GAA clubs: another type of family

I’ve been privileged in a personal and a professional capacity to have attended many great sporting events over the years including countless All-Ireland finals, two World Cups, two Olympic games, Wimbledon, world cross country championships, big city marathons – the list goes on.

But as I’ve been watching the various county and provincial club championships in recent weeks, I can safely say that I cannot think of a better sporting occasion than watching my own club, St Brigids, win the Dublin Senior Football Championship (twice) and Leinster Crown (2003).

For those of you involved in the local club who’ve experienced the excitement of winning a major title or indeed any title at any level, you will get what I am saying

And to this day with other club mates, we still reminisce about those heady days. I actually made a fly-on-the-wall type radio documentary following the club’s successful run through the 2003 Leinster campaign before we lost the All-Ireland semi-final to An Ghaeltacht from Kerry. For those of you involved in the local club who’ve experienced the excitement of winning a major title or indeed any title at any level, you will get what I am saying.

To others, this may seem like misty-eyed guff. So be it. But I’ll happily continue with this misty-eyed guff by suggesting that the GAA club is a national treasure. We talk about individuals as national treasures. Well as an institution, so is the GAA club.

Speak with anybody whose club has won a county title for the first time ever or in a long time this year – either a player or a club member – and you won’t be long discovering the unique impression it leaves

All you need to do is look at the footage of Kilkenny’s Tommy Walsh celebrating his club Tullaroan winning the county intermediate hurling championship with his father on the pitch and his interview afterwards to get a sense of what I mean. Find it on YouTube and you will see the argument I am trying to make here, bearing in mind the huge successes Walsh has enjoyed at county level with Kilkenny, playing at the very top of the sport.

Speak with anybody whose club has won a county title for the first time ever or in a long time this year – either a player or a club member – and you won’t be long discovering the unique impression it leaves. Or go up to Kilcoo, the Down champions who won their first Ulster club senior football championship a couple of weeks ago. The team includes a set of five brothers, the Branigans from farming stock in this rural sheep farming edge of the Mourne mountains.

I don’t want to be totally clichéd about it but there is no other way of describing the club as anything other than a family. It is not a community, it’s a family

Before this years’ All-Ireland final first game between Dublin and Kerry, my club (St Brigids) organised an Up for the Match-type of fundraiser which I know are 10 a penny around the country. But it was an amazing night. I was delighted to be asked to present it, interviewing the likes of Conor McManus, Tomás Ó Sé, Martin McHugh, Barry Cahill, Bernard Flynn, Colm O’Rourke and Pillar Caffrey. The stage was decorated Sunday Game-style and the hall was packed. We had some laughs. I don’t want to be totally clichéd about it but there is no other way of describing the club as anything other than a family. It is not a community, it’s a family.

Club lottos are often what keep the club going, volunteers going into pubs and shops every week selling tickets. Witnessing Usain Bolt winning the 200 metres at both the 2008 Beijing and 2016 Rio Olympics close to the finishing line were as spine-tingling moments as you could get in sport. Manchester United 1999 too. But, St Brigids beating Round Towers of Kildare to win the 2003 Leinster final? Beats them all hands down. That is what “the club” means.