The real All-Stars.

 

 

MOST GAA people will have, over the past twelve months, attended some sort of awards function.

The GAA is a great organisation for awards, from man of the match

prizes in under-10 games all the way up to the pinnacle of the

business, an All-Star award and the chance to meet Marty Morrissey or the like

In fact, there are so many awards available to GAA players that you would want to be a really poor player not to collect enough trophies to line your mantelpiece during your career, no matter what level you compete at.

 

And even if you can't kick a ball or swing a hurley, you can still pick up an award for Club Person of the Year or Supporter of the Year. I suppose, it is all fairly harmless stuff and it gives a lot of

employment to trophy-makers around the country.

 

But it occurs to me that there is a small army of people in the GAA,

without whose efforts the organisation would probably collapse, yet

they are hardly ever considered for awards.

 

Their problem is that they are taken for granted. Indeed, most people never even stop to think about the level of commitment these people put in on a totally voluntary basis.

 

For example, on dark wet, frosty winter nights

between October and March, hundreds of young men travel from third level colleges back to their native parishes or counties to take part in team preparations.

 

They usually leave their college base in the late afternoons, travel

for a couple of hours at least, do their training, grab a bite to eat

if they are lucky, and dash back across the country to their digs.

The whole escapade would probably average at least six hours and can take place a couple of times a week.

 

People who normally spend their evenings reclining in an armchair at home, watching television, playing scrabble or surfing the internet never even think about the effort these players make for the love of parish or county.

 

Anybody who has occasion to travel Irish roads on winter nights will

testify to the strain involved in negotiating our ever-increasing

traffic mayhem.

 

Most of these young men do not have cars of their own and this means that other unsung heroes have to step forward. These are dedicated volunteers from the home parish who will travel to the third level college, pick up the student player and repeat the process in reverse after the training session.

 

Neither the students nor the drivers ever seem to feature when major GAA awards are handed out at club or county functions.
This is not only in Ireland but in New York, London, Chicago and other mazor cities in the globe

 

Nor do another category of GAA people - the ones who look after the various training grounds and make sure that they are warm and user-friendly when the players arrive on winter nights. These people arecleaners, caterers, night watchmen, confessors and DIY experts all rolled into one.

 

They do this work unnoticed and unsung and only attract attention on the very rare occasion when they get a date wrong and players arrive for training to find the dressingrooms locked up and the showers not turned on. Then, all hell breaks loose!

 

Then, of course, we have the committee people. Like all sports bodies, the GAA has an army of people who spend a lot of their lives attending meetings.

 

A small percentage of these masochists do become famous as county board chairmen or secretaries, or even make it to Croke Park or onto provincial council committees and thereby get some recognition. But the vast majority of committee people remain anonymous to the average GAA follower.

 

These men - and women nowadays - attend meetings once or twice a week to do the mundane things that the average GAA person would never even think about.

 

Making fixtures, appointing referees, allocating pitches and dealing

with referees' reports may not sound desperately important, but if

thousands of GAA committee people did not carry out these functions every week of the year, the GAA would collapse.

 

Yet, hardly any of these dedicated people are in line for awards when the celebratory functions are held every season.

 

The same goes for the many parents who make themselves available week after week to drive their own and other children to training and matches.

 

This is a service which really is at the very heart of the GAA, but the work done by these people often goes totally unacknowledged.

 

Some will say that parents have a duty to ferry their children around the county, but while that view may have prevailed 30 years ago, it certainly does not today with many parents.

 

Indeed, many modern parents regard underage GAA activity as a free child-minding service for a couple of hours and are not prepared to help out themselves.

 

Therefore, the minority of parents who do offer their services have

become real heroes at local level as far as hard-pressed GAA clubs are concerned.  

 

Younger players are hugely influenced by the attitude of their own

parents. If they are constantly criticising players for the amount of

time they 'waste' at football or hurling, it has a negative impact on

that player. If parents are very supportive, it gives a player great

confidence.

 

Many family members are unsung heroes also because of the sacrifices they make to facilitate other family members who are involved in GAA activities. Often they assume some of the work responsibilities of the player, particularly in farming or family businesses.

 

There are so many awards available to GAA players, you would want to be a really poor player not to collect enough trophies to line your mantelpiece during your career.

 

Parents often do some of those infamous third level college runs on

winter nights. Parents often pay for injured players to be treated and seek nothing in return.

 

So while the publicly acclaimed awards at this time of year are fair

enough, perhaps the GAA should re-assess the whole system. Because many of the real heroes, of whom I have only mentioned a few here, are never recognised, simply because they are not in the limelight and do not wish to be.