connection to that capitalist carnival, and embrace a game that puts community and underage development at its core.

RONAN SCOTT

SPORTSFILE visited Louth’s centre of excellence the other day to take some photos of a training session – the main attraction obviously being the presence of their new manager Mickey Harte. it was obvious by the body language that he’s lost none of his determination anyway. Coaching and managing must be like a drug for fellas like Mickey, and it reminded me of the recent episode of Laochra Gael devoted to Pete McGrath, a man who spent practically the entirety of the last 35 years in some form of club or county management (oh yeah, and he managed Louth for a while come to think of it as well). Harte gets his fair share of criticism at times, but even his detractors will be interested in seeing how he gets on as manager of the Wee county.

NIALL GARTLAND

LAST week I wrote a piece about the Derry v Tyrone 2006 match. One of the points made in it was that Derry were focused on that match for months. They spent an entire winter thinking and preparing for one game. It makes for a good line, but I don’t know if there is much wisdom in that psychological approach. In that instance, Derry performed brilliantly, but they didn’t follow it up. Part of the problem is that the GAA announce their fixtures awful early. Before Covid, we were used to discovering championship draws in Winter. That prepped players to chat about how the only game they cared about was six months later. In the new normal GAA, when the intercounty season is much shorter, teams will have less time to obsess about beating one team. Well, hopefully. unless they make the draw in August, and that will mean eight months of focusing on a game they’ll probably lose.

RONAN SCOTT

PERSONALLY I think it’s a shame that the GAA couldn’t have arranged to include a backdoor system in this year’s football championship. Yes, the time-frame is tight, but it’s a bit rubbish that only half the counties in Ireland will get more than one championship match. I suppose it’s just the way it is, and there was lots of excitement in last year’s championship (well, pretending Dublin don’t exist for a second). I write this before the Ulster Championship draw took place earlier this week, and as a Tyrone man, I’m nervy enough that we’ll get Donegal in the draw, so that’s probably playing into my thinking. I used to enjoy the Qualifiers though – travelling halfway down the country to places I’d never have cause to go near. The ‘Super Eights’, however – no thanks.

NIALL GARTLAND

COMING from Armagh where we let Crossmaglen win 19 titles from 20, I maybe have little room to speak – but the Leinster Football Championship really is a joke. One thing is for certain, Cross never got it easy and had lots of replay and one-point wins. Three different winners over the last five seasons suggests some return to normality. That simply will not be the case in Leinster. Dublin have won 10 in-a-row and it would take a brave man to back against them doubling that tally. This week they were drawn against the winners of Wickow and Wexford, what’s the point? Hopefully in the next decade we come up with a way to take them out of the championship and fit them in elsewhere. I’m not sure where we can place them, but we cannot keep the current format in place.

NIALL MCCOY