Community Games spirit lives on

THE MAYO DELEGATION?Pictured at the HSE National Community Games AGM and presentation of media awards in Letterkenny were, back row, left to right: Mary McGreal (Westport), Bernie Finan (Ardagh), Catherine Burke (Breaffy), Peggy Connolly (National Community Games PRO), Antoinette Meehan (Westport), Michael Brophy (Mayo Community Games PRO), Kathleen Conroy (Cong), Gerry McGuinness (Mayo Community Games Secretary and member National Board of Directors). Front row: Gerry Davenport (President of National Community Games) presenting Daniel Carey (The Mayo News) with the National Media award for coverage of Community Games.

Community Games spirit lives on


Daniel Carey

NIALL Quinn is often asked about his proudest moment in sport. According to a blog written by the man himself, it took place not at the World Cup, or Wembley, or Lansdowne Road, but in Mosney, Co Meath. It was there, in September 1975, that a nine-year-old Quinn won the All-Ireland Community Games U-12 long puck final.
We were reminded of the Dubliner’s story last Saturday night, when we attended the post-AGM banquet of Community Games in the Mount Errigal Hotel in Letterkenny. We were there on behalf of The Mayo News, one of the media organisations being honoured for our Community Games coverage during 2014.
It’s unusual for a sponsor’s representative to steal the show at a sporting banquet. But, as Community Games president Gerry Davenport observed, you could ‘hear a pin drop’ when the woman from the Health Service Executive took the microphone.
Anne McAteer began her speech by reflecting on her own childhood involvement in Community Games, as a member of the Milford basketball team which had triumphed in Donegal and Ulster before the excitement of a weekend in Mosney beckoned.
She illustrated the impact that Community Games has left on even seasoned winners by recalling a recent meeting with an (unnamed) All-Ireland winner. He was playing the ‘Fifa’ computer game on an Xbox … and was, she remembered, being ‘annihilated’ by his ten-year-old son.
Trying to cheer him up, she commented: “Gaelic would suit you better!” … only to be met with an indignant reaction. The man had, it turned out, won a Community Games gold medal in Mosney … playing with his local soccer team.
And Anne McAteer finished with an appeal. Community Games could, she said, act as a ‘foster family’ for those on the margins of society – those not fortunate enough to enjoy the kind of parental support that the likes of Sonia O’Sullivan and Niall Quinn had enjoyed. Heads nodded all over the large room.
Community Games, Irish Sports Council chairman Kieran Mulvey observed in the speech which followed, ‘represents something special and something unique’. Its 50th anniversary is approaching in 2017. Does anyone else feel old all of a sudden?!