Offaly GAA chair's shock statement on football in county

SHOCK figures reveal that Offaly has the third lowest number of underage football teams in the country.

A survey of the GAA has revealed that Fermanagh and Kilkenny are the only two counties with fewer.

Offaly GAA chair Michael Duignan told the February meeting of the county board that the county had 124 underage teams (up to and including minor) in 2023.

“Fermanagh have 120 and Kilkenny who don't play football have 70,” said Mr Duignan, referring club delegates at the meeting in O'Connor Park to a chart placed on a big screen by county GAA secretary Colm Cummins (pictured below with Michael Duignan).

Mindful that Offaly won the All-Ireland Under 20 football championship in 2021 Mr Duignan remarked: “Now if anybody in this room thinks we can sustain football in this county at the level we're at... It's incredible we are where we are when you look at that.”

The figure of 124 football teams is actually a drop from 2022 when there were 135.

That placed Offaly as fourth from bottom in the country. The latest figures put other counties far ahead and he picked out some examples: Louth (410), Westmeath (252), Laois (169).

He referred to the latter two counties as “our competitors” and then remarked that even Leitrim “the smallest [GAA] county in Ireland” is “ahead of us”.

He also contrasted the situation with hurling in Offaly where the county's total of underage teams ranks it at about “half way up” the national table but crucially, the figure had gone up from 140 teams in 2022 to 150 in 2023.

Mr Duignan said that was occurring in a county where hurling was being drawn from a “much smaller population” but “thank God” it was now more “spread across the county”.

He also picked out Tipperary, and though he accepted it is a “big county”, its number of underage football teams is more than triple Offaly's, 419.

Mr Duignan said he had been considering postponing the revelation of the statistics until later in the year when Offaly GAA's new demographics officer, the former Tullamore footballer, historian Paul Rouse, would be longer established in his position.

But he was motivated to speak to clubs now because of the reaction to an appeal for Under 8 teams in the Go Games competitions.

After discussing the county's underage Go Games programme since last summer the management committee asked every club to look at the possibility of fielding an Under 8 football team “as a mimimum”.

“There's not even words to describe how disappointed I am, that not one new club in football came forward,” he said.

He focussed his ire on the “independent” teams which draw their players from different clubs, saying that 17 clubs had players fielding just five teams.

“And not one of them have put an Under 8 team into the Go Games next year,” he said.

One of the clubs put on a form for underage football that they didn't have sufficient players for an Under 8 team. “They've 44 seven and eight-year-olds in their catchment area.”

He accepted clubs in Offaly cannot be forced “to do something they don't want to do” but he would be encouraging them to look at the matter because he cannot understand why young players were not being given the chance to represent their own club.

“Why you would not want to put your club jersey and socks and togs on if you can at all. We understand the need for independent teams but they're only there to facilitate when there's not numbers to field your own team.”

He said Mr Cummins had been “lambasted” by people who claimed he wanted to “break up independent teams” and then launched a strongly worded defence of the county secretary.

“I can tell you in my lifetime I don't think I've met a more dedicated GAA man than Colm Cummins. What he has done is for Offaly GAA, everything he does, the work he puts in, the time he puts in and the way he thinks about Offaly GAA is unbelievable.”

He said “small little clubs” in south Offaly like Ballyskenagh Killavilla, Clareen, Shannonbridge, Lusmagh, Drumcullen and Kinnitty enter their own teams in Go Games when they could and would only “join with someone else” as a last resort.

The chair recommended that permission applications for Under 8 and Under 10 players should be referred to the Offaly competitions control committee (CCC) in an effort to increase the number of individual football teams.

If the 17 clubs with players playing in independent teams instead fielded their own Under 8 and Under 10 teams that would increase Offaly's overall number but even then “we'd only go ahead of Leitrim and Carlow”.

“Lads we have to take action. And it's going to take a lot of hard work,” he declared.

He urged clubs to go out and find coaches from Under 8 upwards.

“We have a responsibility to our children. How many children in this county are not playing because of the way we're structured?”

It was the ethos of the association to let children play and while “some will be good, some won't be good”, he said there could be “brilliant players there that are packing it in because they don't get matches”.

He reinforced his point by referring to the success of Cumann na mBunscol in Offaly at fielding football teams, stating that with 58 teams, Offaly was probably “the pride” of Cumann na mBunscol.

Practically every club had a national school in its area yet with 58 school teams there were only 15 Under 10 teams.

“Where are all these kids?” he asked.

The county executive's recommendation that Under 8 and Under 10 permission applications (where permission is being sought to play for an independent team) be examined by the CCC was carried without a vote.