What I think of, when I think about west Belfast and the GAA
Declan Bogue
FOR THOSE THAT have never been there, west Belfast can be an assault on the senses.
Every few dozen steps, there is another mural to marvel at. Or a GAA club, a pub, a chippy, a boxer out on his daily run, another cemetery, a monument.
It is the world’s biggest village, the world’s smallest city. Everyone knows each other.
They love their local heroes. As you round off the road from The Falls and onto the Whiterock Road towards Corrigan Park, you pass a gable that pays tribute to Paddy ‘Patricio’ O’Connell.
Born in 11 Jones Terrace – now the entrance to Hill 16 in Croke Park – he is remembered in these parts for a few things: the first four years of his soccer career was spent with Belfast Celtic. He was the first Irishman to play for and captain Manchester United. He managed Real Betis to their first La Liga and later was the gaffer at Barcelona.
Despite all that, he died destitute and was buried in an unmarked grave in Kensal Rise, London. It is one of the most west Belfast tales you’d ever hear, even though he was a Dub.
Up on the next gable is The Apache himself, Anto Cacace, the southpaw super-featherweight, rendered into a Godfather-like image.
By now, you’re just onto the Whiterock Road. You’ll have to pass Cardinal O’Donnell’s club first though, a few hundred yards separating both GAA units. Less than two miles in various directions you’ll also be at the homes of St Gall’s, St Theresa’s and Gort na Mona.
It is, quite possibly the most concentrated GAA support in Ireland.
And it’s from these people that Casement Park was handed over, from Antrim, to the Ulster Council to redevelop their flagship stadium, from which they bought some land off a local farmer by the stupendous name of Hoppy Dobbins.
The Ulster Council have proceeded to make, well, a complete balls of it.
They aren’t the only ones, of course. There’s been a septic boil of sectarianism that has never been lanced around this issue. But somehow you just don’t see the Ulster Council as being part of the solution either.
But when Antrim were drawn out of the hat first for their Ulster championship match against Armagh, the Ulster Council tried to fix the game for Pairc Esler in Newry. Which, by way of geographical quirk, might actually be the county ground of Down, but a significant portion of the arena is in Armagh.
It’s like stealing the eye out of your head. And returning later with some salt to plug the gaping wound.
Throughout all of this, it has to be said the response from Armagh was impeccable. They could see the situation for what it was.
“I don’t think as you get into the championship, it makes that much of a difference where you play the thing,” said manager Kieran McGeeney afterwards.
“But do you know, it meant a lot to Antrum, it meant a lot to Belfast, so we definitely had no issues with it.”
Antrim manager Andy McEntee felt the same.
“I think we were justified in making the stance we did. I think the occasion here today probably stands up that we did the right thing. This game was off the back of disappointment in the league,” he said.
Relatively speaking, Antrim football is in the same ghetto reserved for Cork football; they veer somewhere between second fiddle and fifth triangle to their county hurling counterparts. The support here was drowned out by the sea of orange.
But those in Saffron made their voices heard.
Antrim gave them a damn good game of it. They threw their punches from the hips and followed through. Most pleasingly, they showed there is still room for physicality in this latest souped-up version of Gaelic football.
Some of the challenges bordered on the reckless. Referee Barry Cassidy could do nothing right in the eyes of both sets of supporters. Fouls were missed and some imagined. That’s been the story of Gaelic football since Cusack and his homies codified the game all those years ago.
Ultimately, Gaelic football is a numbers game. Pundits and reporters are now building careers out of it. The art of the yarn is going the same way as the team that trained their swingers off and caught a set of champions cold.
Although Jim Gavin and his crew couldn’t get many counties to cough up their own data to monitor the levels of exertion in football this year, there have been enough coaches and strength and condition experts that have criss-crossed county boundaries that there’s not a single county that cannot be unaware of the numbers you need to hit in the gym, on the track, across the turf.
The chances of catching a team with superior fitness has now completely vanished.
When you tot up the figures, Armagh were handsome winners.
39 shots to 34. 30 scores to 18. Four wides to Nine. Four times they went shot, had a shot blocked, hit the post or saved, to seven.
Armagh had 51 possession, Antrim 42. 44 attacks to 35. 12 scores from their own kickout to Antrim’s eight. Seven scores mined from Antrim’s kickout while only coughing up two. They turned the ball over 10 times to Antrim’s eight.
These are the metrics. That’s the definable qualities that are winning Gaelic football matches now.
There’s still room for the human side, though.
The day started with a gathering – organised by south Antrim GAA – of several thousand supporters to the derelict Casement Park to call for its redevelopment.
Soon after, as the crowd made its way up Donegall Road, a sombre sight was unfolding. The wake home of Fionnuala Walsh was already thronged with mourners ahead of her funeral mass.
The Walsh family are steeped in GAA. Fionnuala’s brother Gerard is a mainstay of the Antrim hurlers. When the Armagh team bus came up that way, it paused and Kieran McGeeney made his way inside to pay their condolences for yet another young life brimming with promise to end in this way.
Another sad statistic for west Belfast.
Under-funded. Under-appreciated. Misunderstood.
Forever.
The 42
