PAUL Finlay has called on the GAA not to leave clubs in the awkward position of having to turn their own members away from big games.
Sunday ought to be one of the proudest days in his club Ballybay’s history as they played a home championship game for the first time, but having just 55 tickets to distribute among supporters meant there were inevitable difficulties.
The Pearses club ran a raffle among members for their tickets, while their opponents Clontibret gave theirs to the players and allowed them to distribute as they saw fit.
There were just 110 supporters in total at the game, making for a muted atmosphere for what a game that would ordinarily generate massive interest locally.
Teams in Monaghan were limited to 200 people inside the ground as per Irish government regulations, but across the border in the north, the limit is now 400 and expected to rise.
The NI executive has given sporting bodies the licence to do a risk assessment on grounds and possibly increase that number.
Former Monaghan star Finlay, who says his early departure after feeling a hamstring strain that had been hampering him in the lead-up was nothing too serious, believes the whole situation has left clubs in a very tricky position within their communities.
“There’s a bit of an emptiness feeling. Personally I’d be a little bit disappointed with the position the GAA left the clubs in going into this weekend.
“Any of the things I heard of the chairman and the committee trying to organise things during the week, and how were they going to ask people at the gate not to come in, it just left the clubs in a horrible situation with their members and all the people that would want to come and watch Gaelic football.
“I thought the GAA could have dealt with it better in terms of helping the clubs out. It either needed to be nobody in, or they allowed more people in or something fairer for the members.
“So a little bit disappointed with the way it turned out.
“It was a little bit empty but the club dealt with it really well, you could see everyone was well dispersed around the ground, a decent day for the game and everyone went away happy enough to see a game of football.”
A limit of 200 people in a spacious ground such as Pearse Park seemed illogical, given the surroundings could comfortably have held up to 1,000 people without any concerns over social distancing.
“At your cush,” Finlay agreed, “and that’s the disappointing thing.
“I appreciate the difficulty that the GAA, and the country, are having. It’s a really difficult situation, unknown territory.
“But leaving it all on the clubs and just allowed 200 people in today, it was just lousy and difficult to manage. I’d like to see it being done better going forward – help the clubs out and don’t put them in that situation again.”
At 37, Finlay still carries himself like a man a decade younger. There’s not a pick of lockdown timber on him.
One of the best playmakers in the country at his peak, he says he spent the break scouting around for “whatever bit of a session’s going for that bit of a sweat”.
And while it made him consider things differently, the outcome he’s arrived at is how fortunate he is to have the GAA and to still be able to play.
“Of course you have thoughts about [retiring]. You finish up in 2019 and you’re wondering, and you let the winter go through and see how you’re feeling about another go at it. I was happy enough.
“I’d a good year last year and that helped. We’ve a great squad at the moment and the eagerness was there to give it another go, and here I am. It’s a different format but we’re all happy to get back playing.
“It’s been a weird time. None of us have gone through anything like this before. It makes you sit back and take stock of life, and what we’re lucky enough to be able to do.
“Football is a great thing to be involved with. Sometimes you think it’s not that important, but in times like we’re after going through, you realise just how important it is.
“How important it is to be in with a group of lads, to socialise and realise what the club means. Everybody’s feeling a little bit of that, patriotic, wanting to row in and get stuck in with the lads and keep the club going.
“There’s some great work going on here in Ballybay with the club and it’s great to be part of it.”
