Opening shot – Congress let clubs down

The clubs will continue to have to play at the worst times of the year

By John Hughes

Just about the most GAA thing ever happened at Congress over the weekend. After years of carping about fixtures in the depths of winter and the sorry plight of the club players, delegates decided to knock on the head proposals to pull back the All-Ireland football and hurling finals by a fortnight.

That’s the GAA way. Moan and bellyache about something, then when it comes to doing something about it roll your shoulders and say, ‘Ach, sure it’ll be grand.’

Now, up to a point, one can appreciate where the resistance to the move is coming from.

When all is said and done, it is the inter-county game which seduces most of us into the GAA habit.

Our fathers, uncles, older brothers might have been legends for the club, but there is truly nothing to equal the feeling of ‘the county’ going well when you’re a young fella.

It’s the closest we have here to the Premiership phenomenon, with its marching bands, packed stadiums and the stars of the game showing off their skills.

You might not have wanted to be your Da, but there’s a fair chance you wanted to be Stevie from Killeavy (na na na na).

Finishing the inter-county championships two weeks earlier amounts to taking your biggest marketing asset out of circulation just when it is at its most potent.

The broadcast media don’t exactly fall over themselves to offer quality GAA coverage at the best of times. Taking our premium product off the shelves at the very height of the season seems somewhat counter-intuitive to say the least.

After all, it’s not as if RTE are suddenly going to start going wild about the club scene to fill the void. Of course there were also provincial considerations at play in the decision at Congress, but it’s safe to say that losing that sales window for our games was a factor in delegate’s considerations.

However, I think it’s an opportunity missed. Club activity has multiplied to an incredible degree in the past couple of decades. It has also become a much more serious pursuit.

But while the clubs have upped their game, their blue riband fixtures are becoming ever more marginalised, played in the worst weather, on dead pitches with, although it must be said the supporters still turn out manfully.

Purely on the basis of the effort invested, clubs deserve better. They deserve a predictable fixture schedule that doesn’t cram too many games in at the worst time of the year.

I’ll admit I also have an ulterior agenda here. I consider a strong, vibrant club scene as an essential bulwark against the creeping professionalism on the inter-county game.

That macro consideration aside, we are now at a point of such chronic fixture congestion that something has to give.

The inter-county calendar has to be compressed to allow the club season room to do more than merely machine gun through fixtures in the muck and rain.

I believed the mood music was telling us that there was an acceptance of that reality.

The verdict at Congress tells me I was wrong. We still have some road to travel before club players get the respect they deserve.

For the foreseeable future they’ll have to make do with lip-service, but at this stage I’m sure they’re well used to that.