GAA
22 July 1998

Eye on the ball

McHALE PARK TO CLOSE-MITCHELS MUST NOW TAKE STOCK

THOSE who know McHale Park well, and indeed there are those in Castlebar in particular, who have come to know and love it very much, were probably relieved at the weekend to know that the Connacht Final was held in Tuam. There was understandable disappointment in the Mitchels' club when Roscommon beat Sligo, not because we begrudge Roscommon their day in the sun, but because the Connacht Final would have been in Castlebar had Sligo qualified to meet Galway.

The amount of rain that has fallen over the weekend would certainly have created problems at McHale Park, given the drainage problems which have dogged the pitch over the years.

Now the club is to embark on tackling the huge drainage problem at the pitch. It will be closed down for about nine months. The Mitchels are to be congratulated on their efforts in maintaining McHale Park at such a high standard. When Roscommon was mooted as the main venue for Connacht Finals, Mitchels dug deep and went about doing their own work to bring the Castlebar venue up to standard. They refused to be downgraded or left behind.

Tuam also refused to accept the edict from the Connacht Council, that Hyde Park would be the premier venue in the province. Thankfully, the status quo remains, and Tuam, Castlebar and Hyde Park will get their share of finals, and that is the way it should be. It was farcical to the extreme to have Hyde Park as the venue for every Connacht Final and it was certainly grossly unfair on those living in the more westerly parts such as Belmullet and Connemara.

Mitchels have done extremely well in maintaining the high standard of their stadium, regarded by most as the best in the province, and we hope the new drainage job will solve, once and for all, the problem with surface water on the pitch . They can be proud of what they have achieved at McHale Park. But has it come at a cost to the detriment of what the club is there for-promoting football, and lets face it, winning championships. That is the ultimate yardstick by which any club is judged.

But there are deeper and more important problems to be solved off the pitch if we are to look at some of the results being achieved by a team wearing the famed shirt.

Another early championship exit is bad enough, but even though it was only a league match, last Saturday's result against Crossmolina (7-16 to 3-5), is alarming. No club that has a team competing at senior should accept such a beating.

Worrying too was the performance of the club's minor side which took a hammering against Tourmakeady. The Intermediate side also seem poised for a return to division three having done so well last year to survive demotion. Amazingly, the club has one of the best, indeed regarded as a leading example, under age structures in the country.

The club had also installed a fairly strong regime at the start of the season and a tough training programma was drawn up, and indeed adhered too by the majority of players in all grades. So what is wrong? What has happened a club that contested an All Ireland club final just four years ago to find itself, for the second successive year, watching from the wings after just the first round of the senior championship?

Much, maybe too much, was expected from the county under 21 winning side of three years ago. They have delivered very little. The club have lost some of the more mature senior players and are certainly lacking in leadership on the field, I have all the questions but I must honestly admit I do not have all the solutions. What I do know is that for a town of Castlebar's size, what is happening at the moment is unacceptable.

Castlebar Mitchels deserves more than this and those who wear the jersey, should be told, if they are not already aware, of the proud tradition that they must uphold if they are to wear the Mitchels shirt with honour and distinction. There is no honour in losing by cricket scores. The club was to have a meeting on Monday evening, and chairman Mick Byrne, said high on the agenda would be the problems of football within the club.

We will await the views of those who can do something to change things, particularly the players who, at the end of the day, are the ones entrusted with the responsibility of upholding the tradition of what used to be a great club, but a club that not only needs to close McHale Park to do repair work, but needs to have a serious look at where the damage is being done and why such poor results are coming in more regularly than they ought to be.

CONNACHT FINAL

IT MADE interesting viewing for a change. Colleague Sean Rice and I, strolled up to Tuam on Sunday to have a look at 'the others'. We decided to forsake the comfort of the press box and the gaggle of voices as RTE, national radio, local radio, T na G, R. Na G and a host of local and national papers jockeyed for the best angle, and indeed seat.

No Mr Rice and I felt a dose of humility, as we decided to hit the trenches for a change and join the spectators behind the goal at the town end of Tuam Stadium.

Now we may have got a drenching, but it is worth standing behind the goalmouth for a different view. On one occasion the umpire was the only man who failed to see that a ball had gone out for what was certainly a Rosocmmon fifty in the first half. But we are not going to start criticising umpires and referees. I gave that up a long time ago. A waste of time.

I did expect Galway to win this game. I'm not so sure they will now win the re-play. They were lucky, and it has to be said, it was a dodgy call which gave them the equalising free, and I'd swear there was a Galway hand on a ball on the ground, which should have won a free for Roscommon. Such is luck on the day. But we had gone to Tuam expecting to see the revival of Galway fortunes in the belief that they could carry the banner to Croke Park. We also saw the re-birth of Rosocmmon, and that can only augur well for next year's championship.

Make no mistake, Mayo will find it even harder than ever to win that crown back. But that's for a another day. The sooner they get a manager in place the better chance they have.

But it is back to Hyde Park on August Ist and while I still think Galway will win, try telling them that in Roscommon and you'll be given short shrift.

TOUR DE DRUGS

I'M BEGINNING to wonder, is there any professional sport drug-free? Cycling is the latest sport to be found guilty of the most dastardly deed of using drugs to enhance their performance. The masseur of the Festina Cycling team was found to have a quantity of anabolic steroids, growth hormones and masking agents He has been charged with importing drugs was very clear in his statement when arrested in France, on his way to Ireland for the start of the tour, that the drugs were for members of the Festina team. This has been rejected by Festina director, Bruno Roussell. Thankfully the tour organisers did the decent thing and expelled the Festina team. I'd have them barred for life. This wasn't a case of a cyclist putting a shot of poitín in his water, this was a flagrant abuse by taking substances that we known to be banned, and known to greatly enhance personal performances.

What chance the poor bugger who is playing it straight in today's high powered and highly financed world of sports. None. What is even more startling is the following statement given by a top Swiss doctor, Gerald Gremion of Alusanne Hospital. " I would say 99 per cent of cyclists take drugs, including those on the Tour De France and others".

"In total 400 to 500 professionals are destroying their health by taking banned substances" What promoted Gremion's remarks in a French newspaper, was his outrage at the example professional cyclists are setting for youngsters who wish to follow the sport.

Gremion said that he had to quit a Swiss team taking part in last year's Tour of Switzerland became its cyclists were systematically taking banned substances to enhance their performances. "Every cyclist in the team had a little bag with banned substances and needles. They injected the drugs themselves. One of these cyclists is in the Festina colours this year".

The argument that 'everyone is doing it so why can' t I' does not apply. I covered various aspects of cheating last week by players diving and looking for penalties. Performance enhancing drugs is probably the worst form of cheating. There is huge money involved in the Tour De France with sponsors and T.V. rights but unless the cycling authorities come down and hard at that, cycling, like many other sports is going down the wrong road.

What a legacy for our top sports men and women to leave young , people who are look up to them, but must now wonder about many top athletes if their achievements are helped by banned substances and if times, distances and other goals are achieved, which are not humanly possible without the help of a synthetic substance. How sad for us all, but especially for those athletes who are abusing their bodies for the sake of a few years of glory. I wonder how sad they will be in their twilight years, that is, if they ever see those years?.

Quiz: well done to Dympna Murray, Skerdagh, Newport who answered last week's quiz. Goldolphin is the syndicate Frankie Dettori rides for. This week's question; Who is the manager of the Limerick senior football team?

Melvine

By John Melvin

THE only smiling faces leaving Tuam on Sunday were from Leitrim. (Rosocmmon fans weren't smiling, they were probably laughing). Word in Davitt House in Castlebar is that Martin Moran is giving special tax and V.A.T. cuts all week ,as the Leitrim men celebrate their return to Croke Park with, what has been described as 'not a bad minor team'. Well done Leitrim and we wish them well.

But the man with the broadest chest in Mick Byrnes's on Sunday night was Donie Duignan who beat his way through the Galway full back line of Gerry Lane, Mick Duane, Ray Coy and Martin Greaney to check if I still had any shoe leather left, having said last week, I would walk from Tuam to Castlebar if Galway lost.

Yes Donie, I was sweating. But I can tell you that the boys from Galway must have been haemorrhaging in the last five minutes.

Meanwhile, Martin Moran was beaming from ear to ear, as he took advice from various sources on the best route to Croke Park, some pointing out that it was still in Dublin, that a new stand had now been built and that Nelson's Pillar was no longer in O'Connell Street.

But the Mohill man was soaking it all up, and like all decent Leitrim men, taking it in his stride, certain in the knowledge, that unlike the boys from Galway and Roscommon, Leitrim were at least sure of their colours being hoisted in the capital this year.

For a while in Tuam, it did look like Rosocmmon would be joining them, but I have a feeling, as Waterford learnt on Sunday, you only get one chance in the championship, and I think Roscommon had theirs'. I told Donie Duignan, just to save the shoe leather, I'm prepared to saddle up any mule he finds in Rosocmmon and make the journey back to Castlebar, if Galway don't win the Connaught championship. Gda Donie, who has just gone to Donegal on promotion, will no doubt come up with a suitable animal, and I could yet be saddle sore if Roscommon win.

OUR esteemed President of the N.U.J. Mark Turnbull, was on a flying visit to the west of Ireland at the weekend. Mark was combining business with pleasure, and I can assure you, he combined them exquisitely. He attended the branch meeting of our union in Tuam and appeared in the company of our venerable vice-President, Christy Loftus, on Friday morning to take part in our annual Deep Sea Angling competition, which was to be fished out of Newport.

Now picture if you will the President, Vice-President, and branch chairman, sitting in Joe Reid's comfortable surroundings, wondering what fate had in store for us, as we contemplated the terrifying thought of taking to the high seas in such dreadful conditions.

And can you imagine the relief, no, the joy, we experienced when competition organiser, Tom Gillespie, announced to the gathering that due to the dangerous conditions prevailing, the good boatman of Newport thought it wiser not to journey on the water today. Fishing cancelled. Down to the more serious business of trying to establish for the umpteenth time why the good Lord had put us on this planet in the first place, by what margin would Galway beat Rosocmmon on Sunday, and how long would it take the Vine to walk from Tuam to Castlebar if Galway lose.

And it was during that more serious business , as Joe Reid heard our confessions, that the President informed me, he had worked as a darts correspondent for the Mirror newspaper for several years. I was not slow to point out that he was in the company of none other than Telegraph darts scribe, alias 'The Bull', and if he would care to put his reputation on the line the challenge would be taken up.

Well 'The Bull, and Mark Turnbull stepped up to the ockey in Joe Reid's and sadly, in the best of three games, the Vine bit the dust 2/0. So what, you might say. As Tom 'whose round is it anway' Power will tell you, not alone can the Vine not write about the sport, but he can't play it either.

Well, the big difference in this game is that our President is blind. Yes, and to quote himself afterwards " Mr Chairman, you'll never live this one down. Beaten by a blind President'.

Perhaps not. But a good friend of mine put it very eloquently when I told him the story. I said I didn't want to write about being beaten by a blind man, for fear of offending the President.

"The best thing for your to write, is not that you were beaten by a blind man, but by a man with better vision than you".

And I think that probably sums up Mark Turnbull. He probably has better vision than many of us. He handles his disability, which was from birth, with such good humour and he radiates this great sense of life and vitality with the first words he generally speaks when he greets you. "Pleased to see you brother".

I'm not going to try and patronise our President by writing about how wonderful it was for him to start as a local reporter, go onto Fleet Street end up doing his own Radio Show for the BBC to becoming the Presidents of a Union with a membership of over 30,000.

As Mick O'Malley might say,'he's some man for one man' and he's coming back for our postponed Deep Sea Angling Competition in September and a re-match on the board with 'The Bull'. I hope my vision will have improved by then.

Connaught Telegraph - News & Sport - July 1998