Football

The small, committed group of people who changed the GAA world

The West Wing's fictional president Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen. He talked about how a small group of people could change the world - which is what the Club Players' Association has done in the GAA.
The West Wing's fictional president Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen. He talked about how a small group of people could change the world - which is what the Club Players' Association has done in the GAA. The West Wing's fictional president Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen. He talked about how a small group of people could change the world - which is what the Club Players' Association has done in the GAA.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed people can change the world. Do you know why?”


“Because it's the only thing that ever has.”

THERE’S something about watching The West Wing for the third time that feels like a bit of a waste of a lockdown.

How many opportunities are we going to get in life where there is literally nothing else to do but watch TV, and therefore not having to feel guilty about it?

Yet here we are, on season five, where President Bartlet’s daughter Zoey has just been kidnapped.

Each episode is 45 minutes.

There are 23 episodes in one season.

There are seven seasons.

Anyone who has ever watched it will tell you it’s not a show you will regret devoting your time to, even if the time amounts to a third of your adult life.

Just last week, we came upon the episode in which the above conversation was had between President Bartlet and his new deputy communications director, Will Bailey.

They are paraphrasing the words of American anthropologist Margaret Mead.

When I heard it, instantly I thought of the Club Players’ Association.

In July 2017, a small group of people held a press conference at the National Sports Campus in Abbottstown.

Michéal Briody and Anthony Moyles stood just inside the main doors, at the foot of a set of steps that let to the conference centre.

Moyles was a former Meath star and a visible presence in the early days. His inter-county experience, like that of Wexford legend Liam Griffin, offered some weight to the new body.

Briody hails from Oldcastle, a small town in the north-west corner of Meath. He runs his own business.

His club is St Brigid’s and even after almost 30 years of playing service, he still hasn’t put a nail through the boots yet.

The idea of one last run appeals to him the way it does to every club player in Ireland.

Outside the Sports Campus that day, Aaron Kernan was posing for pictures. Liam Griffin was milling around, as was Joan Kehoe.

Chrissy McKaigue, whose prominence in Slaughtneil’s remarkable success was held up as a parable for the possibilities of playing dual-code, sat up in the gallery.

Over the three-and-a-half years that would follow, a few of the names and faces would change, but their direction remained unwavering.

Last week, they announced that they were winding down.

Mission accomplished. No need for them to exist any longer.

Did the Club Players’ Association change the face of the GAA?

Not on their own. To credit them solely with the change of direction in relation to fixtures would not be to tell the whole truth.

But there’s absolutely no question that without this small group of thoughtful and committed people, the change we are stepping into now would not have happened.

Take the Fixtures Task Force. When it was formed, the fear was that, like the GPA, this was a means of bringing the CPA inside the tent and quietening any public dissent.

Briody had been publically critical of the GAA’s leadership on more than one occasion.

President John Horan had practically goaded them at times. The CPA had bitten back with statements that were at times incendiary in their language.

The Task Force was what it threatened to be. Months of meetings and more meetings, discussions about this, that and the other.

And in the end, the one thing the CPA really desired as a path to meaningful change was left on the cutting room floor.

Five proposals were borne out of that body, but the only one of the CPA’s original ideas that didn’t make it out was the push for a split season.

Feeling that it was all a move to simply retain the status quo, the Club Players’ Association publically left the task force in the days before the report was published.

Now, here we are, with Congress having last weekend done what was once unthinkable and passed the split season without dissent.

Allied to the vote to have the All-Ireland finals no later than the 29th Sunday of the year, aka mid-July, and we have seen the most seismic and significant shift in the fixture calendar in the GAA’s history.

It was a move that was so badly needed.

Ignore mid-July. There will only be two counties left in each code by then. Realistically, depending on which championship format is agreed, you’re looking at an early-to-mid June finish for the vast majority of inter-county teams.

Club leagues in most counties begin in late March or early April. Counties will need to structure their leagues to allow for the total absence of county players for the first six-to-eight weeks.

If they cannot overcome that barrier then it will be because of intransigence.

The club game has badly needed this, but so too inter-county players. They will no longer be pulled from pillar to post, dipping in and out of club and county, feeling beholden to one and guilty about the other.

The inter-county game needs to exist, it needs space and it needs its big games in a bit of decent weather.

Some may feel that it is losing but it is not.

A regular NFL season lasts just 18 weeks. Kids don’t stop dreaming of it because it disappears from view for seven months of the year. If anything, it heightens the anticipation of what is comparable to a festival of football.

Continuing to string the inter-county game out over nine months of the year was unforgivable and unnecessary.

Whether it begins in January or February from now on is still up for debate, but it will end in July.

Clubs can bash away at league or pre-season competitions and then have a proper full run at it with their whole hand. More exposure for club players to playing with and against the best in the land should, in theory, improve the sport on the whole.

But most importantly, it allows certainty for everyone. Allied to penalty shootouts that end the need for replays, we’re almost at the point where players can be given fixtures in January and know that the games will be played when they’re supposed to be.

All it took was a small group of thoughtful and committed people to change the GAA world.