Take the idiots out of Croke Park
by Brendan Coffey
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Take the idiots out of Croke Park
29 July 2008
LAST summer, almost to the day, I was holed up in a blistering hot office in Cork. It was 11am on Monday morning and the sports desk of the Irish Examiner was gently easing itself into the day.
Suddenly it erupted. I returned from a weekend watching Kildare’s hurlers make it to the Christy Ring Cup final with notions. My notions were traded with those of Brendan Larkin, a proud Cork man close on 40 years worked inside in there.
When Brendan spoke on the phone it was as if he was holding court because his conversations were so riveting you’d close one ear to listen in. The problem Brendan had, like a lot of people from strong hurling counties, is an arrogance about hurling that cannot be broken. Cork hurling is so superior to any other form that it pains them to see anyone else succeeding at the sport, particularly a county like Kildare. At least Kilkenny and Tipperary can play the game properly. While many good men come from strong counties to help those in the weaker counties, there are many who’d rather see the game kept exclusively for themselves in case others might get a share of the spoils.
Brendan dismissed my talk of the Christy Ring Cup because he entertained it only as much as he would a junior club championship game in his home county.
It annoyed me as did the fact that the Sunday Game hadn’t given any coverage to the game the previous night and made no mention of the fact that Kildare and Westmeath had qualified for a final RTE would be broadcasting live from Croke Park in two weeks time.
Instead the boys on the couch had wrapped the programme with footage of Paddy Harrington, Padraig’s dad, playing for Cork in times gone by, to mark his victory in the British Open for the first time.
RTE were ignoring a competition they were contractually obliged to cover in favour of a tenuous link to our new golfing superstar. However great Harrington’s achievement was it had no place on the Sunday Game, it was the lazy way out for RTE. Instead of putting together a Harrington special at the last minute they dumped something irrelevant onto the Sunday Game.
Larkin had little time for my argument.
“It’s a disgrace,” I roared, losing the run of myself in the argument, while Larkin tried to shout me down until someone told us to quieten down. It was Monday morning afterall but I was adamant about the whole thing and even rang Liveline but couldn’t convince the researchers it was an issue of national importance. Rage has a strange affect.
This year things have changed but the indifference shown the Christy Ring Cup hasn’t and if anything, the fixing of this year’s final on a Friday night in Croke Park, pays the competition even less respect than RTE did last year when they ignored the semi-finals completely.
The players won’t agree and neither will the fair-weather supporters that make Croke Park the only place to be for the biggest GAA games of the summer but the decision to play seven games in the place this weekend is complete nonsense. Croke Park may be the focal point of the GAA but that doesn’t mean everybody wants to be there whenever they get the chance.
The place was designed for the really big occasions, that is the nature of any state-of-the-art structure that wants to represent a nation and its passions. It should be a reward to get there rather than a convenient way to play off seven games in one weekend while maximising revenues.
The Christy Ring Cup final has no place in Croke Park on this Friday night or any Friday night of the year. The GAA seems to have lost touch with its audience because if it understood its audience it would realise the folly of playing a game between two rural counties in a city on the Friday night of a bank holiday weekend.
Kildare is a commuter county, like no other county because of its proximity to Dublin and the make-up of its population. The commuters in Carlow and Westmeath, and there are many, aren’t from Carlow or Westmeath, they’re Dubs and Kildare people relocated from the messy urban sprawl closer to the east coast. You don’t need a degree in geography even though you need to know your geography to figure this one.
Carlow and Westmeath GAA supporters, particularly the die-hards who follow hurling, don’t know the commuter lifestyle. They are still rural in their outlook, Monday to Friday is for work, Saturday is for shopping, Sunday is for Mass and sport in the afternoon. For them the best time to go and see a match is at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon. That is why our All-Ireland final showpieces tend to be played at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon. It is traditional because it is what we are accustomed to.
The qualifier series is an example of what’s misguided about the GAA fixtures body that decides these things. Donegal and Monaghan played in front of a paltry attendance in Ballybofey at 5pm on a balmy Saturday afternoon. Kildare and Limerick played in front of an enthusiastic crowd at 7pm later that evening.
Kildare people are comfortable travelling because the majority of us are accustomed to it. We know the commute and we deal with it. Travelling to Limerick is only about an hour longer than the time we spend travelling to work everyday.
For the people who might want to support Westmeath and Carlow getting to Croke Park on a Friday evening is a major nightmare. I suppose for some people the idea of the Christy Ring is a bigger nightmare.
