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The Preacherman will be back with more words of wisdom from The Pulpit in 2014

Click on the links below to read any of the weekly offerings from The Preacher Man.

September 2013

September 27th 2013 The wife of a preacherman.
September 20th 2013 Any spare tickets?
September 13th 2013 Spell GAA
September 6th 2013 The price of failure

February 2013

February 28th 2013 Catching up with the present
February 22nd 2013 Getting going
February 15th 2013 Next stop Croke Park
February 6th 2013 The Mighty Quinn

January 2013

January 29th 2013 Earning the jersey

2012 issues

2012 Issues of The PulpitThe Pulpit 2012 Issues

2011 issues

2011 Issues of The PulpitThe Pulpit 2011 Issues

September 27th 2013

The wife of a preacherman

St Clarets GFC London. The best GAA club in London. Join us if you want to play Gaelic football in London

There are moments in the life of every preacherman when you stand in the pulpit looking down at the congregation and wonder if anyone is listening to you at all.

Often the heads buried in the weekly bulletin outnumber those that are looking towards the pulpit, while the hum of whispered conversations from the back rows can drown out what is being said by the preacher.

I once heard a fellow clergyman say that what he craved most of all while delivering a sermon was the someone would stand up in the congregation and challenge what he was saying; this man felt that such an act would at least let him know that a few souls out there were listening to his words.

Prior to my own days in the pulpit, I heard a senior figure telling the story of how one day he walked down the aisle during his sermon in order to confront a member of his church who was happily sitting reading the News of the World during the service, something which the priest took great exception to.

His reaction was to grab the paper from the man's hand and batter him around the head with it.

One thing though that every preacherman will feel secure with is the fact that those who share the same home as you, those who live under the same roof as you, listen to what you have to say and absorb the content of the message that you are trying to get across. After all, what sort of a preacherman can not convey his thoughts to those nearest and dearest to him!

To fail to achieve this would be to destroy the confidence of anyone wishing to follow the ministry of preaching and completely undermine that preacher's standing in the community.

Sadly, just a few days ago, the foundations of my own vocation were rocked as I sat and discussed matters in the GAA world with Mrs Preacherwoman.

As I flicked through the internet, I came across a rather clever picture someone had mocked up and which I have posted with this sermon.

The picture was simply a photo of the Hollywood actor Samuel L Jackson being presented with a huge big spoon of mayonnaise and accompanied by the caption " Mayo for Sam ".

On the morning of an All Ireland Final, this was a witty little presentation and one that I felt every and all disciple of the good word of the GAA would understand immediately, even the late converts like my better half.

That is of course until I presented the picture to Mrs Preacherwoman, and asked her to comment on it.

What was to follow was probably the most shocking and distressing conversation of our six years together. Indeed, so shocking was it, that after the first few sentences I felt compelled to record the dialogue as it unfolded, so that I could play it back at some later stage, just to make sure that the conversation actually happened in the first place.

The following is an exact transcript of the conversation, beginning as I presented Mrs Preacherwoman with the picture of Sam and the spoon of mayonnaise.

Me: Say what you see.

Mrs Preacherwoman: It's a picture of someone attempting to spoon mayonnaise into Samuel L Jackson's mouth with the catchphrase Mayo for Sam.

Me: Ok, so what does it mean?

Mrs PW: I'm guessing that "Mayo", as opposed to being short of mayonnaise, is actually the county Mayo and "For Sam", whilst it's Samuel L Jackson in the picture, there is actually someone important in Mayo called Sam.

Me: Mayo for Sam. Think about it.

Mrs PW: Mayo for Sam. I have no idea.

Me: Seriously you have no idea and you are married to me for how many years?

Mrs PW: More than I care to remember.

Me: And you've never heard Sam mentioned before in all those years.

Mrs PW: Who is Sam?

Me: Sam and Liam.

Mrs PW: Sam and Liam?

Me: Yes, who is Sam and who is Liam?

Mrs PW: They are very famous footballers ‐ or hurlers ‐ they're hurlers ‐ they do both ‐ they hurl ‐ and they play football. But they're better at hurling.

Me: Go on, keep going.

Mrs PW: That's it. They're both hurlers.

Me: Their prowess as hurlers or footballers isn't why they are famous. It wasn't because of their ability that they have become so famous. They were key people in the early days of the GAA. Liam McCarthy was actually both born in and buried in London, and Sam Maguire played for London.

Mrs PW: Oh I don't know. They want Samuel L Jackson to be their manager.

Me: They want Samuel L Jackson to be their manager? Who wants Samuel L Jackson to be their manager? Mayo?

Mrs PW: No ‐ they want Sam to be their manager?

Me: They want someone else called Sam to be their manager?

Mrs PW: They want Sam Maguire to be their manager.

Me: Who wants Sam?

Mrs PW: Mayo

Me: So who is Sam Maguire?

Mrs PW: He used to play for London and was very involved in the GAA.

Me: When?

Mrs PW: Back in the day.

Me: What is Sam now?

Mrs PW: Sam is now retired.

Me: Oh Sam's retired alright.

Mrs PW: So he's dead?

Me: Oh yes, he's dead alright. He's well and truly dead.

Mrs PW: So they want Mayo to win for the honour of Sam. In memory of Sam ‐ who is dead.

Me: No.

Mrs PW: Oh I don't know, just tell me.

Me: They want Mayo to win for why?

Mrs PW: For Sam.

Me: What is Sam?

Mrs PW: Sam is dead. Sam is the patron saint of Mayo.

Me: Mayo for Sam. Why?

There is a pause at this point as I try to steady myself before then searching the web for another picture, this time one of a car bedecked in Mayo colours and with the slogan "Mayo for Sam" painted on the bonnet.

I then show this picture to Mrs Preacherwoman.

Me: Any thoughts at all?

Mrs PW: None at all. The Dukes of Hazard.

Me: What would the Dukes of Hazard have to do with Mayo or Sam?

Mrs PW: Oh I don't know, it was just a car that was painted funny. And anyway, why am I supposed to think that a car, Mayo and Sam would have anything in common.

Me: Well what I'm trying to show you is that it has nothing to do with Samuel L Jackson.

Mrs PW: But it has something to do with Samuel Maguire.

Me: Right. So who or what is Sam Maguire?

Mrs PW: Sam Maguire is dead.

Me: Correct ‐ he's well and truly dead.

Mrs PW: And he used to be involved in the GAA and played for London at one stage but his home county is Mayo.

Me: That's not right but it's not a bad guess. At least you're thinking.

Mrs PW: I'm not sure what relevance a car painted green and orange has to do with anything.

Me: It's green and red. The car is green and red.

Mrs PW: Doesn't matter, I've still no idea.

Me: Today is what? What event takes place today?

Mrs PW: The All Ireland Final.

Me: Who's playing in the All Ireland Final?

Mrs PW: I'm guessing Mayo.

Me: Who else?

Mrs PW: I don't know.

Me: Who are Mayo playing?

Mrs PW: Dublin.

Me: And how do we know that they are playing Dublin?

Mrs PW: Because Martin's going to be there.

Me: Martin's going to be there! Martin trains the Dublin team for God's sake. He's going to be a bit more than there. (Martin Kennedy is a close friend and one of the coaches of the Dublin team).

Pause for breath.

Me: And what are they playing in today?

Mrs PW: The final.

Me: The final of?

Mrs PW: The All Ireland Championships.

Me: And what do they win at the end of the final?

Mrs PW: A cup.

Me: And what's the cup called?

Mrs PW: Is that Sam?

Me: That's right, it's Sam.

Mrs PW: How was I supposed to have guessed that from a car and a picture of Samuel L Jackson?

It's at moments like these that I am left to regret that the News of the World is no longer published. If ever there was a legitimate reason for rolling one up and clipping someone around the ear with it, then surely this conversation was it.

And the saddest thing about this dialogue is that I know full well that on the third Sunday of September next year, if I was to present something similar to Mrs Preacherwoman again, she'd be just as confused.

Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a preacherman!

The Preacherman

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September 20th 2013

Any spare tickets?

They say tickets for this year's All Ireland Football Final are harder to come by than ever before; and I'm sure many of the Mayo and Dublin supporters out there will testify to just how difficult it is.

That said though, every year, hundreds of ticketless fans turn up in Dublin and somehow or other they end up inside the ground.

Divvying up tickets for the final is like a giant game of poker, and there is a lot of bluffing and double bluffing going on among those who are holding and those who are on the hunt.

I have a good friend who is involved with the Dublin team this year, and he says that his phone is hopping with texts and calls from long-forgotten acquaintances enquiring if there would be any chance of a ticket. When you find yourself getting requests from people you haven't spoken to in years, then you know things must be tough.

Another friend of mine has been to every All Ireland played since I first met him in the mid-1980s and in many of those years, he was the go-to-man for tickets come All Ireland final morning if you were still on the look-out yourself. He always seemed to be able to get his hands on a few extras.

This year though he has yet to get hold of one for himself, let alone anyone else, and as of last night, he was still without a seat for the big occasion. Indeed, such has been the consistency of his attendance over the years, one wonders if the game will go ahead in his absence should he fail to get sorted!

Another friend from Dublin would love to get to the game but he is realistic enough to know that it is unlikely to happen and what's more, he is very happy to sit at home and watch the game with his two sons.

That said though, he'd be delighted to get his hands on one and as a result, didn't think twice about entering the draw in his local club for two tickets. Obviously his chances of winning are remote but as they say, you've got to be in it to win it, so it was worth a bash on his behalf.

Upon hearing that his dad had entered the competition for the tickets, his six-year old son turned to him in what will no doubt be the first of many challenging "who do you love the most? " moments they will experience and asked: "Dad, if you win the tickets, who would you bring to the game, me or Conor (his older brother)? "

Not having the heart to tell the young lad that of the two options it wasn't going to be him, my mate simply palmed him off by explaining that it would be highly unlikely that he'd win in the first place, so there was no point in talking about it.

However, the fact of the matter was that he knew that if he were to take the younger son, no sooner would they have got to the ground, than the little boy would have been asking when would it be time to go home?

All Ireland tickets are a bit too hard to come by to be wasting them on someone who didn't want to be there in the first place, even if it is your six-year old son and it is his first All Ireland final.

Good luck to all Claretians on the hunt for tickets this weekend. As they say, there's nothing like being there.

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September 13th 2013

Spell GAA

Change and progress is something that we seldom take notice of when we are in the midst of it. Often we have to step out of an environment or situation for a period of time to fully appreciate the scale of the developments that have taken place.

Back when I was a mere child with romantic notions of one day growing up and becoming a Preacherman I, like most of my friends, started to play Gaelic football.

My first proper club was a small rural team that was barely able to scrape together an under-12 team. Our pitch was a local field where the owner grazed his sheep when there was no game and the changing rooms were the tumble down ruins of an old farm house, which in modern day society would have been cordoned off and decorated with a wide range of safety dictates from Brussels. Back then though, this ruin of a building was the closest we had to a club house.

Team transport was the backseat of a clubman's Mitsubishi, which when not ferrying upwards of a dozen enthusiastic young footballers to almost inevitable defeat each week, was used to cart bales of hay and sick sheep about the place.

The football itself was on a par with the facilities. As tiny little under-12s, we played on full-size pitches, with full-size goals. In the first game I ever played I never actually saw the ball the entire match, as our poor opponents were so bad that they couldn't get the ball down to our end of the field.

The accumulative score at the end of the game was 36-points to no score.

Life as custodian on this team of course was never always so easy, as was highlighted by the fact that two games later, the manager sent a supporter down to me at one stage to check to see that I had my gloves on the right way round! I'm sure you don't need me to draw you a picture as to why that enquiry was made.

Back in those days team kits were usually a mish-mash of vaguely resembling tops of different sizes and colours, although during my first year we did receive a new set of jerseys for the club's youth teams. These of course swamped our little frames, while just about fitting our under-14s, while squeezing the life out of our under-16s. However, given that the club operated a one-size-fits-all policy with underage jerseys, we just had to suffer in silence.

On my very last game for the club, some five years after joining them, bizarrely I ended up wearing the same jersey as I did on my first game. To say if was a snug fit would be to suggest that the Incredible Hulk's clothes were made to measure after he turned green.

Progress through the ranks at our club could be rapid at times and this is best demonstrated by the fact that when at 15 years of age I found myself playing under-21. I actually saw this as something of a step down, given that I already had half a season of senior football under my belt, having made my senior debut along with another youth player when we were both fourteen. As I said at the start, it was a small club and the struggle to field an under-12 team was matched only by the struggle of fielding a senior team.

But thankfully change does take place whether we recognise it or not, and on a recent trip back to my old stomping ground it was incredible to see the amount of progress and change that has taken place within clubs and with the profile of the GAA in our area.

Every school and local community has access to plenty of qualified, enthusiastic coaches, insuring that kids get coached properly and learn how to play the game in a progressive manner (unlike my generation when we just learned as we played - and often didn't learn at all). On top of this, every club has decent and on many occasions exceptional facilities, making the clubs welcoming and accommodating, while most clubs have a very public profile.

But the influence of the GAA has stretched even further and the other day I discovered just how far when a football widow I know told me that when her little girl came home from school the other day, proudly sporting her first bit of writing Those first letters were GAA, a fact that didn't impress her mother too much.

Some call it progress, others might call it brain washing!

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September 6th 2013

The price of failure

The decision of the Kildare County Board and clubs to dispense with the services of senior team manager Kieran McGeeney after six years has brought an interesting argument to the always raucous GAA table.

McGeeney, an All Ireland winning captain with Armagh in 2002 and an inspirational figure to a generation of young footballers, has had a pretty decent run in Kildare. During that time he has been very well supported by the County Board, both in terms of finance and also personal backing. By all accounts, he was a highly respected and well regarded figure within the county.

However, what he wasn't, was successful, and because of that, he has paid with his job.

Now I know that some will argue that success is relative and of course it is. But that argument only stacks up if you are managing some third‐rate county who view a Championship run every now and then as success. When you are managing a team like Kildare, who at times appear to have an almost bottomless pit of money to throw at the preparation of their football team, then success is all about silverware. Regardless of how much (or how little) they have won prior to McGeeney, Kildare were pitching for some major prize the day they appointed him. Sadly for McGeeney and his players, he failed to deliver this.

Does this make him a failure as manager? Well this is the question that is causing a split within Kildare at the moment.

Having lost a ballot last week by one single vote, it would appear that the majority (albeit the most slender majority) of Kildare clubs and committee members felt that McGeeney has not been a success, as for after six years there was no silverware. On the other hand, the players, who are said to be very upset by McGeeney's dismissal, felt that he has been a brilliant addition to the Kildare cause and desperately want him to continue, or in other words, they feel he has been a success.

And that is great to hear in the modern day GAA, as far too often there are players and groups of players bitching about either the person in charge or the person who is about to be put in charge. To hear a group of players defend their leader in this way says a lot about the players and also the regard they hold McGeeney in.

And that's fantastic ‐ to a point.

The flip side of the argument though is that in six years McGeeney has created an expensively prepared group of "nearly footballers". They nearly won a Leinster title, they nearly got to an All Ireland final ‐ but they didn't.

In the time that McGeeney has been in charge of Kildare, the delegates at the county board can point to someone like Jim McGuinness in Donegal, someone who in three years took a group of malfunctioning players to All Ireland glory, as well as back‐to‐back provincial titles.

They could also point to their Leinster rivals Meath, a county whose managerial seat has acted as if it is some high profile prop in a game of musical chairs over the past few years, yet and all, they have delivered a Leinster title.

They could also look at a relative minnow like Louth, and say that they, just like Kildare, have also almost won a Leinster title; while Monaghan, under Malachy O'Rourke, have landed an Ulster title at the first time of asking.

The anti‐McGeeney delegates would argue that when compared to these stats, then McGeeney has been a failure in Kildare.

There is no doubt that Kieran has everything you'd imagine is essential to be a fine football manager. On top of that, he has also been someone who has been able to recognise a few of his own shortcomings over the years.

The appointment of Jason Ryan as his coach last year was a perfect example of a man looking to find a way of plugging the gaps in his own repertoire of skills. Certainly such a move was not the actions of a man incapable of looking in the mirror and finding fault.

When all the facts are considered, it is probably safe to say that McGeeney is a good, or even slightly better than good manager, but one who still has to find his groove in terms of winning. The thing that appeared to come so easily to him as a player, is proving a lot more difficult to recreate as a manager. It could also be that he is just an unlucky manager.

Whatever way it is, I feel that the Kildare county board were right to do what they did the other night and dispense with McGeeney's services.

Some would point to results and performances and suggest that maybe Kildare had peaked under McGeeney, and that they were now on the downward slide. That's a hard one to prove, but results and scorelines would support that argument.

I don't think he will complain about having had a six year run at the job and maybe, just maybe, a little time away from the inter‐county scene and a change of environment will prove beneficial to him in the long term.

There's no doubt that many counties would love to have him at the helm, his problem is though that not too many of the top counties would be interested ‐ and that in itself is an indication that McGeeney hasn't quite earned his stripes as a top manager just yet. He has to be careful that he doesn't end up a journey‐man manager who appears to be managing teams just for the sake of it. McGeeney is one of life's natural born winners, so he needs to make sure that his environment is conducive to winning.

If the Kildare thing ultimately proves to be over for good, then he needs to be sure that the next project he undertakes has as much or more potential as Kildare's did when he took it on.

The Kildare players have to be commended for the public support of the former boss, and I am sure that those who have managed to develop strong bonds with him over the past six years will feel a great deal of regret for not having achieved something with him, as well as responsibility for the fact that he is no longer their leader. If the players feel that he has done everything and more to make them a great team, then the blame for the failure of the Kildare senior football team lies at their feet.

When the story of McGeeney in Kildare is finally written, I am sure it will be full of positive statements and tales of the good that he did for football in the county.

Sadly for McGeeney though, football at the level that the Kildare senior football team was being pitched at is all about winning, and unfortunately for Kieran, this time round, he didn't win.

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August 30th 2013

Bitterness and acceptance ‐ GAA style

Regular readers of this sermon will know that I'm not the greatest fan of the sports pundits on Irish television. Fair enough, they provide a bit of entertainment, but in terms of analysis or in-depth knowledge, sometimes you'd wonder if these guys ever played the game ‐ this despite their vast collection of medals.

With a few of them, there always seems to be a hint of bitterness and jealousy in much of what they have to say, particularly when their own county is doing well or another player is excelling in their former position.

Some of these guys view themselves as top-dogs, but are obviously also hugely insecure in that self-appointed position. They therefore use every opportunity they can to remind people that they are, and always will be, the main-man. It's quite pathetic really, but when you have been adored for a period of time, some people become addicted to the adoration and just can not bear to have the spotlight taken from them.

With each new wave of recruitment to the analyst chairs, so more and more insecurity seeps from beneath the porous skin of these individuals.

The recently dispensed with Sligo legend Eamonn O'Hara attacked his former manager Kevin Walsh after London defeated his home county in what was a classic example of someone virtually standing up, ripping his shirt off, flexing his biceps and screaming at the top of his voice on live TV: "If he'd pick me, we'd have won. I'm the man".

Thankfully O'Hara stopped just short of doing so, but even with his clothes on, we could see the bitterness streaming from his pores like a weeping statue of the disenfranchised former gaelic footballer.

Down south in Cork, getting rid of the old brigade has always been a problem for any manager. The rebel within the Rebels often prevents them from accepting the authority of anyone who is in a position of authority, and the soap opera of striking and moaning that has taken place down there over the past decade is proof that the Rebels still like a rebellion.

Two of the hardest to get rid of in the hurling fraternity were Sean Og O'hAilpin and Donal Og Cusack, and there is no doubt that both of them still feel that they are as good as any other hurlers in Cork, and that they should be the first two names on the team sheet.

However, and very unfortunately for Sean Og and Donal Og, one of the all time legends of the GAA in Cork, Jimmy Barry Murphy, says differently; so on this occasion, the two lads have to bite their tongues and accept that what JBM says is the law. Trying to raise a rebellion in JBM's kingdom would be a foolish exercise.

As a result, Cusack has his Sunday afternoon's to himself, and like any shrewd operator looking to keep himself in the limelight, he's jumped straight into media circus ring, just in case anyone would ever forget that he won a few All Irelands with Cork.

But in fairness to Donal Og, he seems to have managed to stay honest in the way he is conducting himself, and earlier this week he was talking about how it feels to be an ex-player watching his former team achieve something, in reference to Cork reaching the All Ireland Hurling Final.

Now of course, if Cusack was a former wing forward from Kerry, he'd be reminding everyone that this current team was no where near as good as any of the teams he played on, and that until they had a bucket load of medals to their name, then there was no point carrying on this conversation; before then wiping away the beads of insecurity and bitterness that had just squeezed out of the pores on his shiny forehead.

Thankfully though, Donal Og Cusack is a former goalkeeper with the Cork hurling team, and his take on how he feels about Cork being in the All Ireland final without him is refreshingly honest.

"Of course everybody wants to be out there," the Cloyne clubman told the The Irish Daily Mirror. "There's people been coming up to you saying, 'Isn't it great Cork are in the All Ireland final?'

"And it is great. But the closest analogy that I can give to you in my head, and this is coming from my heart now: I imagine it's like the love of your life, if they threw you out or kicked you out and a while later you heard they were getting married or whatever.

"And you have people coming up to you saying, 'Isn't it great they're getting married?' And of course it's great, I love that person, I love that game. But I'd still love to be in that relationship. That's as best as I can describe it to you now."

I'm sure we've all been there, be that on the football field or in the relationship ‐ or both.

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August 23rd 2013

In another man's words

The greatest sermon I ever heard was a short little two liner from my parish priest in Luton, who simply told the congregation one sweltering July morning: "If you think that this is hot, imagine what Hell is like. So behave yourselves." Short, memorable and to the point ‐ preaching perfection in my book.

Ever since I heard that sermon I have been striving to come up with something short and concise that would get my point across, but as regular readers will know, this is something beyond my talents. I tend to be a bit too wordy and it's something I am conscious of and am working hard at fixing.

Today though, in an attempt to lessen your pain of reading yet another of my sermons, I am simply going to borrow another man's work; I suppose it's a bit like those Sundays when the priest reads a letter from the bishop.

I'm doing this as I try to explain how I feel about the news that a number of London senior footballers are planning on turning their backs on their London clubs this year and in doing so, potentially make themselves ineligible for the London team in 2014.

Here's what the Irish Post's Sports Editor Ronan Early had to write on the matter and I can do little other than endorse what he is saying.

The first point we want to make is that we have the height of respect for all the members of the London football panel and that respect is not borne simply of their achievements in the Connacht SFC this summer.

The respect is rooted in the effort and commitment they put into London GAA last winter and spring when few were watching. They gave everything of themselves to get right for the championship, while having to do so with one hand tied behind their backs due to Croke Park rulings like the Seanie Johnston Rule (always more about London) and the bizarre ban on travelling home for challenge matches in advance of the Championship.

We at this paper have always spoken up for the players in such circumstances. We will of course continue to do so in future when they get a raw deal from officialdom. This, however, is not one of those times.

We hope seriously that the five players planning to transfer back to their home clubs in Ireland reconsider. There is a lot at stake.

For a start, there is the technical stuff. Under current rules, if they transfer back, even temporarily, then they will be ineligible to play for London in 2014 (unless there is yet another round of winter championship).

Try selling that one to the clubs who have bitten the bullet the past two years and seen their reserve championships seriously undermined as a result, among other inconveniences.

Then there is the bigger picture. The GAA is a pyramid: clubs at the bottom and county at the top ‐ not the other way around. The five players could well say that by going home to play for their parish teams they are showing the ultimate loyalty. Perhaps, but they cannot expect to flit between county football for London and representing a club in another country.

Put simply: if you're a London county footballer, you have to be a London club footballer too.

There is room for no ambiguity here.

If players take off in a number of different directions and then expect to return to the Exiles fold in the winter, then the credibility of London GAA would be under threat.

Given that the exploits of those five players on the field helped to enhance that credibility to unforeseen levels over the summer, it would be both ironic and hugely regretful if the players contributed to a lowering of London's stock.

Many thanks to Ronan for allowing me to re-produce this piece.

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August 16th 2013

Standards

With the youth players of St Clarets off on their summer break, basking in the glow of their achievements so far this season, the senior team finds itself in a place that we always knew we would be: sitting in mid-August, facing a make or break Championship game.

Now the coin could have fallen either way for the team, given the nature of the two one-point defeats that they suffered in the opening games of the groups stages, and it is very possible that the make or break game that we would be facing into could be a Championship semi-final.

As it is though, it's a relegation play-off against a yet-to-be-confirmed opponent.

However, regardless of the title that we put on it, it's still a must-win Championship game that will determine whether the season has been a success or a failure. To lose both opening games of the campaign by a single-point was a cruel twist of coincidence, but from those two defeats, we must take the fact that we are as good as any other team in the competition. The four-point loss to Garryowen was an insignificance given that they game had little or no consequence.

What we must do as a group now is draw a line under the group stages and focus one hundred per cent on the game ahead of us. It's a winner-takes-all sort of arrangement, with staying in the Intermediate grade being a prize well worth winning.

It's crucial now that as a collective we don't decide to cash in our chips at this point and say that we gave it our best shot. That would be a very easy thing to do. What is for certain is that the team that maintains its discipline and commitment over the weeks between now and the play-off will be the team that wins. We know we're good enough as we have proved that in the group stages, but should we let standards slip, then we will be in trouble.

It's incredible how quickly a club side can be transformed from a decent Intermediate team into a pretty ropey Junior side if standards are allowed to drop. For the coming weeks the mantra of the team and the buzzword among the players has to be standards.

In my mind, it's absolutely critical that this game is approached in the same way the club would approach a Championship Final. Senior members of the group have a responsibility to hound every other member of the group into committing one hundred percent to what is going on. We do not have the depth of talent available to us to allow any players to go walk-about between now and the play-off.

So the lesson is short and sweet. It's about one word Standards.

It's about keeping those standards as high as we possibly can in order to give ourselves the best chance possible. After that we can all go walkabout ‐ or to the Walkabout if that suits better.

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August 9th 2013

Don't blame the player, blame the game

Once again this week, a major Championship match has been completely overshadowed by what went on in the RTE commentary box after the game, rather that what took place on the field of play. The difference for me this time though, was that what was said was well worth saying.

Now granted, Joe Brolly did his career as a barrister no good whatsoever with the way that he completely lost the run of himself in delivering the sort of sermon that even The Preacherman could not attempt to replicate. But at the same time, he brought to the fore an issue that really does have to be addressed.

Brolly's attack on Tyrone and Sean Cavanagh was very personal, whether that was intentional or not only Brolly can really say, but certainly every follower of Tyrone football will dismiss everything and anything that Brolly has to say on any topic from this moment forward. But that's the price that every pundit or journalist has to pay for their opinions.

The difference between what Brolly said on Saturday, and for example what Pat Spillane said when he dubbed the Tyrone play of the noughties as puke football, is that people know there is a real analytical brain with a great depth of intelligence and understanding driving what Brolly has to say. Spillane on the other hand, for all his entertainment value, is driven only by the maximum amount of exposure he can achieve from everything he says.

As I've said here before, I'm no fan of RTE's analysis of games or the three man team who sit so comfortably in the studio, safe in their well-established and well-paid roles: Colm O'Rourke, the fence-dweller, who never says anything worth listening to; Spillane acting like a character from the TV series D'Unbelievables, spewing out any old crap he can think of that might grab a headline; while Brolly is the ticking time bomb, who wears his heart on his sleeve.

The one thing that separates Brolly from the other two is that when you pick through the debris after the explosion, occasionally there are a few nuggets of wisdom to be found, which is more than can be said for anything his two mates may say.

The Brolly time bomb exploded on Saturday evening in epic fashion, and since then, the world and his uncle (and The Preacherman), have had something to say on the matter.

What Sean Cavanagh did when pulling down Conor McManus was many things: it was unsporting, it was premeditated, it was cynical, it was hateful, some might even say it was an act of cheating, but it was NOT a sending-off offence. Cavanagh knew this and the referee knew this, and as blood-boiling as that fact might have been for Brolly and the entire population of Monaghan, the incident was dealt with exactly as it should have been dealt with ‐ there was a free awarded to Monaghan and Cavanagh was booked.

What was poisonous about the act was that it was the sort of scenario that will have been discussed, analysed and sanctioned by the Tyrone team and management at various stages of this season and other seasons. Very little of this sort of thing happens by accident and no one will tell me otherwise. I've sat in enough dressing rooms and team meetings and spoken to enough other players over the last thirty years to know this.

Now this isn't a bit of Tyrone or Mickey Harte bashing, not by a long way. They are just the group under the microscope at this moment in time. This sort of carry on has been standard practice with many county and elite teams for as long as I can remember.

I once sat talking to some very notable, well-decorated Ulster footballers and they told me a story from a major game they played in back in the 1980s.

In the run-up to the match, a player had been identified on the opposition team who was seen to be the key to everything his side done. One player was pulled aside by the manager and told that it was his job to "look after" this lad.

Now this piece of instruction wasn't given as a general piece of commentary. No this piece of instruction was very specific, to the point that the player was to await a signal from the sideline to indicate when to do the sorting out.

As the players lined out just after the anthem, and all eyes (and cameras) were fixed on the referee and the four players about to contest the throw-in, the manager shouted from the sideline to his chief sorter-outer "Now Jimmy, now". Jimmy was 18-years old at the time, but Jimmy did what Jimmy was told to do and what Jimmy had been coached to do.

This incident happened over twenty years ago, so it's not like this cynical play is some sort of recent development. What is important to understand though is that this act was no different whatsoever to what Cavanagh did on Saturday or what half the players playing inter-county football at this moment in time would do in the same situation.

A friend of mine once sat through a team meeting for the Sigerson Cup team he was playing for and was transfixed as a selection of the senior players on the panel talked the squad through a multitude of ways for illegally fouling or impeding an opponent without getting caught by the referee.

My mate, who was a real genuine footballer-type, had no interest in the dark arts, but was left speechless at the end of the session at just how skilled these guys were at fouling opponents as they delivered the definitive guide to personal and cynical fouling. This wasn't stuff that they had picked up in the back yard. This stuff had been coached into them and they were merely handing on the info.

I think it is fair to say that Tyrone (among others) have brought the crafty arts they practice to a very high level ‐ however it is totally unacceptable to start to castigate individuals on the team in the way that Brolly did.

However, criticising Brolly and focusing on what he said does not solve the problem of what is happening on the field of play.

This week, two different schools of thought have had their say on the matter. Eugene McGee, (a man who managed a team to an All Ireland courtesy of one of the most famous bits of cheating / foul play ever), has come out stating that the soon-to-be introduced black card initiative sanctioned after his committee reviewed the rules of the game last year, will end this practice. The system will mean that the offending player will have to be substituted once shown a black card, a sanction that might appear to punish but in reality doesn't.

The offending player's team will not suffer numerically from such an act, and while McGee may be right in insisting that the likes of Cavanagh would think twice about perpetrating such an act because of his importance to the team, the same will not apply to the easily replaced corner back, who will not worry at all about "taking one for the team". Indeed in some instances, such sacrifice would be commended.

So the black card solves nothing aside from maybe stopping the more influential players from carry out the kamikaze acts of defending.

Meanwhile, Sean Walsh, a former tour manager with the Irish Compromise Rules teams, as well as having been a Kerry and Munster Council Chairman, has come out and said that the rugby tackle executed by Cavanagh should be introduced to Gaelic games, not punished.

Now the prospect of such a development is concerning on so many levels and not least of all when you read some of the medical reports coming out of rugby with regards to the size of the hits players are taking and their long term effects on the health of players.

Walsh's words were simply foolish and ill-conceived. Anyone who has ever coached youth rugby will tell you how important technique is when teaching the tackle to young players. Get your technique wrong and you can be in all sorts of serious problems.

Getting coaches, who can't rugby tackle, to start to coach players to rugby tackle ‐ well let's just say I think the insurance premiums would be going up pretty sharply.

Sadly, one of the prices that the GAA has had to pay for playing the role of the local village slut with Australian Rules is that we have compromised our own identity. The rugby tackle is a dangerous act and it's not something that can be introduced so that a bunch of young lads can go flinging themselves full length at other players running at full speed, just hoping that they come out of the landing on the right side.

Joe Brolly opened a can of worms last weekend, but it was one that needed to be opened. Fair enough, he did it using a blunt, rusty screwdriver and lacking any of the normal finesse and composure that you'd associate with someone who earns his living standing in front of judges trying to articulate a case in favour of his client. But that's Joe's barrow, so he'll have to wheel it and live with the consequences.

That said though, by letting the worms out, it presents the GAA with the opportunity to start to re-introduce the concept of fairness and fair play to the Association.

The formations that teams use these days may not appeal to the purists but they are fine and they are all part of the puzzle solving that the managers have to engage in when they face opponents; it's all part of the evolution of the game. Where the problem lies is with the job descriptions attached to the roles that some players are given.

To use an example presented by Brolly. If your role as a sweeper is to be there to collect breaking ball and add an extra man to defensive situations, or cover runners running through, then that is fine. It is a very tough role to perfect, as has been proven by the number of people that have tried and failed to get it right.

On the other hand, if your role as a sweeper is to merely act as a cattle rustler / bouncer, pulling down anyone who dares enter your area of the field, then that's not a tactic, that's merely an act of thuggery.

Success always comes at a price. No man has ever won an All Ireland medal without shedding blood, sweat and tears throughout his long journey to Croke Park. What he never should have to do though, either as a player or as a manager, is to shed his self-respect or shred his good name in doing so.

Brolly, like what he said or not, drew a massive line in the sand last weekend and has challenged managers and players not to step over it again. It will be interesting to see how many of them are so driven by the need to win that they will happily destroy their own good names in order to achieve their stated goals.

Joe Brolly was wrong last week, but he was also right. What also has to be said though is that Sean Cavanagh wasn't wrong in what he did last week, as he was merely doing what was expected of him. He took the punishment that was associated with the crime without complaint.

It's a classic case of don't blame the player, blame the game.

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August 2nd 2013

When St Clarets went to Croke Park: Part 2

This week we've got the second part of our two-part look at the last time Claretians were involved in a big game in Croke Park.

Part two

From the inside, the process of selecting any gaelic football team is always a complex bit of negotiation, with each selector having his own agenda and his own rationale for how he is hoping the team will eventually line out.

From the outside, the team that is selected is often a baffling, jumbled-up jigsaw, which no one can make head or tail of.

As mentioned last week, the omission of Peter Withnell from the London Junior football panel in 1988 was a case in point. Withnell, regardless of what he went on to achieve with Down in the years after 1988, was by far the fittest, strongest and most athletic footballer training with London over the few short weeks that we were together, and on top of that he could play a bit too.

However, it was also pretty obvious that his face didn't fit with the selectors. He had that sort of cocky, northern attitude that doesn't always sit too well with people who aren't from the north, and it's fair to say that Peter fell foul of the London's selectors in 1988. Despite the fact that his two club mates and fellow Down men, Damian Carville and Maurice Somers, both made the team, Withnell appeared to be a step too far for the selectors to take.

Elsewhere, there were also a few other baffling decisions and none more so than the selection of St Clarets' Martin Hession at corner forward.

Martin had been in London a few years at this stage and was known as a central player. He was a midfielder or a centre half forward; strong as an ox, with a good engine, great attitude and a good pair of hands. Yet and all, he was selected at corner forward.

While Martin was no doubt happy to be on the starting team, one had to wonder how on earth the decision was reached to pick someone who had none of the natural attributes associated with corner forward play in his locker.

Part of the reason was undoubtedly to accommodate Ciaran White at centre half forward. White was a total mystery man, who none of us knew much about, aside from the fact that he'd hurled a bit for Cork - although at what level we didn't know. However, from that morsel of information, it appears that it was decided that he should be the fulcrum of all that the London team's forward section were to be about. The great pity of course was that this was a London football team and not a London hurling team!

But the official party-line behind Martin's selection at corner forward was that the selectors felt that his previous Croke Park experience would be invaluable when dealing with the noise of the crowd along the sidelines.

As every Claretian knows only too well, Martin Hession was an exceptionally good footballer and as a result, there were certain presumption made about where he had come from in the football world. The GAA community in London settled on the story that Martin was a former Galway minor, who had won a Connacht title with them and had gone on to play in Croke Park for the Tribesmen at some stage. Where this story came from is anyone's guess.

Of course none of this was backed up by any evidence and no one ever thought to ask Martin if any of this was true. However, these were the facts upon which Martin Hession was selected at corner forward on the London Junior team.

Martin had never played Championship football for Galway minors. He'd had trials and played in a few challenge games, but hadn't made the Championship squad. Ergo he had never played for them in Croke Park, in fact, as Martin confessed to me on the coach going to the ground, he'd never even seen Croke Park before. Yet and all, he had just been selected in a totally alien position for an All Ireland final based on a "fact" that no one ever asked Martin to verify.

On the night that the team was announced to the players, a Dublin lad called Paul Murray was named at right corner back, but by the time we had arrived in Dublin, his name had been erased from all records, for the simple reason that he had never been transferred into London when he joined his club St Michaels.

As a result, Paul's name never appeared in the programme for the final and his duties on match day were as "team physio". I don't suppose for one minute that Paul had any medical training of any sort, but regardless, he spent the game running on and off the field, dressed in his suit, carrying a large black bin liner full of half melted ice and smoking fag every time a London player hit the deck.

He mightn't have got a jersey that day, but as far as I was concerned, having watched him in action from the dugout, Paul played a stormer.

The night before the game we had gone for a run-out in Parnell Park and returned to the Ashling Hotel to hang about for the evening and meet family and the likes.

At one stage we were summonsed to meet a London county board official who then began to hand out official GAA ties that we were told we had to wear the next day to the game; all very official we thought, until we were the asked for £10 each for the ties - you couldn't help but feel someone as taking the mickey somewhere.

A couple of Kerry footballers dropped into the hotel and held court for a short while with some of the players and didn't help matters a whole pile when they started to tell yarns about Kerry footballers drinking four or five pints the night before an All Ireland Final. Some of our crew didn't need that sort of encouragement at all!

The morning of the match saw us being whisked off to Croke Park in the team coach, accompanied by two Garda motorbike outriders, who cleared an uninterrupted path all the way to the stadium. We had heads turning along the route, as punters wondered which team was passing them. You can only imagine their disappointment when they realised that it was the London team wearing the £10 GAA ties they'd just been conned into buying the night before by their own county board.

At the time Croke Park was still in its old run-down state and the changing rooms were a real disappointment, as we were shuffled into a less than salubrious pit in the bowels of the stadium. That said though, there was a sense of occasion about being there, including guys coming in with trays of tea for us before the game and at half time, as well as the strict protocol pinned to the back of the door about exactly what time we were to leave the changing rooms and how you were to go straight to the bench for the team photo. It was all very co-ordinated and a far cry from New Eltham.

Paddy Cowan was the manager of the team and in the minutes before we left the changing room he really began to earn his corn!

He settled us down and then began with his team talk. It was one of those muck and bullets talks, low on factual or tactical content but high on passion and anger, and decorated with plenty of bad language. It began: "Meath wear green, and we hate green", a variation of the team talk he had used in Ruislip for the British Final when he stated: "Warwickshire wear red, and we hate red. "

Anyway, team talk over, we skipped out onto the pitch, had our picture taken and headed down to the Hill for the warm-up.

The ground was far from full, but as ever the early birds were in on the Hill. As we busied ourselves kicking about before the game, we got dog's abuse from the crowd, but I guess that was all part of the Croke Park experience.

The game ended 1-10 to 0-3, a predictable enough result given that this was a team thrown together at the last minute and that most of us were unable to walk having been continually and brutally abused by Richie Haran in the three weeks before the game.

Afterwards of course there was the session but not before he had received the VIP treatment by getting front row seats in the upper deck of the old Hogan Stand to watch the Cork v Meath replay.

The following day we were invited to attend the after game banquet, where we mixed with the great and the good of the Association, along with those big ticket items of the day, better known as the Meath and Cork football teams. Strangely though, neither sets of players seemed remotely moved to be in the presence of the London Junior Football team, even if it did contain two St Clarets players!

No doubt they all regret that decision today when they see the way Martin has our Under 10s and Under 12s whipped into shape and when they read the club notes each week from the club's PRO. It was all an upwards trajectory for us from that moment on!

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July 26th 2013

When St Clarets went to Croke Park: Part 1

This week we take the first of a two part look at the last time Claretians were involved in a big game in Croke Park.

Part one

With Claretian legend Tony Murphy set to run out onto Croke Park this Saturday along with the London senior footballers for the Qualifier game against Cavan, The Preacherman has decided that this is the perfect opportunity to take a trip down memory lane and recall the last time any St Clarets players ran out at headquarters to play football.

Now of course we've had a few notable Alumni who have tore up the green stuff in Croker in recent times, with Erik Kinlon winning a Nicky Rackard medal out there with the London hurlers and former club captain Paddy Quinn strutting his stuff more recently with the Dublin footballers. However, the time I will focus on was the occasion of the All Ireland Junior Football Final of 1988.

The two St Clarets players in question at the time were the incomparable Martin Hession and The Preacherman himself, back in the days before arthritis took my limbs as the song goes. A third Claretian, Danny Grehan, missed out on the occasion, but why exactly no one could ever really explain.

But to tell the story in full, let's go right back to the start.

The London Juniors qualified for the All Ireland Final in 1988 by beating Warwickshire one September afternoon in Ruislip.

The Preacherman had turned up to watch the game and support Martin and Danny, who were both part of the London panel that day. While I was standing along the bank talking to Denis McCarthy snr, one of the London selectors walked past.

Denis exchanged a few pleasantries with him and then just as the guy was leaving, Denis popped a simple question.

"Have you a sub goalie? "

"No" came the simple reply after a moment's thought.

"Here's a good lad here" Denis commented pointing his finger at me.

The selector looked me up and down and then asked the most crucial question of all. "Have you boots? "

Before I could say a word, Denis jumped back in again.

"Course he has" which was news to me.

"Ok, you better tog out" came the non-too-enthusiastic response from the selector.

Denis tugged me by the arm and the two of us skipped off down to the bottom car park in Ruislip (you'll remember of course that Denis skipped and whistled everywhere he went), where he opened the boot of his car and pulled out a pair of boots. "What size are you? " he enquired.

"Nine. "

"They're eights, they'll do you" he replied, before sending me up to the changing room.

The game came and went and I watched from the sub's bench as an interested spectator, with the boots sitting bedside me on the ground.

Thankfully for all concerned, I wasn't called into action and when the final whistle blew London were Provincial Junior champions and set to face Meath in the All Ireland final a few weeks later in Ruislip.

In the changing room after the game we were told that there'd be training Tuesday and Thursday at New River Stadium on White Hart Lane up in north London, and that we were to be there for 7.30pm - the usual drill.

The following Tuesday, myself, Danny and Martin headed up to north London and in the days long before sat navs or anything of that nature, we managed to get ourselves totally lost (people spent half of all journeys back then lost), arriving about half an hour late for training - such as it was.

There were about four or five other bodies there and very little enthusiasm, but there was a bit of a kick-about and not much more. The following Thursday was much the same (without the getting lost bit).

That Sunday, Cork and Meath were playing each other in the All Ireland Football final, which I watched in a cinema in Hammersmith. The game was drawn and I never gave the consequence of the draw a second thought.

That is until Monday, when Croke Park announced that the All Ireland Junior Final would be the curtain raiser to the replayed senior final. All of a sudden, London's Junior footballers were heading to Croke Park.

The three of us turned up for training on the Tuesday night and we needed three changing rooms to accommodate all the players that were there, and once out on to the pitch, the management made one of the most ridiculous decisions that was ever made on a football field.

They turned to a fella called Richie Haran, who was a player on the team and asked him to train us.

Now Richie came across not so much as a graduate of the school of hard knocks, but more like its founding member and Headmaster, and what happened over the following two weeks was cruel beyond words.

The main rugby field at the New River Stadium was surrounded by steep banks and we ran up and down those banks until we could run no more. It all made perfect sense back then, as we were training hard as they say, but to today's sports scientists, it would be the sort of carry-on that would have them breaking out in cold sweats. As we know from recent developments in sports preparation, Richie's methods were the height of lunacy (younger readers need to understand here that the GAA operated on the basic principle of lunacy for many, many years).

After a couple of nights of this torture, I can remember turning up for work one morning, sticking a ladder up to a window, starring at the ladder, then the window at the top of the ladder and then the ladder again and wondering to myself how the hell I was ever going to climb that ladder - not once, but 200 times that day. I was barely able to walk, every fibre in my being was in bits.

But Richie was let loose without constraints and in the war of abuse that he had engaged us in, we all somehow come through still walking and breathing.

On the final night of training, the squad was called out. Martin had quite naturally made it and so had I, due mostly to the fact that I was the only other keeper on the panel; behind PJ Burke.

Sadly, and quite inexplicably, Danny Grehan was omitted, although it must be said that a guy called Peter Withnell was also overlooked and three years later he was playing full forward for Down as they won the All Ireland senior title, so Danny shouldn't ever take that oversight too personally.

Next week I'll tell you about the trip itself.

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July 19th 2013

When the craic's not so grand

The Preacher Man

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October 2012

October 16th 2012 That's it from me for 2012
October 16th 2012 Could we have a wee bit of manners please
October 10th 2012 It's Good To Talk
October 3rd 2012 GAA abusing its position

September 2012

September 26th 2012 Jimmy's winning matches
September 19th 2012 I have a dream
September 12th 2012 Adults dismantling the ABC
September 5th 2012 Is it can't or won't?

August 2012

August 29th 2012 The Cherry On Top Of The Icing On Top Of The Cake
August 22nd 2012 Help - we need somebody
August 15th 2012 Management - More Than The Game
August 8th 2012 Setting The Standards
August 1st 2012 Representing Yourself

July 2012

July 25th 2012 Remembering The Last Time
July 18th 2012 Simple As ABC
July 11th 2012 Beggaring Belief
July 4th 2012 Murphy's The Man

June 2012

June 26th 2012 Kids Setting The Example
June 19th 2012 Be The Best You Can Be
June 12th 2012 The Harvest Is Rich
June 5th 2012 Learning To Win

May 2012

May 30th 2012 When It's Time To Go
May 22nd 2012 Members Only
May 15th 2012 Endeavouring To Share And Sharing The Endeavour
May 8th 2012 Stretching The Point
May 1st 2012 An Angel on My Shoulder

April 2012

Apr 24th 2012 Something Is Wrong In Paradise
Apr 17th 2012 If I Had A Photograph Of You
Apr 10th 2012 Apples, Oranges And Chocolate Hobnobs
Apr 3rd 2012 The Size Of The Fight In The Dog

March 2012

Mar 27th 2012 Midnight At The Lost And Found
Mar 20th 2012 People People People
Mar 13th 2012 You're In It To Win It
Mar 6th 2012 Power To The People

February 2012

Feb 28th 2012 The Truth About VaVaVoom
Feb 21st 2012 The Journey Begins
Feb 14th 2012 Don't Look Back In Anger
Feb 6th 2012 Leading By Example
Feb 1st 2012 To give or to grab ...... that's the question

January 2012

Jan 23rd 2012 Start as you mean to go on
Jan 17th 2012 Dub Dub Dub...... it's about your club
Jan 11th 2012 Run Forrest Run - but bring a ball with you
Jan 5th 2012 No Regrets, No Tears Goodbye

I have a dream

2013 will be what we make it ourselves.

I have a dream. Some would say it’s a mad crazy dream, but as it’s my dream, it’s allowed to be as far fetched as the parameters of my mind permit.

It’s the sort of dream that would have some dialling for the guys with the white coats to come along and save me from myself, but it’s also the sort of dream that will intrigue other people.

This dream is set on a cold foggy winter weekend in Dublin (Croke Park to be precise), and in the dream, St Clarets are playing in an All Ireland club final under the floodlights.

Only one team from Britain has achieved this feat before, when John Mitchells of Liverpool fell at the final hurdle in 2009, but it proves that it can be done.

Last year, a relatively new club from Newcastle, Cuchullains, managed to qualify for an All Irelands quarter-final, proof again that amazing things can be achieved by GAA clubs in Britain.

Now I appreciate that by this stage some of those reading may have switched off completely, but that doesn’t concern me. These are people who we can either convince that this can happen, or they are people that can be dispensed with along the journey that my dream is taking.

The dream doesn’t have an ending as such, as I don’t know whether St Clarets win their game in Croke Park or not, and that is almost irrelevant. What is important is that St Clarets play in Croke Park.

Without wishing to go over old ground again, we know that at senior level in St Clarets that we are a little lost at present.

However, all we need to do is take a look across at our old rival St Brendans, who were just as lost as us this time last year, to know that salvation is never too far away in London football.

Once saved, well let’s just say that anything can happen.

This time last year, St Brendans were struggling to beat Thomas McCurtains in their final group game in the Intermediate Football Championship.

Had they lost that game, they would have been playing us in relegation play-off. Last Saturday, they won the IFC and are back as a senior club again.

Dramatic turnarounds are possible in London football. However, they don’t happen by accident.

The journey that St Brendans are undertaking now into the British Provincial Championship and beyond is one that we are well capable of undertaking ourselves. However, we all know that the level of collective commitment and organisation that we displayed at senior level in 2012 is no where near enough to make this happen.

I’ve said this before here, that we are the architects of our own situation at the moment, but by the same token, what we must remember is that we are also the architects of where we will go in the future.

2012 was not a good year for St Clarets in adult football and there is no point in pretending it was. Save for the few pluses of managing to develop some of our younger players a little further and the fact that we avoided a relegation play-off, there are few real positives to be taken out of the senior side of things.

All the glory for 2012 once more belongs among the youth ranks of the club. September 2012 is when we must start planning for 2013 and not in a “put it on the long finger sort of way”.

As a club we need to collectively start to think about how we can move this thing forward and with purpose, for at the moment, all the movement is backwards and there is precious little purpose in what we are doing.

The great thing is that it’s not a doomsday scenario and we can change this situation ourselves, but it won’t happen by accident.

If St Brendans can change their fortunes so rapidly, if John Mitchells of Liverpool can end up playing in Croke Park and if Cuchullains of Newcastle can make it to an All Ireland quarter-final, then St Clarets can do the same and more.

By no means am I suggesting that this transformation will happen overnight, but we can start to lay the foundations for it next year, and who knows what the following year will hold.

I have a dream and I see no reason why that dream should not come true.

The Preacher Man

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September 12th 2012

Adults dismantling the ABC

The ABC Games September 15th 2012.

You may recall how during the summer, the inaugural ABC Gaelic Games tournament had to be postponed due to the state of the pitches at Greenford.

With months of preparation having been invested in the tournament, the organisers were forced to pull the plug under advice from the local council, just days before it was due to take place.

It was an unavoidable decision but still a source of huge disappointment to all concerned.

Undeterred by the set-back, the organising committee vowed to stage the event at some point later in the year, and this weekend, the first every All Britain Championship games takes place in Greenford.

The tournament itself will only be a shadow of what had been initially planned, with the three day event being reduced to just one day and the number of teams cut by 40% or so.

Occasion
Nonetheless, the event promises to be a great occasion for all involved with promoting youth football in Britain.

Sadly though, it appears that certain players will miss out on the chance to play in these games and those players will come from St Clarets and St Kiernans football clubs.

With both teams struggling to field teams at Under-14 grade, the two clubs submitted a request in July that they could field a joint team, under the name St Clarets at the ABC games.

This request was granted.

Since then, the landscape appears to have changed and one is left wondering what has happened that has led the organisers to inform the clubs on Tuesday night that their invitation had been withdrawn and that the clubs could only field individually and not as a joint team.

There were two reasons given for this decision. Firstly, that there was a feeling among other clubs that this joint team might be too strong for the competition and that in the spirit of fairness it shouldn’t be allowed to field.

The other reason was that as both clubs had fielded teams in the League and Championship at this age group, they should be able to field in this tournament too.

Arguments
Valid arguments? Well yes on the outside, but like all argument, sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to see the other side of the debate.

Yes St Clarets and St Kiernans did field in the League and Championship; but they both fielded teams that were made up of under-12 and sometimes under-10 players, just to get team on the field.

These were not competitive teams.

Given that some of these younger players will be involved in the Under-10 and Under-12 tournaments at the ABC games, it is not possible for them to also play in the Under 14 tournament. Therefore, the two teams need to combine to make up their numbers and ensure that the Under-14 players from both clubs get a chance to play.

And as far as the argument regarding the team being too strong is concerned, this is based on the fact that nine of these players played for North London in the Feile in Ireland in the summer.

That’s nine of the 22 players involved, with two more coming from North London Shamrocks and the remainder from Tara and Parnells - meaning that 11 of the players on duty came from those two clubs.

So while any proposed St Clarets team may have a slight advantage in terms of quality, it isn’t that great, maybe one or two players of county standard above two of their north London rivals. We can’t compare them to the teams from other counties because we have no idea of the quality of teams from Warwickshire, Lancashire or elsewhere.

Spiteful
The decision seems spiteful and where that spite comes from we don’t know. The fact that the ruling was made without any prior knowledge of the club is embarrassing for the organisers, with the first that either club knew of the decision, or the prospect of this decision, being when the mentors were emailed to let them know that they weren’t welcome at the tournament.

There are a lot of people wondering what has driven this? It’s certainly driven by an adult or group of adults somewhere, which to me is very concerning because any adult who is so obsessed by winning and beating the opposition when managing an Under-14 team, is not fit to be manager of an Under-14 team, or any youth team for that matter.

A great deal of care is taken these days to try and keep kids in sport safe from the unsavoury side of society and that is an ongoing battle. However, if idiots who are driven only by the number of medals that their kids win are allowed to manage teams, then there is more work to be done.

Sport at this age group is about learning, playing and developing. The minute it becomes only about winning, especially for those in charge, then the sport has a problem.

Rabid
The importance of winning will come later, and while we want kids to try hard and be competitive during games, when their is a rabid obsession to achieve success coming from the mentors on the sideline, then sadly things are in a desperate state.

This action, by whichever unnamed club / clubs, stinks of small mindedness and of people with an axe to grind somewhere.

The one thing that they are not concerned about is the development of the young Gaelic footballers in London. Sadly it would appear that these people’s own personal achievements and agendas are of far greater importance to them.

We can only hope that those in charge of these games will finally see the vindictiveness and the spite that is driving this motion and that common sense will prevail so that the two clubs will be allowed to enter their under-14 team.

The Preacher Man

(The decision to exclude the St Clarets / St Kiernans team from the ABC games was reversed the day after this article was posted, when the organisers recognised the reason for the need to combine the two teams).

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September 5th 2012

Is it can't or won't?

Paralympian James O'Shea along with Mark Foster.

This week I enjoyed the great privilege of attending the Paralympic Games.

Part of the package we had was a talk from Olympian Mark Foster, who spoke of his association with James O'Shea, a double leg amputee, whom he met while working on a TV show, "Dancing On Wheels".

James lost his legs 15 years ago when falling under a train one New Years Eve and since then, he has had to overcome all the unimaginable obstacles that someone with his disability has to learn to face on a daily basis.

While working together on the show, Foster noticed a few things about O'Shea; of course he noticed his steely determination, but as well as that, he also noticed his natural athleticism, his almost effortless coordination and his movement.

Foster asked James if he could swim and when O'Shea said he loved to swim, Foster asked him if he would like to swim in the Paralympics in 2012.

James said he'd love to give it a go and without ever seeing him swim, Foster undertook to help O'Shea achieve this goal.

This was 2010.

He brought him to Barnet Copthall swimming pool and introduced him to a coach there and since then, bit by bit, O'Shea has progressed toward his goal.

Last March he achieved the qualifying time for his event in the Paralympics and tonight, shortly after 6pm, James will be swimming in the Olympic pool in the final of the SB5 100 metre breaststroke.

Stories like these are of course commonplace among conversations these days, as the Paralympics take centre stage. We are quite naturally in awe of what these athletes are capable of dong and the obstacles that they have overcome. However, instead of merely marvelling at their achievements, what able bodied people should be asking is: "What's stopping me from achieving something amazing for myself in my life?"

Few who have had the good fortune of attending the Paralympics could not be touched by what they have seen. It's an incredibly emotional and humbling experience, and while we would like to think that these memories, images and emotions will stay with us forever, the likelihood is that time will erase a good deal of it.

And that's a real pity, as people like James O'Shea are inspirational figures, and as sorry as we may feel for their physical plight in life, they have every bit as much right to feel sorry for the underachievement that most of us are guilty of in our lives.

The Paralympics have once again taught us that there is no such word as can't and when we say: "I can't do that" what we really mean is: "I won't even try to do that".

The day after my trip to the games, I went to the cinema, and during the trailers I saw an advert for the Paralympics.

The advert drove home the reality of just how quickly life can be turned on its head in an instant. There’s no escaping the fact that we are often merely inches or seconds away from having everything changed forever.

So often it is said that it is only in the very darkest hour that the human being finds out what they are truly capable of. Each and every one of the athletes at the Paralympics is living proof of this.

Maybe now, after seeing these athletes doing what they do, despite their limitations, the able bodied among us should vow to make the most of what we have, while the lights are still bright.

The Preacher Man

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August 29th 2012

The cherry, on top of the icing, on top of the cake

The 2012 Donegal Senior Football Squad.

Few things in top level football happen by accident. Most things are the result of planning, practice and perfect execution. These are the things that amaze the supporters, but merely please the management and players. These are the things that make all the hard work worthwhile.

Ever since the appointment of Jim McGuinness as manager of the Donegal senior team, I have had a fascination with how it would progress in the job.

I’m of the generation that remembers Jim in his “Jesus Christ” days, back when he sported the beard and the long hair, the eternal student, the guy who played in seven Sigerson competitions, a guy who - to many - was a bit of a joker, to others a joke.

What we didn’t realise back in those days, was that behind the beard, the long hair and the party boy image, was a serious mind; the sort of mind that had the capacity to re-invent a game.

Change
No doubt encouraged by the work of the likes of Joe Kiernan and Mickey Harte a decade ago, McGuinness has not just taken on the job of managing the Donegal senior football team, but also of changing an entire mindset of how to play football and how to behave, especially when you decide to suffix your name with the words inter-county footballer.

McGuinness has quite literally re-invented the circle in Donegal and as it approaches its final test run in Croke Park in a few weeks time, the results thus far would suggest that he has improved the circle considerably.

But how does this happen and why can’t every inter-county manager achieve what McGuinness has achieved?

Well firstly McGuinness has a plan, it’s a carefully crafted plan and he has spent many years working on it, tweaking it and perfecting it.

Laugh
It has been said that when he first showed members of the county board his vision for the future of Donegal football several years ago, he was quite literally laughed out of the room. The old heads sitting at the top table couldn’t take Jimmy McGuinness seriously, they knew too much about him to ever do that.

However, Championship win with Glenties in Donegal and with Donegal U21s in Ulster made people sit up and listen to him, and as Donegal football found itself in a heap on the floor in 2010, the old heads once more interviewed McGuinness, but this time they listened.

The thing about McGuinness’ plan is that it is backed up by expertise. McGuinness has someone in place for every discipline and he has belief in his ability to manage people and communicate a message. He has backed himself one hundred per cent to bring success and discipline to Donegal football.

Everything that Donegal do is thought about. Every run that a corner forward or a corner back makes has a purpose, it’s almost scripted and the players have bought into Jim’s plan with such conviction, that they are physically ready for the challenges that this very complex piece of choreography will present to them. This is the most committed group of footballers ever to come out of Donegal.

And the thing about this group of Jim’s is that they love every one of those runs because they believe in this plan.

Preparation
But aside from the physical preparation, the game plan, the psychology work that the players undertake, the nutrition plans and the sense of identity that the players have with this vintage of Donegal football, there is still more that is required in order to make the difference between the Donegal of old and the new generation.

Every team they have played, especially in the later stages of the Championship, are well-drilled, highly-trained, extremely fit, hugely motivated and organised. These are not easy teams to beat.

Consider Donegal’s last four matches: Tyrone, Down, Kerry and Cork, - between them, at least one of those teams has appeared in each of the last ten All Ireland finals, and mostly there have been two of them. These were seriously motivated, ambitious and well organised teams, yet and all, Donegal were superior to them in almost every aspect of the game.

Photo
So what was the difference? Well in my mind there is one simple photograph that sums up the level of attention to detail that the present Donegal team have, that maybe most other teams don’t have. This is the “Jimmy factor” if you like.

After the last two Ulster Finals, when the crowd had gone, the Donegal team have walked back out on to the pitch in Clones and had a photograph taken with the cup.

No doubt the thirst for a few beers and the chance to catch up with family and friends was gripping after winning an Ulster title, or at least it would have been with previous Donegal teams, but instead, this Donegal team, posed for a well-organised and structured picture, a checkpoint in their march towards football perfection.

Not for this group the traditional fair of O’Neill’s tracksuit and t-shirt, but instead it was neat chinos and polo shirts, along with matching shoes and belts. Donegal are a team that looks a class apart and thus far this year, have played a class apart.

Wearing chinos isn’t what makes a player a good player, or a team a good team, but having the attention to detail that makes someone considers how the team will look when they take an historic team photo, with everyone looking very much part of a well drilled and well disciplined team, is the cherry, on top of the icing, on top of the cake mix that makes a great football team.

The Preacher Man

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St. Clarets: where we
are all in this together

We’ve all sat there at times, moaning about the good old GAA and its money grabbing instincts.

We’ll give out about the price of admission to a game, question the membership fee for our club, complain about a levy imposed on the club by a county board (a particular favourite of the London County Board it seems) and bitch whenever we are asked to dip our hands into our pockets for anything to do with the association.

It’s only natural I suppose. After all, anything that we spend money on and don’t feel we are getting value for, causes us upset. And there are undoubtedly times when we are perfectly within our rights to have a moan.

Of course, as a result of these perceived injustices against our wallets, and what with the Irish being the great wags that we are, we have quite naturally re-branded our most famous cultural and sporting institution as the “Grab All Association” flattering no, accurate… well maybe just a little.

Man in the mirror
However, as is the case with every story, there are two sides, there is a mirror that needs to be looked into and time needs to be taken to consider exactly what that mirror is saying back to us.

Yes, we hate having to give money to the Association we already selflessly invest so much of our free time in, and yes, there are occasions when some of the sums of money being asked for are extreme in any man’s language, and yes, there are times when the justifications and arguments being offered for these high prices hold little water at all.

So at those times, we’re right to have a bitch and a moan.

Nevertheless though, when we gaze into that mirror and consider what the mirror is saying back to us, there are also times when we are guilty of nothing more than hypocrisy.

Familiar story
Consider any ordinary GAA club, one anywhere in the global GAA community, no better, no worse and no different to St Clarets GFC.

Over the course of the year, the club receives innumerable donations and payments from people and businesses, all designed to help the club. Sponsors buy gear for us, golfers attend the golf days and make it the huge success that it has become, complete strangers buy tickets from us, others make generous cash donations and others offer support in a wide variety of ways.

Every GAA club graciously and gratefully accepts these offers of help, but how often do we then consider where we, as a group and a club, can be of help to another organisation?

Experience
Within any football club there is an absolute wealth of experience and knowledge that if combined together, creates an incredible organisation that is capable of achieving many things, both on and off the football field.

My suggestion this week would be why not try and make one of those many things a charitable exercise that shows St Clarets GFC giving something back to the community, not merely being part of the organisation that just takes, takes, takes…. remember…..The Grab All Association.

Several suggestions were made at the recent AGM regarding ways of raising money for the club. Each one of them had merit. My suggestion this week would be why not look at one of these suggestions and consider making it happen. However, instead of going it alone, do it in tandem with a local charity, good cause or organisation, one that needs help as much as we do.

The sort of good-will that our club would receive from such an act would be worth its weight in gold.

We already have many members who are heavily involved in their own personal charities and who work tirelessly to try and assist these charities whenever they can. Why not see how the club could help one of these movements, a joint effort, that raises our profile as a club and also helps to raise funds for the organisation we are working with.

“Més que un club"
In Spain, Barcelona Football Club pride themselves on the logo of “Més que un club" a Catalonian saying which translates to “More than a club”.

Those four words sum up perfectly what I’m trying to say in this piece.

St Clarets GFC – The Giving Football Club.

The Preacher Man

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January 23rd 2012

Start as you mean to go on

There are seats to
fill at the table

I’m going to be short and sweet this week. The topic on the table is the club’s upcoming Annual General Meeting and the message is simple.

The AGM is the beginning of a new year for St Clarets, the first real action for the club for 2012. Let’s make it a positive start and let’s make sure that by Sunday evening you, the club members, feel that you have the right people leading the club forward in 2012.

Far too often club members and interested parties will raise their eyes to the heavens at the thought of attending a club’s AGM. All too often though, those same people will be first in line to dish out the criticism as the year goes by.

However, by failing to attend the AGM, by failing to show any interest in the democratic process that is employed there to elect officers and by failing to participate in that democratic process, then in many ways a club member is also relinquishing their right to have a say in how those officers are performing – failing to attend an AGM is basically neutering yourself of your opinions.

The remedy is simple to this situation. Turn up to the AGM, participate in the discussions, offer an opinion, take part in the voting process and make sure that going forward in 2012, that the club are well aware of both your interests and your opinions.

Sitting on a high stool in June, complaining about the club, is not the way forward for any organisation. Participating in the processes laid down by the rules of the club is.

If St Clarets are to have success in 2012, be that at youth level or at adult level, then they will need strong foundations upon which to build that success. That process begins on Sunday at the AGM. If we start well, the rest will follow. If we start poorly, then it will take a lot of effort to turn things around before the season has even begun.

Those in key positions in the clubs want to be challenged, they want to have to work for the role they have, they don’t want to have it handed to them on a plate because no one else wants to stand against them.

To walk away from an AGM knowing that you hold a position because you have been regarded as the best person to carry out those duties is a lot more fulfilling than walking away with a position because no one else wanted it.

So short and sweet. Attend, engage and take part in the democratic process.

It’s your club, make sure that you have a say in the way it develops. 2012 for St Clarets GFC will be what you choose to make it.

The Preacher Man

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January 17th 2012

Dub Dub Dub …. It’s about your club

The Australians are a fantastic nation for reducing things – the name of their own country has been reduced to Oz, their most famous animal is known merely as a roo, their favourite form of eating is a barbie, their biggest sport is footie and one of their most well-worn expressions is “strewth” - which is short for “isn’t that the truth.”

Further to that, in the past they have very kindly reduced the number of criminals held within the British penal system and are at present reducing the “Live Register” in Ireland, as more and more of the young unemployed Irish head Down Under to seek employment and a better life.

Oh yes, when it comes to reducing things, the average Aussie is hard to beat, so it was little wonder that back in the day, when the internet started to become the global obsession that it is, that our fair dinkum buddies from the land where women glow and men plunder, decided that www was just too much of a mouthful to be coming out with over and over again.

So what did they do?

Well they did what they always do…….they downsized … and their abbreviation was simply Dub Dub Dub …. longer to write maybe, but shorter to say.

Bear this downsizing in mind for later on …… because we’re not going bush this week, we're not going to be dubbing down (sorry, terrible pun). This week we’re talking expansion.

No resting
We within the club have been a bit slow to utilise the tool that is the club’s website, but in fairness to us, we have made up some good ground over the past three or four months and we have no intentions of resting on our laurels.

The club’s website is now starting to take some shape and is up-dated at least twice a week, while the club’s facebook page has a fair amount of traffic on it as well. So at last we’re heading in the right direction down the information super-highway, even if we are playing a bit of catch-up.

The way we see the website going forward is that it will serve a number of purposes. Firstly, it will provide a notice board for all members and interested parties as to what is going on in the club each week, things like when and where and who to contact. That’s vital and it is our responsibility to make sure that the info provided on the site is up-to-date and accurate, because once a person loses faith with the accuracy of the site, they will stop using it altogether.

The past and the present
Secondly, we want to be able to document the events that have taken place in the club, both in the recent past and also in the distant past. Both aspects are of equal importance, although of course, the events of the more recent past are always more easy to access and demonstrate.

But these two factors are of huge importance as the documentation of the events of yesteryear help to keep those members involved in the past connected with the club and it provides us with an opportunity to acknowledge the important role that various people and groups of people played over the past 35 or so years that the club has been in existence.

Meanwhile, the more recent past and the events of the current calendar year, help to make the club and the website a living, breathing thing and it is a great way for us to be able to chart the highlights of the year at all levels of the club, as well as making sure that everyone involved with the club has a good idea of what is going within the unit. It’s vitally important that we create that sense of community within St Clarets.

The outside world
But there is a third and incredibly important use of the website and that is to promote ourselves as a club to the outside world. With the increasing number of footballers arriving in London these days, many are on the look-out for football teams and many will sit browsing the internet considering their options of who they want to play for and where they might consider living in London.

We are in a good position in terms of being able to help lads with work and housing when they first come to London, but it is pointless being in that position if no one knows we are able to help them. And that’s where the website and the facebook page are so very important.

Yes we can post the information on the site and hope that people will stumble across it, but if the site isn’t looking busy and cared for and full of information, then no one is going to hang around long enough to find out what we have to offer anyone. We need to lure them into it, spark their interest in us, make them inquisitive about St Clarets GFC.

We need people to be intrigued by what they see on our website and also our facebook page and we need them to want to find out more about the club, what we are about and how we can help them.

We also have an obligation to our kind sponsors to try and promote the help they give us, either through photographs, testimonials or, as we have at the minute, links from our website to theirs. We are indebted to the help that our sponsors give us each year and it is only right that we do what we can to pay a little of it back to them.

Further to that, it also provides us and our local born players with a reference point to introduce the club to new members, be it potential new players, supporters or sponsors and it will also help them to understand the efforts of the previous generations to keep the club going, often against all the odds.

And in order to make sure that we have the best website that we can possibly have, we need people to get more involved with making things happen.

Your opportunity
In the coming year, we want to have the club being highlighted in the best way possible on the website and we want to have people asking us questions about our club and talking about the things that are going on in our club.

The people that can make that happen are the members and it has nothing to do with being able to manage websites or anything like that. There are people in place who can do that, but what they need is information to put onto the site. The members and the people who attend training and games and the social functions are the people that can make that happen.

With the AGM taking place in a few weeks, it is an ideal opportunity for people to stick their hand up and volunteer to help with the promotion of St Clarets, be it in writing a match report, taking some photos, doing an interview or alternatively offering a supporter’s / player’s / parent’s perspective of the week within St Clarets. There are loads of avenues that we can explore.

If it is a case that you won’t be able to make it to the AGM, but still would like to help out in this part of the club, then feel free to email us on [email protected] with your ideas.

So in 2012, instead of doing what the Aussies love to do and downsize things, let’s up-scale our social networking and make sure that every breath we take as a club this year gets the chance to be documented.

Remember, …. Dub Dub Dub, it’s about your club.

The Preacher Man.

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January 11th 2012

Run Forrest Run - but bring a ball with you

Forrest: All blow, no brains

You may recall the scene in the film Forrest Gump where our hero finds himself playing American football and he grabs the ball, meanders all over the field, finally heads for the goal line and just keeps running, through the end zone and out of the stadium.

A classic case of a player with no game-brain, just a great set of lungs. A carbon copy of far too many GAA players in fact.

A few years back journalist and All-Ireland winning manager Eugene McGee wrote an article about life at the start of the GAA season for most players.

In the article he talked about “the puking season”, those few months at the very beginning of the year, when in many people’s minds, the credentials of the man taking the training is judged solely by the number of players he has heaving their guts out at the side of the pitch.

It was an hilarious, although sadly very accurate, description of what still goes on in far too many football teams every season, and it is a mindset that needs to be moved away from with the utmost urgency.

Although as of yet it hasn’t been proven scientifically, it is an fairly accurate assumption to make, that the volume of puke dispersed by a team in the early part of the year, is in no way proportional to the volume of success that the same team will have at the end of the year.

If this were the case, then The Preacher Man would be the most decorated player in the history of the game (both physically and in terms of silverware won!!).

The Guru McGurn
More recently, leading strength and conditioning coach Mick McGurn has paid tribute to the efforts of Crossmaglen manager Tony McEntee and the work he is doing with the serial All-Ireland winners.

In a recent interview, McGurn commented on McEntee’s methodology while working with his players.

The Belfast native said: “I just think club managers get too bogged down with strength and conditioning.

“I'd take a leaf out of Tony McEntee's book here when I say concentrate on the skills more than anything else. He's massive on making his players more skillful, more so than on the training aspect and he teaches them how to kick and how to make runs.

"The more skillful team will invariably win. There's too much training and not enough coaching going on.”

While such an approach will be greeted with much cheer from those who have over-indulged during the Christmas break, it doesn’t necessarily mean that fitness is not still something that has to be considered. It’s just that it has to be approached a little more creatively.

Friends with benefits
A friend of The Preacher Man was recently involved with a Division 2 NFL team and he encountered at first hand just how deep-set the “puking season” mentality is with some players, even relatively young one.

This coach is top drawer, up there with the likes of McGurn and one who has coached teams to All Ireland and National League success, so it’s fair to say he knows what he is talking about.

During a session early in the year, which was intensive and ball related, as opposed to the traditional long-winded and running related, one of the players asked him when they were going to start the real hard stuff?

As the same player quite literally crawled off the pitch at the end of the evening, having done nothing but work with a football for the entire session, the coach smiled over to him and merely asked: “Was that hard enough for you?”

The poor player unfortunately didn’t even have the energy to smile back.

However, what was achieved in that session was immense. The players were in constant contact with the football, gaining 200 or 300 contacts with the ball throughout the hour or so that they were on the field. The coaches were given the chance to assess the football credentials of the players that they were now in charge of, as everything they were doing was football related, and all the while, with the players almost being oblivious to the fact that it was happening, the players were working relentlessly on their own ball skills and also their fitness.

Make practice make perfect
Most teams spend about three hours a week of practice and one hour a week of actually putting into practice what they have practiced. Over the course of the year, most teams are probably active for no more than 35 weeks of the year.

So basically, most club players get a maximum of 105 hours of practice a year, of which far too much of that time is devoted to trying to get players fit, trying to make players faster and stronger. Nowhere near enough of this time is spent trying to make the players better.

In the case of St Clarets, this football related approach is very relevant.

A look at our squad will show you that we have a very eclectic mix of players. We have some who are now well and truly in the veteran stage, as much as they will protest otherwise. These are players who now play on instinct and experience and have no need or desire to be raced around a field like greyhounds.

In fact, in most of their cases, such an act would probably be counter productive.

We also have a large number of London-born players who have reached the stage of being competent but still have a lot of developing to do in order to improve themselves as players. Almost without exception, these players also play at least one other sport on a regular basis. Once again, charging them around a field in February has no value as they are already in reasonable shape. Getting them fully involved with a ball and improving their game awareness and their skill-set is all that is needed for them.

And then, in the middle, we have the 20-somethings, competent players, who like everyone need improving, who are maybe not in the greatest of shape, but at the same time, aren’t exactly on the coronary watch-list either.

Be creative with the training
Once again, time spent in creative contact with the ball will get them where they need to be to be able to compete at Intermediate level in London in July.

Even at the very top level of sport, players invest huge amounts of time in practicing and polishing their skills, working on first touch, passing, kicking, catching, breaking ball, tackling, positioning and on game awareness. These are the things that will win you games at club level in London, indeed in any county.

Fitness is a lifestyle choice. It involves many sacrifices including attention to diet, to rest, to alcohol consumption and to the types, quantity and quality of training that the player is prepared to do on a regular and continuous basis. It is a choice and it can’t be imposed on anyone.

Undertaking to “get people fit” by running them around a field, people who have no intention of making any of the additional sacrifices that are all part and parcel of fitness, is nothing more than a waste of time - time that could be used productively focusing on other matters.

Helping to get people a little fitter, while also improving them immeasurably as a player, will serve St Clarets far better in 2012.

If Forrest Gump is going be on your team, make sure he at least knows what he’s meant to be doing and how he’s meant to be doing it.

The Preacher Man

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January 5th 2012

No Regrets, No Tears Goodbye

The wisdom of the wash-out

Comedian Dylan Moran has a great routine where he talks about “potential”. It’s delivered in the Navan man’s usual lazy, deadpan and lethargic manner and resembles a tête-à-tête between a drunken, downtrodden and unappreciated uncle and his five-year old nephew-by-marriage.

The gist of Moran’s soliloquy is that potential should never be touched, explored or considered, as it will only lead to immeasurable disappointment.

Basically the case he argues is that we never have the potential we and others think we have and if we decide to scratch the itch that is our potential, then all we will be left with is a body full of half-healed, weeping, self-inflicted scratch marks and a bucket load of bitterness and resentment.

And I suppose Moran has a point in what he says. Mostly potential is something that someone else sees in us and that we seldom see in ourselves. These people may see the raw material for greatness in us, but they are all-too-often blissfully unaware of the seemingly insurmountable obstructions and obstacles that experience has put in our way - our own private barriers to immortality if you like.

However, to fully understand the enthusiasm of the advice giver, we must consider how these conclusions are reached.

Benefit of experience
Seldom will anyone younger than you come up to you, put an arm around your shoulder and tell you of your potential. Why would they? After all, the human food chain dictates the elder is the one to impart the advice, the younger is the one to digest it, much like a bird feeding its young in the nest.

So what is it that allows the elders of the world to assess the potential of others? Well plain and simply it’s experience, or should that translate as regret?

When you’re older you see slithers of yourself in others that you meet. You notice the spark in the eyes of a young person that you knew you once had and never acted upon, you notice the energy and enthusiasm in their actions and speech that you once had but never utilised to the maximum.

Put another way, what you see in them are mirror images of your own regrets and shortcomings – the things you failed to do, the things you couldn’t be bothered to do and which you will never get the opportunity to do again. And that’s what regret is. It is potential that was never realised and it is a very, very important factor in the life of any sports person.

Cancer of the spirit
Regret is like a cancer of the spirit, is wears you down, leaves you weak and eventually kills the spirit altogether. What’s left behind is nothing more than a sack of unfulfilled potential and angry regret.

The fact about potential is very simple. The only person responsible for what happens to your potential is yourself, and this is particularly relevant when you are a sports person.

You get one chance at sport, your body will obey your wishes and desires for a finite amount of time, thereafter the lines of communication get broken irrevocably and all that is left is a wish that it had lasted a little longer.

A football career will last a period of time… not a number of games, but a period of time.

For some that period could be far shorter than they had expected, as injury or life will dictate that their time is up. For others it will last far longer and they will be granted the opportunity to decide when their time is up.

The day of reckoning
What every player needs to make sure of though when that final day has come, is that they have played all the football that they could have played and played it to the best of their ability.

In other words that they had fulfilled their potential as a footballer.

Every game that is missed is a game that you will never play, as they aren’t stock-piled for you at the end of your career. They’re not like credits on a poker machine.

Likewise, every training session that is skipped is a missed opportunity to fulfil your potential as a player and improve yourself.

If your approach to your sport is casual, then be prepared for regret when it is all done, but if your approach is all about working hard and making the most of your potential, then you might just be surprised at how successful you can be.

Make 2012 the year when the five-year old nephew stands up to his drunken uncle-by-marriage and finally tells him what a bitter and twisted old man he really is.

Make 2012 the year of no regret.

The Preacher Man

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2011 ISSUES

Dec 21st 2011 Think Like A Winner
Dec 14th 2011 New-Age Guru Wanted
Dec 7th 2011 The Quiet Man
Nov 29th 2011 Life In The Dungeon
Nov 22nd 2011 The New Broom Must Sweep
Nov 15th 2011 The Boss is The Boss is The Boss
Nov 8th 2011 The Convention, The Candidates and The Clarets
Nov 1st 2011 Words of Wisdom
Oct 28th 2011 A Proper Start

Life In The Dungeon

Luke Dempsey, Michael McDermott and Harry Murphy: Three of the managers due to bring their
charges to London in the 2012 NFL

The fixtures master plan for the 2012 inter-county season was announced this week and no doubt, no sooner was it published, than London manager Paul Coggins was starting to plot his strategies for the season ahead.

Already he will have plans and personalities in mind for the upcoming campaign, but once the fixture list is announced, then the reality of the year ahead strikes home.

Knowing that they have the benefit of participation in the FBD League is a massive bonus to Coggins and his selectors, as they know for sure that their team will at least have the opportunity to hit the ground running once the National League proper starts.

Life in Division Four is never easy and there are always a mixture of good teams, who somehow lost their way the previous year, and other good teams, who are busy losing their way during the current year.

On top of those, there are the usual suspects of Kilkenny, Wicklow and Carlow, teams that seldom even threaten to escape the football dungeon.

Looking at this year’s candidates as they appear on the fixture list, first up is one of those aforementioned teams who lost their way last year.

Canavan influence
Given the much needed change of management, and given the nature of the person entrusted with steering this ship back to calmer waters, it is pretty safe to assume that Fermanagh will be a very different proposition on the opening day of the NFL in Ruislip than they were when they were humbled by the Exiles back in June in the Championship.

The mere presence of Peter Canavan will improve the team 20% or 30% and thereafter, how much effect he has on firstly, convincing rebel players to come back, secondly, convincing last year’s players to stay and thirdly, moulding what he has at his disposal into a team remains to be seen.

They will have benefited from getting rid of their ring rust in the McKenna Cup and it is reasonable to say that the opening game for Paul Coggins & Co will be interesting, but certainly not foreboding.

A trip to Limerick follows that, with the Treatymen providing one of the greatest enigmas in league football.

During the summer months they seem to be in a position to scare the life out of the very best of teams, and a look at their results over last summer in the Championship shows that they recorded great wins over Waterford and Offaly and also claimed the not-too-shabby scalp of Wexford, before falling to Kerry.

This does not indicate the form of a team who spends too many winter months in Division Four and you get the feeling that should they ever shed their yo-yo reputation and manage to secure Division Two football on a regular basis, then they could become a real force to be reckoned with.

It is many years since Limerick was viewed as a possible scalp for London in the league and based as much on the fact that the game is to be played in Limerick as anything else, it is hard to see anything other than a home win in this for Maurice Horan’s men.

Rainbow football
Carlow have stabilised brilliantly under Luke Dempsey and he has managed to create a tranquillity within the Carlow ranks that most thought impossible to achieve.

His decision to bring Kildare legend Anthony Rainbow on board this year as a selector shows that Dempsey has not intention of resting on his laurels and they will prove to be a resilient and competent opponent for London. However, for this one, there is always hope for London, and there is a possible win in it for them, that is if they can carry their summer form through to the league.

The key game in the league is of course the head-to-head with Championship opponents Leitrim. The league game is to be played in Carrick-on-Shannon which will give the home side an immediate advantage, but it is there that the advantage stops.

The news this week that long-time manager Mickey Moran has had to step down due to ill health, leaves the County Board in an awkward position. They have temporarily appointed the selectors as interim managers, but whether either of these men are natural born leaders would be open to question. Would these be the men to lead the troops onwards from where Moran left them?

Bananas and such-like
This is a crucial year for Leitrim, because of the banana skin of the trip to Ruislip in May, and the county board will be desperate to make sure that they do not become London’s first Connacht Championship scalp since 1977.

Getting the right man in charge is going to be of the utmost importance to them and getting it done quickly is going to be even more critical.

Failure to do this could see them drop two points to London in the league and also return from Ruislip more than a little embarrassed.

Clare’s consistency over the past few years has been impressive and you can expect more of the same from them over the next twelve months, with gradual increments of improvement taking place.

It’s always hard to see a win against Clare being on the cards, but should London dismantle Leitrim in their previous game, then they would be a good bet for a home win over the Bannermen.

This year London voyage to Kilkenny for what could be anything from a trip to hell (which it has been on several occasions) through to a decent work-out to add to whatever confidence the London players already have.

It’s a game that isn’t worth considering until we know what the Kilkenny mindset will be for the year ahead.

Harry's game
Wicklow return to Ruislip for the first time in two years, and this time without the wise old O’Dwyer at the helm. The Kerry legend stood down after a brilliant spell in charge of the Garden County and has been replaced by Harry Murphy, a man with 7 Wickow SFC to his name as well as a Leinster SFC with his club Rathnew.

This is a man who has been there and done it and no doubt he has inherited a fantastic group of players from the previous regime. However, Ruislip in April, just as the London lads are starting to get a sniff of the Championship in their nostrils, will test Murphy and his troops. By no means a probable win, but a possible two-points if the wind favours London.

And then finally there is the trip to Waterford. Always an awkward trip both logistically and from a football point of view and given Waterford’s obvious supremacy in the Championship game in the summer, they will start as favourites for this one.

How they react to being back in Division Four will be interesting, having previously spent so long in the pits of the league, they no doubt would have hoped for a longer spell out of it.

Whether they will be regarded as tips for automatic promotion again is doubtful, but at the same time, they will carry a lot more respect this season than they ever did during their previous visit to the dungeon.

All in all, it’s going to be a competitive division. There are quite a few teams who proved their value last summer in the Championship, others who are well on the road to building something more lasting and then there’s London, a team, who for the first time, will be starting a league campaign having played Championship football in July.

That alone is going to help the lads in the green and white to feel better about themselves.

The Preacher Man

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November 22nd 2011

THE NEW BROOM MUST SWEEP

Liam Dunne, Anthony Cunningham and Peter Canavan all face having to give their new
panels a major facelift.

There have been very few inter-county managers who have found themselves out of a job because they were an absolute rip-roaring success.

Indeed, even those few ultra-successful managers who do wish to step down at the very top of their game, are usually persuaded to stay on that little bit longer, to try and reproduce the glory. Inevitably they end up over-staying their welcome and the baying crowd get the kill they so desire.

The focus for the failure of any team to meet expectations is always on the manager and his deficiencies, very seldom is the spotlight on the players. Mostly it seems that players are beyond reproach, because they are amateurs and because of the sacrifice they make and because they’d run through brick walls for the jersey. It is very seldom that you will see the media doing a hatchet job on a player, it just wouldn’t be cricket. Not so the manager though.

The manager has to live and die by the decisions that he makes and he is shackled in his quest for success by the fact that he has a limited number of people of sufficient quality to choose from in order to try and achieve what he wants to achieve and / or needs to achieve.

Problem
The biggest problem any manager has when he first walks into a job in inter-county football or hurling is that there seems to be some sort of unwritten rule that he must, more or less, stick by the panel the previous incumbent used.

Now, given that we have already established that hugely successful managers seldom lose their jobs, one can only assume that the fact that there is a new man in charge, would indicate that the team weren’t overly successful the previous year.

Current thinking dictates that the only reason the team were unsuccessful was because the guy with the bib doing the jig on the sideline throughout the game just wasn’t up to it. The players were fine, just misdirected. Or at least that’s how it translates.

There have been occasions when new managers have come in with their new broom and swept half of the panel down the drain along with the water from the previous night’s ice baths. Seldom has it turned out well for them though, as the backlash from within the county has generally been severe to say the least.

Just ask Justin McCarthy about his time with Limerick hurlers. He dropped twelve from the panel, a further twelve walked off in protest and he was left sending out a team of whipping boys week in week out. Hardly the dream that JP McManus had bought into with his generous funding of Limerick GAA and a personal nightmare for McCarthy as he received abuse and ridicule from all quarters.

In that instance it appeared that the masses were saying to McCarthy: “All you have to do is carry on doing what Richie Bennis was doing, but do it better.”

McCarthy obviously felt that he couldn’t do what he felt needed to be done with the players at his disposal. The players and the majority of the county felt he could and as a result, there ended up a very nasty and regrettable period in the history of Limerick hurling.

New guys
As 2012 approaches, there are four new inter-county managers who are in a position of looking at the panel that they have inherited and having to make very, very big decisions.

Thus far three of them have made those decisions, while the fourth one is only in the job three days, so time is very much on his side.

In hurling, Anthony Cunningham in Galway, Liam Dunne in Wexford and John Allen in Limerick have all made the decision that youth is the way forward for their respective under-achieving teams.

Cunningham has already slashed his way through what, one can assume, he felt was deadwood and replaced it with young saplings from the under-21 team of last year. The severity of the cull has been so grave that there are only three survivors from Galway’s last All Ireland semi-final appearance still on the panel. Cunningham has apparently taken the view that if you’re looking at three-year plans and such-like, then you need to start with 22-year olds, not 29-year olds.

John Allen in Limerick has been similarly brutal in his approach to the old-stagers and dropped seven of last year’s panel, which along with the retirement of two more, leaves the Treaty men looking fresh-faced once more.

However, Allen has the advantage of having a Liam McCarthy success in his locker to back up his decision, so he will be given latitude by the Limerick folk, for a while at least.

Meanwhile in Wexford, Liam Dunne produced the sporting quote of the year when he described his attitude to his newly inherited squad in a recent interview with the Irish Examiner.

The All Ireland winner simply stated: “I just hope there are one or two fellas who have cop on enough to retire gracefully. That's all I'll say. One or two of them, their time is up. I didn't need anyone to tell me when I knew my time was up. I hope they are the same.”

Those standing on the edge of the cliff of inter-county hurling have been warned as Dunne sets about running the Wexford show the way he thinks it should be run.

Old wounds
And then there is the case of Peter Canavan in Fermanagh. The newly appointed rookie manager is putting his considerable reputation on the line by taking over what was probably the worst team in the Championship last year.

His dilemma is different to the other new guys though. While the rest of them have been deciding to get rid of players who they feel are past their best, Canavan is charged with trying to persuade players still in their prime to come back into the Fermanagh fold and work under him.

It’s a big ask, not because the players don’t want to play for Fermanagh under Canavan, but because there is a real depth of ill-feeling between those who remained last year to fight the good fight and in doing so had to suffer the embarrassments that the team went through, and those who decided that the John O’Neill way wasn’t for them and refused to play.

Canavan’s charisma will get the players back through the door, but it may need the cast from Casualty to attend to the glaring wounds.

One thing that Canavan will know is that there is no way he can go into his first year as an inter-county manager with the players that Fermanagh had last year. Unlike the other new bosses on the block, what he needs are the players Fermanagh had the year before and the year before that too.

THE PREACHER MAN

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November 15th 2011

The Boss is The Boss is The Boss

Donegal manager Jim McGuinness had a tough choice to
make regarding star defender Kevin Cassidy

They spent nineteen desperately quiet years up in the north-west of Ireland, minding their own business, reliving the glory day, sipping their pints and finding excuses why they weren’t yet ready to repeat the heroics of the men of ’92.

And they were pretty much left alone up there in the hills, with none of the Dublin journalists apparently that keen to negotiate the road through Leitrim and Sligo, while those that decided to go through the “wee six”, found all the stories they wanted in Armagh and Tyrone.

But then along came Jim, and since his arrival, the whole country can’t stop talking about Donegal…. granted mostly in a highly negative way, but all the same… the boys in Dublin are pre-occupied by what Jim McGuinness is doing in Donegal. And rightly so too.

Plan

You see Jim has a plan, and probably anyone who has followed his career through the years will know that he isn’t the manager of Donegal by accident.

This is a man who has studied and educated himself to be the Donegal manager, and he undoubtedly knew that when he took over, that if he was going to be successful, then he would have to do things differently.

For almost twenty years it seemed that Donegal had been patting themselves on the back for winning one All Ireland, no doubt thinking that they had the master plan, it was just a matter of deciding when they could be bothered to use it again.

Alas though for Donegal, the longer they partied and patted, the more the game was changing, and when they finally decided to knuckle down again, everything had changed, changed utterly and their master-plan was of no use anymore.

Then along came Jim with his new plan, his new approach and his new standards. By all accounts, while he was keen to keep these new standards out of the public domain, he was meticulous in sharing them with those within the group.

Most, indeed almost all, respected the importance of these standards. All bar one that is, as Kevin Cassidy went off on a solo run with journalist Declan Bogue.

The views of whether Cassidy was right or wrong to take part in the writing of a book documenting his journey as a county footballer throughout 2011 have been pretty well stacked in the favour of the player.

Amateur

Journalists have come out saying that in an amateur sport, no man should be shackled by promises that they make to a team manager. After all, these men are amateur, and sure what harm was he doing anyway?

The irony of the whole thing of course is that these journalists are the very people who during the football season, put the likes of Kevin Cassidy and Jim McGuinness under the most intense, professional, scrutiny imaginable. And it was precisely because of this level of scrutiny that McGuinness was compelled to ask in the first place for absolute secrecy from within his group.

For anyone listening to any of the analysis of Donegal’s games this year, you would be forgiven for thinking that Jim McGuinness was the devil incarnate, sent to destroy Gaelic football as we have all known it. When in fact, all he was doing was setting a puzzle for the opposite manager to try and solve.

Little wonder then, that when the chance came to really put the boot into him, the boys in Dublin couldn’t wait to get started.

But the fact is that Jim was right and anyone who has ever managed a successful team knows that Jim was right, even if they choose to play to the crowd and say differently in public.

Discipline

McGuinness needs to manage this squad of amateur players and in doing so, he needs to make sure that all the players realise that he is the boss. The only tool he has at his disposal is discipline. He can’t fine them or dock them wages… he can only deny them the right to play.

Here was big Jim’s first test and he passed it. He made a decision, albeit a hugely difficult and apparently unpopular one among the Donegal fans, but he made a decision. A player had crossed the line, that player could no longer be trusted, therefore that player had to go.

Much was made a few weeks ago about Alex Ferguson reaching the landmark of 25 years as manager of Man Utd. Ferguson didn’t achieve that by being afraid to make unpopular decisions early in his time at United.… just ask Norman Whiteside or Paul McGrath.

As mentioned before, McGuinness has prepared himself well to be Donegal manager. He has a Masters degree in Sports Psychology as well as a degree in Sports, Exercise and Leisure.

He will also know that the vast majority of those who are publicly ridiculing him, especially the media faces, are either incapable or unwilling to do the job he has undertaken, so in that respect, McGuinness holds the high ground.

McGuinness knows that it is he who has to plan the next few years of Donegal football, it is he who has to set his puzzles and solve the puzzles of others and to do that, he has to have faith in his ability and his judgements.

Just as a footballer with no self-belief is a liability to a team, so is a manager. Plain and simply, the boss has to be the boss.

THE PREACHER MAN

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November 8th 2011

The Convention, The Candidates and The Clarets

Before everyone gets too de-mob happy at the end of what was a pretty tough season for us, there is one more very important piece of business that needs to be attended to, and it is something that involves every club member, in every club, in every county.

The County Convention is appearing on the horizon and already the nomination papers have been sent out to clubs in preparation for the election of officers.

A great many Gaels, particularly players, feel that this particular area of business has got nothing to do with them, but they actually couldn’t be further from the truth.

The GAA is a fully democratic organisation and as such, anyone who is elected to any office, whether it be within a club structure, a county board or further up the ladder, has to be put there by the people… firstly through nomination and secondly, through the election process itself.

All club members have a say in both these processes and it is important to make sure that your opinions and concerns are made known in advance of nominations…. not after the election.

The committee within this club are very open-minded and receptive to suggestion and it is vital that club members make their feelings known to the committee.

Ultimately it will be the club’s committee who will decide on what nominations the club will make for the various executive positions in the county board. However, if they have been made aware of the sentiments that exist within the club and amongst the club members, then they will be able to make better informed decisions.

The key roles within the county board aren’t ceremonial. The people elected to the top table have real influence over what decision are made for London and in London over the coming year.

The Association in London is at an exciting juncture in its history, especially given the increased numbers of participants, a trend that is certain to continue.

As a result, we need to make sure that we have the best county board possible steering our course. We can not miss out on capitalising fully on the benefits that the current economic woes in Ireland are presenting to our games and our clubs here in London.

The decisions that the executive of the London board make will affect a club both financially and from a playing point of view. So it’s important that the club do everything that they can do to make sure that the people at the top table best represent the interests of the St Clarets.

If you have ever attended a County Board meeting you will see a series of different meetings take place. There is the one that takes place inside the building, the one held in open where every utterance is documented – and then there are the meetings held in the car park afterwards…… all hush-hush and all very cloak and dagger.

These outdoor meetings are where the real political work is carried out. Individuals and clubs trying (and occasionally succeeding) in getting their own agenda serviced.

The GAA is as political an organisation as there is, and people are constantly trying to influence the decisions made to suit themselves best.

It’s vital that all members of the club realise this and appreciate the fact that they too can have an influence on the political agendas of the London County Board by making sure that, if they have an opinion that they feel strongly enough about, then they make sure that the committee are aware of their opinions and have the opportunity to discuss it and then pick a course of action. After that, the club’s delegates to convention have the chance to get the club’s voice heard.

There will be many whispered conversations over the next few weeks with candidates asking people from within every club if they can be relied on to support him in the election? It’s basically canvassing, in the same way a politician will go door to door before an election.

The question the club needs to ask back is - “In return for my support, what’s in it for me?” The so-called big clubs in London will be asking that question, so should St Clarets and it’s members.

We often hear it said at times of disharmony in the country, that the people get the government they deserve. The same too can be said about Gaels in any county… they get the County Board they deserve.

Let’s use the forthcoming convention to try and make sure that St Clarets get a County Board for 2012 that they deserve.

The Preacher Man

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November 1st 2011

Words of Wisdom

Wise man: Peter McGinnity

Back in the summer of 2010, a presentation was made to key people within the London GAA, proposing a roadmap for the future of the London County Senior team.

Among the many suggestions made in the presentation, one of the key statements made concerned the people that should be involved in future London county teams. The statement simply read: “Great players don’t make great teams, but great people do.”

Some of the suggestions made in that presentation have since been put into action and the results were there for all to see last summer.

Fast forward to the dying embers of this summer and as Roslea took possession of the Senior Championship trophy in Fermanagh for the second year running, legendary Roslea manager Peter McGinnity took time to reflect on the journey that the club had taken under his stewardship.

He spoke about how when he had taken over as manager five years previously, there was only one player on the team who had ever won a senior championship match, let alone winning a county championship outright. Now at the end of 2011, they were sitting with back-to-back Championship titles.

Much credit for that record will quite rightly go to the experienced leadership of McGinnity, but the great man himself was very quick to point out that there is much more to the Roslea story than him coming in and running a few fancy drills and delivering a litany of tub-thumping speeches.

“When you surround yourself with great people, then good things happen” is how McGinnity explained Roslea’s success, echoing the opinions presented to London last year.

So how do we, the members of St Clarets, take those lessons and use them for ourselves?

This past season was far from a perfect year for us. We showed our quality and fighting spirit at the very end when we really had to, by securing our Intermediate status for 2012 last weekend, but we also showed the downside of our character by failing to make a serious push for promotion in the league.

That failure in itself is a big disappointment and something that provides an additional hurdle we need to overcome in our pursuit of Championship glory in 2012.

And looking forward to next year, the key thing that we must remember is that we have good people within our club, both on the playing side and on the administrative side. We have people within our club that others in London would welcome with open arms. We have a unique atmosphere and vibe to us that is different to any other club in London.

We need to gel these qualities together so that we can be the best we can be in 2012. Together we have to make that uniqueness pay off for ourselves, just as we have done so many times in the past.

“When you surround yourself with great people, then good things happen.” Remember those words and realise that St Clarets are already half way there. We’ve got the great people….. now we need to start to make things happen for ourselves again.

The Preacher Man

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October 28th 2011

A Proper Start

London manager Paul Coggins needs
his players on board early in 2012

The news that the London senior footballers have been granted entry to the FBD League for the coming year has to be greeted with much excitement.

Granted, it’s a fairly meaningless competition in the grander scheme of things, but it’s real value isn’t in the silverware that may or may not be won at the end of it, but more in the opportunity that it presents for better preparation in the run up to the National League campaign.

Since the inter-county calendar was re-vamped a number of years ago to allow for each province to hold it’s own annual pre-season tournaments so to speak, as well as to give important trophies like the McKenna Cup and Walsh Cup their rightful place in the season, the Exiles have been at an even greater disadvantage than they were already at come the opening day of the league.

Game-Day One

Game-day One was exactly that for the London footballers and for the management it was almost always a “suck it and see” exercise in team selection, as they threw together the players who had shown up best in January training and hoped against hope that they morphed into a competitive football team.

Hope was generally followed by despair and often it wouldn’t be until the last knockings of the league that any semblance of a competitive Division Four football team started to emerge in London colours.

The entry into the FBD League though presents a new opportunity for the team and the management. It’s the ideal opportunity to get players thinking about and preparing for the inter-county season before Christmas, so that, when the FBD League starts in January, the team is already starting to function as a cohesive unit.

Value

Results are of no consequence in this competition, but the real value of it will be seen in the first two or three games of the league, when hopefully London will be operating a few gears higher up the ratio than they generally are in February.

Of course there’s a cost and it was great to see that the delegates and County Board were prepared to acknowledge the progress that was made last year and were prepared to back Coggins and his fellow mentors with finance.

With the estimates for the overall cost of the exercise being quoted at in and around £20,000, it’s fair to say that the cost isn’t insignificant.

Going by the initial fixtures published by the Connacht Council, then the London players are going to have to make a sacrifice too with games being scheduled for them on Friday evenings. So a real commitment is going to be required from them to justify the decision to enter this competition.

Responsibility

The notion of Paul Coggins heading off with half a squad because the other half were unable or unwilling to take time off work, will not sit well at the top table and if the exercises is to prove worthwhile, then Coggins will need all his troops on board.

Two serious games over a weekend, combined with the amount of travelling involved is going to be a huge ask from any group of players, let alone a depleted one.

So, having brought some pride to the county last year with their exploits in the Championship, the county footballers are now going to be given the opportunity to build on that.

Paul Coggins has a responsibility to pick the right group of players and more importantly the right group of people to try and improve on last year and those selected have the responsibility to recognise and respect the huge commitment that the London County Board and the club delegates have made to assist them in their quest.

The Preacher Man

THE PULPIT

The Preacherman will be back with more words of wisdom from The Pulpit in 2014

September 2013

August 2013

July 2013

June 2013

May 2013

April 2013

March 2013

February 2013

January 2013

2012 issues

2011 issues

September 27th 2013

The wife of a preacherman

September 20th 2013

Any spare tickets?

September 13th 2013

Spell GAA

September 6th 2013

The price of failure

August 30th 2013

Bitterness and acceptance ‐ GAA style

August 23rd 2013

In another man's words

August 16th 2013

Standards

August 9th 2013

Don't blame the player, blame the game

August 2nd 2013

When St Clarets went to Croke Park: Part 2

July 26th 2013

When St Clarets went to Croke Park: Part 1

July 19th 2013

When the craic's not so grand

July 12th 2013

Tracking the past

The Preacher Man

July 5th 2013

Scum

The Preacher Man

June 27th 2013

The Angry Association

The Preacher Man

June 20th 2013

Murphy's Tale

The Preacher Man

June 13th 2013

Discontent at departures

The Preacher Man

June 6th 2013

Showing some respect for the club

The Preacher Man

May 30th 2013

Pride and Respect

The Preacher Man

May 23rd 2013

The Three Amigos

The Preacher Man

May 16th 2013

The art of management

The Preacher Man

May 10th 2013

David takes on Goliath

The Preacher Man

May 3rd 2013

The Daley Routine

The Preacher Man

April 25th 2013

Accidents don't happen

The Preacher Man

April 18th 2013

Derry's Dynamic Duo

The Preacher Man

April 11th 2013

Dawson' Creek

The Preacher Man

April 5th 2013

No lights, no cameras, no action