The 19th (26/08/08) | The 19th with Joe O'Muircheartaigh

Wednesday, 07 January 2009

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The Shannon to Heathrow flight takes off after Aer Lingus withdrew the service. Eamon Ward

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Jacquie Gurnish, Ohio USA, and Gregory Flynn, Doolin, watching the stormy seas at Doolin on a wild March Monday evening. Eamon Ward

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Patrick McDonagh of Bridge Court, Roslevan, who pleaded not guilty to murdering his brother, Charlie. Courtpix

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Pat Breen with presiding officer Mary McCarthy, after voting on the Lisbon Referendum at Ballynacally National School. Eamon Ward

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Seamus Power gives his fiancee Eimear Martin a kiss after she took the women’s title at the annual Clare People 10k in Ennis. Yvonne Vaughan

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Pensioners supporting students outside the Dáil during the budget protests. Eamon Ward

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Barack Obama supporters at the Democratic Party’s celebrations in Columbia, South Carolina. Eamon Ward

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Mike Moloney, Alan Long and Martin Moroney celebrate the return of the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow Service. Eamon Ward

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The 19th (26/08/08)

Wednesday, 27 August 2008 13:25

Players, mentors and officials prepare in Éire Óg for the Wolfe Tones/Shannon Gaels championship game that never was.

WANDERED up to the club on Sunday evening – not as a reporter out for a story (the notebook was full from the weekend) and not as a drinker in search of nourishment (the Young Irelanders’ bar still had its shutters down).
No, it was just for the exercise and for laughs – the chance to laugh raucously at the latest fine mess the Clare County Board has walked itself into by its unwillingness to yield an inch. That’s bad, but not giving a damn is much worse.
By the way, the club is Éire Óg, albeit that yours truly hasn’t paid any membership monies for 2008. But, it’s still my club, because playing for them for a dozen or so years (however badly) somehow confers a kind of associate past-player membership.
Certainly that kinship is there, a blind loyalty despite the fact that there are people up there who never kicked ball or clashed ash and who are playing blinders when it comes to dividing but not conquering with regard to matters on the field.
Sin scéal eile though – not for this day to lift the lid on the machinations of a club that should be great, but plainly and simply isn’t.
No this day and this column just touches Éire Óg because of the club’s cameo role in the high farce that was visited upon Clare GAA on Sunday evening when Shannon Gaels and Wolfe Tones were supposed to be dusting off against each other to see who topped Group 1 of the senior football championship round robin series of games.
Dogs were howling at the last full moon by way of telling anyone who was listening that Wolfe Tones weren’t going to show – in Lissycasey where the original fixture was pencilled in for and then in Éire Óg.
And, Wolfe Tones were dead right in staying away.
Staying with the metaphor of dogs – some clubs are sick and tired of the dogging they receive from the county board. That’s why Wolfe Tones howled in the past week, stood up for their rights, said enough is enough and resolved not to fulfil the fixture against Shannon Gaels.
In an ideal world other clubs would now rally to Wolfe Tones’ defence as they face possible censure from the county board – they’d show their support at the next county board meeting by standing up and declaring that the Tones were right not to cower to a decree from on high that they had to play two senior championship games on consecutive days.
Of course that won’t happen, but in a way it makes Wolfe Tones’ stand all the more noble.
Clubs from around the county have, from time to time, stuck their heads above the parapet and voiced their anger at the diminution of the club when it comes to fixtures. In doing so they’re fighting for the very future of the games in their clubs.
They do so because there are times when club games seem like mere irritants and inconveniences where the county board are concerned – there to be got out of the way, by what ever means, however unfair to the clubs.
Those charged with the onerous responsibility for fixtures are doing clubs and the games of hurling and football a grave disservice by a ‘let’s get fixtures out of the way’ attitude that sometimes permeates their decision-making process.
The kernel of this latest dispute between club and its county board master is the fact that Wolfe Tones have up to ten players who are common to the senior football and hurling panels. And of the team that started against Tulla in the senior hurling championship on Saturday, six of them in the persons of Brian O’Connell, Patsy Keyes, Mick O’Connell, Jamie Roughan and Brian and Frank Lohan were expected to figure on the senior football team to play Shannon Gaels, but not just over 24 hours after the hurling game.
Making them play two games in such a short time frame shows scant regard for them as players – when you consider that the Lohans and Brian O’Connell have all captained Clare and given such great service to county teams, this was an insult and an utter disgrace. It should not have happened.
And, they’re not alone. Cratloe played senior hurling championship on Friday night and had to go out and play intermediate football championship two days later. And, they have more dual players than Wolfe Tones. St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield were in the same boat – senior hurling on Friday, senior football on Sunday.
So were O’Callaghan’s Mills, having hurling commitments on Friday and football commitments on Sunday. But the Mills don’t deserve a scintilla of sympathy, because from within and through no fault of the county board they’ve done a brilliant job of ambushing their chances in both football and hurling competitions in 2008. (For more on the Mills go to From The Ditch)
But, back to Wolfe Tones. This whole mess could have been avoided had the county board fixed the senior football game against Shannon Gaels for this coming weekend. Both sides had intimated their willingness to play this weekend – a fact that was communicated to the county board.
Wolfe Tones put that communication in writing, on more than one occasion for that matter, but didn’t receive the courtesy of a reply. Not good enough – the board should be working in tandem and co-operation with its clubs and not operating like some kind of regime where the only law is their law.
Why did the county board fixtures committee put Wolfe Tones down to play two senior championship games on consecutive days?
Just because they had the power to do so.
Why did they exercise this power?
Maybe it was a way to fire a shot across the bows of Wolfe Tones who had the temerity to vote against the county board endorsed move of cancelling the second round of games in the senior hurling championship.
Maybe it was because the board doesn’t really give a damn about football in the first place.
Maybe it was none of the above, but at the end of the day it could have far reaching consequences for the fixtures committee as it goes about trying to finish this year’s senior football championship in time for the first round of the Munster club on November 9.
All because, the disciplinary arm of the county board could take sanction against Wolfe Tones. And, if they do, the matter will end up on the Munster Council’s table, meaning that the championship could be held up.
Crazy really, when it all could have been so easily avoided.
Wolfe Tones and Shannon Gaels are playing a challenge match this weekend in Shannon – why in God’s name the original fixture wasn’t pencilled in for this weekend beggars belief.
It really does.

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