Preview Notices
1.
The Sports
Complex, Boyle, Co. Roscommon will play host to the fourth and final round of
the M. Donnolly GAA Interprovincial Wheelchair Hurling League on this Saturday
27th August from 10am for the first time that an All-Ireland Wheelchair Hurling
event will be hosted in Co. Roscommon. Barry Lowe of Boyle is the Roscommon
delegate on the Connacht GAA Games for All Committee and is responsible for
co-ordinating this Wheelchair Hurling Interprovincial event in Boyle. Your
support would be greatly appreciated.
2.
Boyle Seniors
play Clann na nGael on Saturday evening at 6.45 at St. Croan's pitch outside
Ballintubber in the final group game.
3.
Nice to see the
re-introduction of camogie to Boyle and the positivity of its promoters ‘We are
here to stay’!
When one thinks of the
current issues causing frustration and pain in this country at the moment the
list would include:
1• Homelessness and
the many other linkages to the idea of ‘a home’. The lack of availability of
‘homes’ for social provision, for access for people to purchase, cost and
availability especially in urban areas such as Dublin, Galway, Cork and so on.
There is also the huge issue of student accommodation availability and cost at
this time.
2• Utility
costs….motor insurance spiralling, rising at the incredible average rate of 38%
due, it is said by Aviva, to the number of claims, the excessive awards, legal
costs, regulation, levies for past company failures, fraudulent claims and so
on. We usually concentrate on how it effects ordinary motor customers but it is
a huge issue now for business with regard to haulage of goods and will probably
see businesses having to close down due to this cost. Another group who are
being denied a fairly basic right, the right to drive a car, are young people
who are being quoted extraordinary amounts for cover.
3• Child care costs
for working parents of young children. There have been some advances in
provision in recent years but crèche costs are like another mortgage.
4• Is it in our
genetic make-up that we are hucksters when we see currently the ticket issue at
the Olympics. We had the greatest manifestation of this in the banking scandal
and the disgraceful activities of the top echelons of nearly the whole banking
industry.
5• The ongoing
battle between two gangs in Dublin with the police effort to fire-fight it
costing the tax payers of the country millions. The prevalence of drugs and the
seeming tolerance of its use on public streets in say Dublin as one walks from
Connolly Station to O’Connell Street
II’ve said this before, we live in a small country and we should be able to get
to grips, to a better extent, with the issues of our time.
The Rio Olympics Fallout
I am recovering from the
withdrawal symptoms of watching a lot of the coverage of the Rio Olympics. It
is being overshadowed somewhat by the Pat Hickey and OCI affair just now and it
will be interesting to see how that develops. There is the possibility that
there is a local police/political agenda in Hickey’s crucifixion and that the
necessary evidence to convict Mister Hickey is not there or will not emerge. If
that is the case then he has got a raw deal in Brazil and in the publicity
about him here in Ireland and will be a very traumatised man after it all.
There is a good chance that it will run into the sand.
Former Olympian and analyst
Gerry Kiernan was pretty dismissive of the role and impact of officialdom at
OCI on athletes in their preparation and mind-set. Of course when an athlete
wins they will emerge like peacocks to shine in the reflected aura of the winner.
Justification of existence is a huge sport in this country and happens on many
levels.
The Absence of Pele
For whatever reason the
absence of Brazil’s most famous sportsman, Pele, from Olympic ceremonies was
sad. It is suggested that since several of his commercial backers —
sandwich chain Subway, watchmaker Hublot and credit card company MasterCard —
are rivals of official Olympic sponsors McDonald's, Omega and Visa that that
had a bearing on his absence. Also that he was recovering from illness. Still
If one cast their eyes back to Atlanta and Muhammad Ali, riven with
Parkinson’s, doing the honours and again being present at the Special Olympics
at Crooke Park I really feel that Pele would have been there but for particular
pressures. The very late substitution for the flame lighting ceremony was
Vanderlei de Lima who was disrupted by an Irish priest based in London
while leading the marathon in Athens in 2004.
Ticket Issues in other
Sports
In terms of tickets there was
an interesting snippet by ‘Sam’ page 3 of the Roscommon Herald Sports insert
regarding seeing tickets being sold prior to a GAA game in Croke Park by what
might be termed a GAA worthy. Personally, while I have been a follower of the
GAA all my life though not in a core position, I have never encountered any
official with a ‘bundle’ of tickets for dubious sale. Where money shuffles
around there is always the capacity for abuse of course. Over ten years ago
Roscommon GAA got into severe financial difficulties which were soothed by a
huge gesture of generosity by John Murphy of Castlerea with a loan of one
million euro. How Roscommon got into that financial chasm I have no idea and it
was never fully explained that I am aware of. All of the people involved seemed
like honourable men and the GAA being a community where ‘everybody knew
everybody’ the hard questions may not have been asked. It is only with
independent oversight committees that appropriate governance has a reasonable
chance though the record of the bank auditors such as Ernst and Young would not
be reassuring!
GAA Attempt to Drift
Towards Professionalism
Then in the GAA there is a
drift to professionalism and semi-professional in terms of the number of paid
employees, coaches and managers. The latter group have, morphed in recent years
into huge ‘back-up’ teams with varied roles. It is suggested that Dublin have
in the mid- twenties in this role with their senior team and that Roscommon
this past year had a very large number also. All these have to ‘looked after’
by whatever avenues of ‘expenses’ payment often by circular routes. At club
level when a club has ambitions this is backed up with the employment of an
outside ‘team manager’ with a credible record. Fundraising now has become the
bane of club activity, the same people doing it and the same people, in
general, supporting these efforts. It has been so since the sixpences and
shillings of the fifties but can clubs sustain these corrosive efforts? I
do not know how it can be addressed or redressed but it is certainly a major
burden on the core group of club
officials.
Marathon TV
I thought I had seen enough
of marathons and then our main television channel, RTE 1, saw fit to transmit
on Monday and Tuesday night, 3 hours each night of the Rose of Tralee with 64
(?) young ladies a loitering. Now the Rose of Tralee is not my scene and how a
festival committee has the power to influence RTE to spend 6 hours of
programming (accepting that a couple of hours or more were ads) away from
Dublin is something. Then to add to that I kinda heard that ‘Mrs. Brown’s Boys’
was voted the ‘best’ comedy of the 21st century (just 16 years)which with the
Rose of Tralee induced the lead line from the Aslan anthem to come into my
head;
“How can i protect you
(myself) in this crazy world”.
Sports
Review
Three Standing in Football
On Sunday last Mayo again
qualified for the All-Ireland final by beating Tipperary in a very poor game.
Poor games and very poor games have been the menu of Gaelic football this
summer and it is becoming tedious. It has been left to hurling to raise the bar
of excitement and real competitive flair. I hope, of course, that Mayo win that
All-Ireland at last and each year seems to be at about the same level of
possibility. But they would want to get on with it as our patience is thinning.
The team seems to me to have about ten very good players but the tail lets them
down and to win an All-Ireland final there needs to be a full squad. There
is definition of insanity somewhere that goes roughly; ‘doing the same
thing, the same way, over and over again and expecting a different outcome’.
(The referee with his Black
Card had me exacerbated on Sunday last and that Black Card malarkey has to be
binned. The sending off of the Tipp. centre back had a big bearing on Sunday’s
game. What about the ‘sin bin’ as used in Rugby, Hockey and Basketball?)
Sunday next has the prospect
of being a full-blooded encounter between Dublin and Kerry. Each of these teams
have more good players than any other county and Dublin have arrived where
Kilkenny were a few years with ‘two’ teams. The general expectation is that
Dublin will win but Kerry are the one team brand that can be relied on to defy
the odds.
The Cats v Tipp.
The All-Ireland hurling final
between Tipperary and Kilkenny has the possibility of being a cracker. I was
surprised that Tipp. struggled and did not look great against Galway and
Kilkenny will miss the great Michael Fennelly. The Kilkenny conveyor belt is
not as it has been though young Blanchfield did well in that second great game
against Waterford. While there have been a number of very good hurling games
this summer the quality of the teams is down a good deal on previous years. I
really hope that Waterford maintain their upward curve and take the Liam
McCarthy Cup next year.
Camogie In Boyle
It is interesting to see the
re-introduction of camogie in Boyle with young girls. There was a camogie
senior team in Boyle circa 1970 that I am aware of. Mary Travers correspondent
with The Roscommon Herald and Christine O’Callaghan were involved with that
team. It is a regret of mine that I did not make an effort to get
hurling going in this area as Bob Carr and P.J. Keane had done shortly before I
came here.
