Sport

Still pining for club finals at Croke on St Patrick's Day

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Galway's Corofin against Dr Croke's of Kerry in the last All-Ireland Club SFC Final on St Patrick's Day, in 2019. Picture Seamus Loughran
Galway's Corofin against Dr Croke's of Kerry in the last All-Ireland Club SFC Final on St Patrick's Day, in 2019. Picture Seamus Loughran Galway's Corofin against Dr Croke's of Kerry in the last All-Ireland Club SFC Final on St Patrick's Day, in 2019. Picture Seamus Loughran

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone…

The authorities haven't paved paradise and put up a parking lot but it feels as if they may as well have done that. Not that enough people would be allowed to drive any distance to fill such a large space.

Just as it feels as if we've had a whole year without sport, rather than it just being a year since coronavirus called a halt to games on this island for the first time.

Just as if it feels that today should have been 'club finals day' at Croke Park. It is St Patrick's Day after all.

Except that, although it seems several lifetimes ago, last year they had already been shifted from their traditional date – a 'tradition' which goes all the way back to the late Eighties. Yep, the 1980s, not the 1880s.

OK, that's not strictly true. The 1974 Hurling final was on March 17, as was the 1979 Football decider, but it was only in the late Eighties that the games firmly took up residence on St Patrick's Day.

Indeed before settling even on the month of March for the culmination of the club competitions, there'd been finals in May and June, even November and December.

Again, hurling got there first, with its 1985 Final on St Patrick's Day, but then there was a gap of two years (presumably because March 17 1986 was a Monday), until March 17 became the fixed date for both club finals from 1987 onwards.

Of course, that involved some controversy in itself, taking over that date from the inter-provincial finals, the 'Railway Cup' – which then went on to die a slow death over the next quarter-century or so as it was shifted around the calendar. Cancelled, then canned forever.

The club finals are unlikely to suffer the same fate, although you never know the consequences of change. Still, unusual as it was to have last year's finals played in January, almost 26,000 spectators attended the clashes of Corofin v Kilcoo and Ballyhale v Borris-Ileigh. Then again those matches did involve the two reigning champs and the fanatical backing of the Magpies from Down as first-time Ulster representatives.

When we do get the All-Ireland club championships back again, the plan is for them to be played late in the year (which was the idea even before a split season went from radical lunacy to a universally accepted panacea).

At present, we'd take games whenever, wherever.

Yet even though the club finals on St Patrick's Day weren't a particularly long-lasting tradition in the greater GAA scheme of things, it just felt right.

While St Patrick's Day means 'drinking' for many, for me it became about driving.

Driving down to Dublin for the club finals, no matter who was in them.

It was work, but it was also pleasure, this reporter always willing and able to go to those particular games.

The same went for tens of thousands of supporters, many of them neutrals, who loved to witness the club double-header at headquarters.

The beauty of having the club finals on St Patrick's Day was that there a chance for all parts of Ireland to be represented there. Even hurlers from Ulster. Truly national competitions on the national day.

The myths and legends of little teams getting all the way to Croke Park obviously influenced the following exchange involving an over-enthusiastic reporter (not this one, honest) and Brian Cody at a pre-finals press event.

Noting that Cody's club James Stephens are nicknamed 'The Village', the tyro hack asked the great man what it would mean for such a tiny place to triumph at headquarters.

'Well, I wouldn't exactly call Kilkenny city a little village…', Cody drily replied.

Future St Patrick's Day matches at Croke Park are likely only to involve a limited number of 'top' counties, perhaps those good enough to share a division with Dublin's footballers or hurlers.

Apparently the plan last year was for U20 football matches to take the date, perhaps the semi-finals in a double-header, maybe the final itself.

Next year there might be National League matches at Croke on St Patrick's Day. Fingers crossed.

Of course, it wasn't Covid-19 that killed off the 'Paddy's Day' club finals but a variety of factors, culminating in efforts to complete the club championships within the calendar year.

The hope still remained among many that the games could somehow go back to that March 17 slot, despite the moans about the long gaps between provincial finals and the All-Ireland element. Despite only a handful counties having to do without a handful of players for a few weeks.

However, although the split season is probably for the best, having the inter-county action in the first half of the year makes almost certain that club finals won't happen on St Patrick's Day.

Obviously having any games at any time is better than nothing. Equally, those first All-Ireland club finals in 1971 took place in November (football) and December (hurling) respectively, so arguably the competitions will be going back to their roots.

Yet while accepting that change isn't always bad, that sometimes it has to come, we can still lament that St Patrick's Day without club finals just won't be as good, even when something else is able to take their place.