Highlights were plentiful in 2020 despite coronavirus

ONE of the most exciting Ulster Senior championships for years combined with the relief of gaining planning permission for the new Casement Park were among the main highlights of a year like no other in 2020.

Victory for Tyrone in what looks like being the very last Dr McKenna Cup competition got 2020 off to a normal beginning. But from those January days onwards, the challenges just kept on coming as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

Now, as the dust settles on the year, and the focus turns increasingly to 2021, the Chief Executive of Ulster GAA, Brian McAvoy, has taken time to reflect on some of the achievements of the past 12 months and the challenges which lie ahead as everyone tries to return to some form of normality in the coming months.

The Co Down official will take pride in many of the achievements of 2020. Not least among them, of course, was that fact that the Ulster Senior championship was eventually completed. Afterall, there were times during the year when this scenario seemed to be highly unlikely indeed.

However, the Chief Executive admits that he always held a good degree of optimism that the Anglo Celt Cup would be presented and highlights the grant from the Irish Government as especially crucial.

“You were always hopeful that there would always be something held in terms of the championship,” he said.

“The crucial thing was the subvention from the Irish Government. Had there not been that subvention to run the championship then there wouldn’t have been one because it does take quite a lot of money to get counties training and even to organise events. So, we were grateful for that.

“We will still make a loss, but at least we have had a championship and boy what a championship to remember.

“There is still a lot of work involved in it. Obviously you don’t have the issue with tickets and that, but everything else you have to put in place. This year we’ve had all the COVID measures as well to go on top of that, so logistically, you still have all the organisation.

“You still have to have the ambulance service, the media accreditation and then we had the issue this year where we had to work to get additional television rights and we had to go beyond the rights that were in place. Logistically, we were still as busy as ever trying to organise a championship, even though you were doing it unfortunately without spectators. It was still a big challenge.”

Of course, the stand-out memory from this year will have been Cavan’s remarkable victory over Donegal, which climaxed a magnificent championship campaign for the Breffni county. They were rank outsiders at the start, but their win over neighbours and rivals, Monaghan, kickstarted a run which culminated in an All-Ireland semi-final appearance for the first time in 23 years against the mighty Dubs.

But that wasn’t the only highlight to look back on for Brian McAvoy. He has hailed the standard of football, which saw a whole series of intriguing tussles, right ftom the initial meeting of Tyrone and Donegal to the final at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh.

“There are two things in relation to this. From an Ulster point of view I think it has been an excellent championship and I think it is great that everyone was able to see it on television even though not everybody could be in the grounds to see the matches,” he adds.

“What a championship – apart from basically Down and Fermanagh and Donegal v Armagh, every game was virtually in the balance right to the very end, so what a championship.

“For those people who say that the provincial championships are dead, – well we can’t speak for people elsewhere, but they’ve got it wrong in Ulster and they’ve got it wrong big time in Ulster.

In saying this, though, the only downside was the absence of spectators. Instead of the crowds flocking to St Tiernach’s Park in Clones, Ballybofey or Armagh, the roads and streets around these iconic venues were necessarily eerily empty.

Nobody really complained, even when attendances were permitted at soccer matches under the Stormont guidelines.

But the GAA is the 32 county organisation and the decision was taken to keep things in line in eah of the four provinces, even when fans could have gone to games in the north in limited numbers.

“We had to take a decision as an Association, even before the Level Five restrictions were introduced that we wouldn’t have spectators certainly in the initial stages,” added Mr McEvoy. “Then when level five was introduced you couldn’t have spectators anyway. But of course the unusual situation was that we would have been allowed to put a number of spectators in for today’s game. The big difficulty is that none of them could have been from Cavan or Donegal, so what was the point.”

Now, as 2021 beckons, there are challenges which remain. Not least among them will be the completion of the Ulster u-17 championship. First round games have already taken place, but the latest COVID-19 restrictions mean that the competition has had to be temporarily halted this January as the latest restrictions take hold.

Nevertheless, there is a hope that it will be completed, in line with the restrictions.

“It is all conditional on what the COVID situation is and that’s the big unknown. But at this stage there potentially is that window of a number of weeks from mid-December right through to whatever part of January, so we’d still be optimistic about that.”

Then, as hopes continue that the turmoil caused by the coronavirus will slip gradually into history, the looming re-development of Casement Park will loom large on the horizon.

Planning permission was granted this year by the Infrastructure Minister, Nichola Mallon. Now the challenge is to meet the conditions with regard to the planning application and get work started depending on any legal challenges which may be submitted.

It’s very much a work in progress for the Ulster GAA and Brian McAvoy is confident that the finances will be found to ensure that the re-development goes ahead as planned.

“We got the formal notice in writing last month from the Minister granting the planning permission subject to something like 47 conditions,” he added.

“There is a statutory process which now kicks in and hopefully at the end of that we will be in a position to make moves and hopefully get someone on site before the end of 2021. But there is still work to be done.

“I think if Casement isn’t built it won’t be for the lack of funds.”