Fiona McHale hits out at lack of intercounty double headers

MAYO veteran Fiona McHale has said ‘an ideal opportunity’ to promote ladies football was missed by not playing their game against Kerry as a double header on Saturday.

McHale described the crowd which attended their draw over Kerry in Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney as ‘disappointing’ considering the men’s team were playing in Tralee later that evening.

The Carnacon player said that both games should have been played in the one venue to attract more people to see the women’s game.

Double headers of men’s and women’s intercounty teams have been played on occasions in past seasons.

“I’m just being honest about it, the crowd that we got considering the men are playing tonight,” McHale told The Mayo Football Podcast.

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“It’s obviously not ideal for fans considering Tralee is obviously closer to Mayo than Killarney, they’d have to go south and then back and the times weren’t great. As players we’d really be hoping for double headers.

“I was just chatting to some of the Kerry people after, from their point of view it was because Tralee was the only one that has light and there’s only two dressing rooms.

“We played Dublin two weeks ago and the Mayo men played them. I was at the game, actually. The Mayo men played Dublin on Saturday evening and we played the following day in Ballina. The difference in the atmosphere. Like the atmosphere in MacHale Park that night was unbelievable for the men’s game and you’d just be kind of envious of the kind of atmosphere that they create.”

McHale claimed that there had been a ‘breakdown’ which meant that double headers between men’s and women’s intercounty teams weren’t being facilitated.

The Mayo Ladies recent league clashes with Kerry, Dublin and Galway were all played on the same weekend as the Mayo men were facing the same opposition. The Mayo teams were both home or away against their respective opposition on each weekend.

“They are all matching up, so somebody nationally is facilitating these by having them on the same weekend, but then there’s someone stopping them from actually happening,” McHale said.

“They are our only three opportunities and getting more people to games. You’re only going to create a fan base by getting people there and they have to see the games to actually follow the team, if that makes sense. From our point of view, it is disappointing.

“We don’t mind, we’ll play with nobody watching us. We don’t care, but if you want to grow the game and promote it, you have to start trying to come up with ways, some sort of strategy to get people to games, because this was an ideal opportunity, and it didn’t happen and it’s really disappointing.”