ULSTER SFC SEMI-FINAL: GAVIN CUMMISKEYtalks to people who know the state of the game in Antrim about what can be done to capitalise on their recent win over Donegal
WE DELVED into the many facets of Antrim GAA this week. It’s not wise to come cold into this complicated issue and try to simplify matters but this evening’s Ulster football semi-final in Clones against Cavan has put Gaelic football up in lights in Belfast and even up around the hurling-infested Glens.
Donegal’s 18 wides undoubtedly assisted this mini-Saffron revival but the performance of Liam Bradley’s men in Ballybofey deserves its own credit. They look a team capable of holding their own in a typical Northern dog-fight.
Speaking with former managers Mickey Culbert and Jody Gormley it becomes clear that Cavan will hardly intimidate them. The former does cringe at the thought of a provincial final against Tyrone, while the latter, a renowned Tyrone footballer from the previous generation, gives them practically no chance. Hardly a revelation, as only Cork and Kerry have the proven tools to hold their own with Mickey Harte’s men.
“I think it is going to take more time,” said Gormley of a proposed Antrim revival. “It is an ongoing project. Sure, it was a great result for Antrim to beat Donegal but I think Donegal did not give Antrim any respect whatsoever. I wouldn’t say it was a great performance by Antrim by any sense of the imagination. I think they did okay. They got a wee bit of a rub of the green when it counted but Donegal kicked 18 wides and by and large dominated the middle third. They just failed to score.
“Maybe Antrim were a wee bit fortunate at the end of the game but it is good that for once that they got the decision as opposed to so many times when they haven’t had the rub of the green.”
Gormley parted ways after missing out on promotion from Division Four last year but they did get hold of the Tommy Murphy Cup by beating Wicklow.
“They weren’t aware of the level of commitment required. That was a major stumbling block. I don’t want to name people but a lot of high-profile players couldn’t come to terms with the sacrifice that was necessary to play county football.
“They were on a steep learning curve. Getting to the Tommy Murphy cup final, which has been much derided in the GAA, but I think it was very beneficial for them young players and especially someone like Kevin Brady to lift a trophy in Croke Park after so many years of service. To just narrowly miss out on promotion in my second year was probably down to naivety, players were just not quite prepared to make sacrifices. But I think Antrim have learned from that.”
Scalping Donegal gave the football championship a much needed, early-summer boost and a favourable draw provides another opportunity to highlight the plight of Antrim GAA.
This week several men on the ground called Belfast the second major urban area on the island. That they are also a hurling county gives them a chance to look at the Dublin blueprint and learn from fruits of their strategic success.
Work is under way but Culbert is not so sure of its effectiveness. In 1995 The Irish Times journalist Tom Humphries penned the book, Green Fields: Gaelic Sport in Ireland, a collection of essays highlighting the GAA in modern Irish life.
One of the stories was about Culbert, who served 15 years in Long Kesh before being released in 1993. Northern Secretary Roy Mason supported the claims Culbert was not a member of the IRA but a complaint of police brutality seemed to work against him with horrific consequences.
Culbert, a member of Antrim’s 1969 under-21 All-Ireland winning team, was the results man in prison. Such is his manner and enthusiasm for all things Antrim GAA, he reflects on the experience with humour.
“In the Kesh? Aye, GAA was big stuff but the priority was to the country men. They had the most interest in results. I don’t mean that in derogatory terms. When I say “country” I mean outside Belfast. I’m a bit like a Dub when I talk like that. We didn’t have the word culchie. The same way we wouldn’t call you boys jackeens. Not half we didn’t!”
Fourteen years ago he told Humphries about the GAA’s failure in Antrim to regenerate the working-class factions of the lower Falls with one eye on soccer’s clear and present threat to Gaelic games participation. The man from Bombay Street, where the Falls meets the Shankill, explains: “I go on to the Falls road and there are 10 clubs along that one road and we are competing within a very small group.
“I spoke to Tom of the detachment of the GAA from the working class back in ’95 and there has been nothing done to rectify it.
“The GAA nowadays, if you don’t have a few students or boys from the grammar schools on your team it probably can compete but they are not going to win. That’s a major factor behind the team which I managed in Belfast, St Gall’s, very successfully out of the blue. But that was because we had fellas of that type. Doctors, solicitors.
“There are a lot of clubs on the Falls Road who don’t have those lads. They may be out working and didn’t come through colleges football and they are great competitors but they don’t have that coached base.
“Soccer in working class Belfast is the primary game. It’s not nice for us to admit it but it is. Soccer is so well organised in Belfast, you wouldn’t believe it. So is the GAA but not for the young population, the kids are being sucked up by soccer.
“We need one coach in every school. For soccer all you need is a surface and a ball. GAA needs coaching for the combination of schools.”
Culbert, while praising the work of the middle-class St Brigid’s club, fears for the future of so many clubs on the Falls.
“It’s a class issue. The middle-class children are getting the opportunity. The most successful club in Belfast at the minute is St Brigid’s. That’s in what you would call south Belfast. South Belfast is code for the Malone Road. You get me?
“What you have is the children of the doctors and the solicitors and they are all lovely people. They have their kids into the GAA. They have only started off a few years and are already a force. Joe Brolly plays for them.
“I hate to go on about it but I think you get the point I’m making.”
So how bad is the plight of the GAA in West Belfast?
“Some of the clubs in West Belfast are just brilliant. Constantly trying to recruit kids. A club like O’Donnell’s are really vibrant at the moment on the Whiterock Road just down from St John’s. There are other clubs like Davitt’s and McDermott’s and they find it very hard to get teams out, even senior teams, whereas St Gall’s can have a panel of 35 guys out training.”
Culbert understands the way Belfast has changed but is disappointed with the manner in which things are currently being harvested.
“During The Troubles it was about a badge of Irishness, be it the Irish language or the GAA club. It said we’re Irish and not British. That has been lost in the most recent generation because they don’t have those issues to deal with it, thankfully.”
Dr John McSparran is the Antrim County Board chairman. He seems like a practical man, enjoying the past few weeks of positive vibes but instantly sensing the opportunity to utilise a phone call from a Dublin-based national newspaper as he points to some notable discrepancies in how the GAA is run on different parts of this island.
“There are many things to emulate as far as Dublin’s success go. The clubs in our city have suffered out of The Troubles. People will say The Troubles are over a good period of time now but the reality is there is still a serious problem hanging over there.
“The best example of that is the lack of infrastructure. The City Council in Belfast provides for less than a dozen Gaelic pitches in the whole of Belfast yet for soccer they provide for well over 100.
“During The Troubles GAA clubs all had social clubs and financially would been able to survive quite well in a perverse way because they had that as a source of income but that’s all gone now. Most of them are struggling to exist financially as people can go into the city centre again. That is a negative of the peace process.
“If you look at Dublin they have 522 full-time coaches in the city. In Antrim, and this is the whole of the county, we have two. We are the second largest urban environment so we would deserve an equal measure of investment in terms of coaches.
“People forget Antrim, if you take Belfast out, is a very small county. Over half of our clubs are from the city. There are 25 clubs but maybe half a dozen regularly competing and not facing some kind of a challenge.”
Again, in simplistic terms, we seek a solution?
“We need to go back into the city and create a school and parish environment for a club. In other words, St Gall’s takes a certain territory in the city and schools. We need to get people to identify with certain parts of the city to regenerate clubs.”
At present St Mary’s are the only Antrim college in the MacRory Cup. Over half the current Antrim team have won Sigerson Cup medals with Queen’s University or UUJ.
An obvious question is can Antrim become a force in Ulster football?
“The great thing about this result, us beating Donegal, is it gave the whole county a lift,” adds Dr McSparran. “That gives people a focus on the thing which you wouldn’t have had otherwise. It is a great opportunity for us to capitalise but it won’t happen unless we get to work. But I have no doubt if we improve things even in the city by 20 per cent Antrim will become a force to be reckoned with in both football and hurling, a major force.”
Gormley provides the outsider, who was on the inside, viewpoint: “If you just base it on population alone the answer should be yes. There is a large population there. There are schools starting to play colleges football. It is going to take an awful lot of work at grassroots level and it is not going to happen in the next two to three years. It is going to have to come from the bottom up.
“The fact that Antrim is both hurling and football does tend to create problems. Most other counties you are either one or the other. There is a lot of overlapping at club level.”
A seed was planted in Ballybofey. Cavan provides another genuine opportunity for growth tonight. Culbert welcomes the challenge. “Cavan has never held any fear for Antrim.”
