Time for action on the plan
IT is almost two months since the Mayo GAA Draft Strategic (five-year) Action Plan was launched at McHale Park, and reaction to it would suggest than some members of the County Board simply wished the whole thing would go away.
Spring will soon be out and action to implement any of the key recommendations of the plan is as far away as ever. Instead one gets the impression from published comments that stiff resistance to it at official level is growing.
The latest discussion centred around the appointments of a full-time Director of Football Coaching, and a Commercial Director to take advantage of the goodwill for the county’s footballers that beats in every Mayo heart in whatever corner of the world he or she resides.
It ended with clubs being asked once more to discuss the matter among their members and to submit their recommendations to the County Board inside a month… again.
You can’t get away from the feeling that this is anything other than a delaying tactic… in the hope that clubs will lose interest, and eventually surrender to the collective wish of those who want nothing to do with the plan.
I suppose it is natural that The Mayo News would be singled out for its ‘over-the-top’ support of a radical plan conceived to restore the faded glory of another age. Change is never easy. When you realise, however, that for the second year in succession our U-21 team has been dismissed from the championship by Roscommon, who themselves lost their Connacht title recently to Galway by nine points, what other route is open?
More was expected from the under 21 team that three years ago came closest in over two decades to winning an All-Ireland minor title. But no-one is entirely surprised either because that loss is symptomatic of the twilight zone in which Mayo football has been trapped for what to many is an eternity. The old ways have failed us.
Year after year we have plodded on, hoping always that the next year will be different, leaving it to our team managers to try to change the trend. But instead of placing the responsibility on managers to transform Mayo football, the county board should itself be shaping the process.
A bid to change that demoralising trend has been the fundamental motive for the five-year plan. Someone woke up to the need for action, or to the corrosive effects of inertia, when Liam Horan was asked to have the strategic plan drawn up.
Horan put together a team of sensible people whose interest in Mayo football is deep-rooted and indisputable. For many months they poured over the ills of the county and from their collective skills and wisdom emerged a coherent plan of action, shaping a new direction for Mayo football from which thousands of young people would benefit long after all of us are gone.
To be sure it is challenging.
According to reports, the county board accepts 70 per cent of the strategic plan which they hope to solder into their own production and forward to headquarters as their blueprint for a prosperous Mayo GAA future.
But that plan, drawn up two years ago, is largely one that aspires to progress rather than to influencing it. No practical proposals for hauling Mayo back to the summit of football in Ireland are revealed. There is no sense of urgency to raise All-Ireland competitive standards to those of Kerry or Tyrone or Armagh or Cork… or even Dublin.
The GAA’s values, it says “are the heart and soul of our Association. In every club around the world they are what binds us, what makes us unique and what attracts more and more players, members, volunteers and supporters.
“Coiste Cumann Luthchleas Gael Chontae Mhaigh Eo is a volunteer organisation. We develop and promote Gaelic games at the core of Irish identity and culture. We are dedicated to ensuring that our family of games, and the values we live, enrich the lives of our members, families and the communities we serve.
“We are committed to active lifelong participation for all and to providing the best facilities. We reach out to and include all members of our society. We promote individual development and well-being and strive to enable all our members achieve their full potential in their chosen roles.”
“Our vision is that everybody has the opportunity to be welcomed to take part in our games and culture, to participate fully, to grow and develop and to be inspired to keep a lifelong engagement with our Association.
“We will implement the GAA players’ and games pathway from child to adult. It will promote full participation and encourage players to take part in our games in the long term. We also plan to develop social games for people who have retired from competitive football.”
There is a lot of talk about coaching and education and volunteerism and fixture plans.
It’s a plan strong in aspirations, as I say, but one that is not exclusive to Mayo. It fails for instance to fill the lacuna that has developed in Mayo after players leave the minor ranks, the evidence of which was so glaringly obvious in the defeat of the Mayo under 21s a couple of weeks ago.
If the 70 percent of the plan with which the county board wishes to vulcanise their own production contains the seven key recommendations it could be implemented without delay.
Unfortunately, the key recommendations provoke most of the misgivings… especially the proposed appointment of a commercial director. And these are at the heart of the plan. Without their inclusion there is no real plan. They are the common thread that laces the blueprint.
All sorts of obstacles are being stacked against the proposals, including the accusation that they are a breach of the association’s amateur ethos.
Way back in the late forties when Castlebar Mitchels were renovating McHale Park and money was scarcer than it is now Club officers came up with a sweeps scheme that attracted subscriptions from Castlebar and Mayo people all over the world and which contributed largely to the redevelopment.
It’s a different world now, but the ‘Mayo Brand’ can be sold with similar enthusiasm. There are untapped Mayo sources all over the world waiting to assist. It can be done.
It is six years now since a plan to cater for the development of teenage players in this county was launched in Claremorris, having had the considerable input of a group of similarly concerned Mayo people.
It was launched in the glare of publicity. But it never saw the light of day, pigeon-holed for one excuse or another, principally, it is said, for lack of finance. But surely for lack of resolve also.
Must this be the way of the present plan? Has the mature input of its creators been for nothing? If so, our present journey will continue inexorably on the road… to nowhere.
