Well thatâs an exagerration anyway; maybe for families August is a busy holiday month with those who have kids in school but as far as I can see most club players head off on holidays in the months of May and June nowadays while serious intercounty players head for warmer climes in the winter time.
Just because Waterford GAA canât get their affairs in order regarding games, participation or committment from players doesnât mean the same is applicable to the rest of the country. I donât think they are a valid stick to beat the split season with
This is a remarkably insular, parochial and xenophobic attitude. Itâs an attitude that says the GAA should not want not new people to be interested and/or to become involved.
I presume the same people who are now claiming to be âplayer focussedâ with also be so when inter-county players demand to be paid, thus ending the GAAâs amateur status once and for all.
Another thing thatâs utterly contradictory is the people who say âthe club is what mattersâ are the very people who refuse to ever countenance the idea of challenging the power of the inter-county manager.
They say itâs unrealistic to expect players to play club matches in between inter-county matches.
Why? Other sports manage it just fine.
So far from looking for the interests of their clubs, theyâre actually selling their own clubs down the river by accepting that inter-county manager should have exclusive rights over their players for seven months.
Donât be pretending you give a fuck Sid. You are upset by the split season because it upsets the rhythm of your sport spectating year. You are an armchair supporter
, albeit a very knowledgeable one with tremendous recall.
I am an armchair supporter. And a match going supporter. As are most here. What is wrong with that?
Why are you and all the other split season zealots so intent on driving such people away from the GAA?
Do rugby people look at the pathetic attendance for their URC game last weekend and say âthatâs what we want, a crowd made up only of the real hardcore, the EVENT JUNKIES have been banished, excellentâŚâ
I doubt they do.
The bizarre thing about the split season zealots like you is how you donât realise how much of your argument is a xenophobic, culture war, essentially âwe donât want people who arenât exactly like us to have anything to do with the GAAâ argument.
Itâs essentially a racist argument.
Make no effort at outreach. Make no effort to diversify. Itâs become a purity test, a test of how much of a GAEL you are.
Does this not make you happy? Like, you give the impression here that you might watch a gaa match on the tv if there is no cricket on. Why should the gaa care what a lukewarm armchair observer thinks? No offence intended here. Youâre a top poster.
None of that is true. Iâd like every match to be a sell out and if there was a way to let play all ireland finals in September that didnât negatively impact clubs Iâd be all for it. But history has shown us thats not possible. I would be in favour of buying an extra 2 weeks for intercounty by moving club finals to early February
But it is true. One of the things that has been utterly obvious since the start of this debate is how much the pro-split season âargumentâ is utterly sneering and condescending towards people it doesnât regard as âpureâ enough. Itâs utterly sneering and consdescending towards anybody who disgarees with the new official ideology.
You could be somebody who has attended 30 matches a year for 50 years, who played for years when they were younger, and that person still wouldnât be âpureâ enough to have an opinion as far as the split season zealots are concerned.
Hell, you can win eight All-Ireland medals and now the split season headbangers are questioning your purity. Such a person is now part of âmedia conspiracyâ. Yes, a conspiracy. Remind you of the rhetoric of anybody?
If such people are now being targeted for lack of âpurityâ, how then are people who come from non-traditional backgrounds especially immigrant backgrounds going to view the GAA in terms of attending matches or becoming involved with clubs?
Itâs all very Pol Pot.
Dublin hasnât had a prominent player from an ethnic minority background in football or hurling since Jason Sherlock. Meanwhile, the Irish soccer team is being continually boosted by young players from an ethnic minority background, Irish athletics the same, even rugby has made better inroads with ethnic minorities.
The split season âletâs reduce the visibility of our gamesâ ideology isnât going to help that one bit.
English cricket and golf and boxing and rugby union and rugby league thought there were no downsides to reducing the visibility of their sports. They were all wrong.
Cork hurlers going well is a disaster for the anti club brigade. Huge crowds at every match with huge hype. Followed by a vibrant club hurling championship with excellent crowds.
How is removing the GAA from the public conversation in its two most traditional months, the months when it has the clearest run when other sports are in a lull, an increase in visibility?
The only non-GAA sporting event of consequence that ever takes place in August or September and that poses any sort of serious counter attraction to the GAA is the Olympics.
Even people who follow the Premier League donât follow it in August and September, well maybe they do since 2022.
Next year the hurling final will be on the same day as the World Cup final. Yeah, clever that. Increasing visibility and public consciousness for your biggest event by going head to head with the worldâs biggest single sporting event.
I really donât know why anybody would argue that August and September pose bigger counter attractions than June and July when its so obviously a terminally stupid argument to make. Itâs like arguing that gravity doesnât exist and that if you drop that mug in your hands that it wonât fall to the ground.
Iâm not sure why you think nobody has any interest in the Premier League in August and September.
I would say this time and up to Christmas is the most popular time for the Premier League before one team runs away with it and everybody is tired of it. I guarantee there was more interest in the Premier League in September than in April this year.
World Cup years are the only issue I see but thatâs the issue with a summer sport, youâre going to be up against it regardless.
Youâre seeing a lot of things in this that are just not there and Iâm not going to be able to convince you otherwise. The split season was not introduced to ostracise anybody.
It was brought in to benefit the massive numbers of club players and coaches who were training all year not knowing when their games would be on and then at a weeks notice they would be asked to play 3 games in 8 days.
The split season suits the majority of club members. Simple at that. It certainly wasnât brought in just to annoy lads like you though it obviously has been quite successfully on that score.
The Premier League is a winter and spring competition. Any interest people in Ireland pay to it between the start of the season and the clocks going forward at the end of October is extremely grudging.
The Premier League in August, September and October is an oppressor, an agent of winter, of decline, of morbidity. Itâs utterly missable. You want to not watch it and when you do watch it makes you feel oppressed and self-loathing.
Weâve even seen this dynamic play out in England after Ashes series wins and the Olympics, things which are glorious symbols of summer. Then the English public find out the Premier League is back in six days. And they groan and want it to fuck off and not come back for a while.
The GAA in August and September has always been an agent of summer, of sunshine, of ice creams, of gorgeous girls from Tipperary and Donegal, of pints, of happy things. Itâs a raging against the dying of the light. It has always been the one thing that made going back to school at least some way tolerable.
Youse lot want to kill the light.
World Cups and Euros which are every second year. The Olympics cuts into July and the end of the current championships under this timetable. The British Lions tour will take up a huge amount of attention this July. Not to mention the other annual counter attractions, the end of the Premier League and the football season, the end of the rugby season, Wimbledon, the British Open golf.
But as we know, less media attention is what the zealots want, this is a feature not a bug in the downsizing masterplan because it will drive away those not sufficiently pure.
Sounds great. A full croke park followed by loads of pints in The Hideout watching the Wuddled Cup Final. Come along and you will be composing misty eyed, nostalgic and very entertaining posts about it in 2045.
I can see you kissing a Cork Milf in a Barrys Tea jersey outside the The Spar on the NCR at 11pm and it hasnât even happened yet.
Whatâs great about it? The hurling final will suffer immensely in terms of public interest for its presence on the same day.
Itâs fucking daft.
The last two World Cup final days we had direct GAA clashes. A few dogs turned up to Kerry v Galway 2018. Limerick v Kilkenny looked like a league match.
Ballyhale v Ballygunner in 2022 was like the proverbial tree falling in the forest.