STAGG HUNTING Dublin’s Willie Davey just couldn’t keep up with Mayo’s Noel Stagg during the 2006 All-Ireland Over 40’s final.
Pic Danny Joyce Fallon staying at the masters’ table
The Over-40s continue to fight for their survival
Feature
Daniel Carey THE Mayo Masters team had 36 players togged for last year’s championship, and captain Pat Fallon was getting phone calls ‘all the time’ from others who wanted to get involved. This year, he reckons, there’ll be 41 or 42, so the Over-40s may well live up to its name in more ways than one.
Fallon is a former All-Star who has played the game at the highest level, so when he says that the Mayo Over-40s are ‘probably the most dedicated’ bunch he has come across, you sit up and take notice. In an era when the treatment of senior inter-county players is constantly under the microscope, the Masters come from the ‘get out and get on with it’ school.
“They don’t look for anything, there’s no problem, one text gets everybody out training,” he told The Mayo News. “They’ll even arrange the training themselves if they have to. There’s huge enthusiasm. I get so many phone calls to see what we’re doing, and Martin Cahill, who runs [the competition], is the very same.”
Last month, Mayo received their All-Ireland medals at a presentation ceremony in the Belmont Hotel in Knock. But there is no rest for the wicked, with games expected to start in June. Kerry aren’t the only team with three in a row on their minds.
A DVD of last year’s All-Ireland final replay, in which Mayo got the better of a Down side that included Mickey Linden and Ross Carr, was shown in the Belmont. To those who weren’t in Cavan that Friday night, it was something of a revelation. Anybody Fallon has shown it to has been ‘amazed, really impressed by the standard of football’. He even gave a copy to TG4, but they were unable to broadcast it because the camera-work didn’t meet TV standards.
Players like Donegal’s Anthony Molloy and Dublin duo Jack Sheedy and Joe McNally have all featured in the competition in recent years. Mayo also have their fair share of legends, and Anthony McGarry, Pádraic Flannery, Ciaran Carey, Martin ‘Ginger Mc Loughlin’, Noel Stagg and Ger Butler were among those to don the green and red in 2007.
In addition, an International Rules Series for over-40s has been running in recent times, with four games organised last year. If the senior equivalent resumes, the over-40s are planning to send a team to Australia a few months from now.
Yet there was some doubt last year as to whether the All-Ireland Masters championship would go ahead at all. Fallon has noticed a tendency among the GAA authorities ‘to pull competitions’ – the U-16 Fr Manning Cup has already gone by the wayside, and the U-21 championship may follow. Fallon accepts that burn-out may be an issue at underage level, but worries about the lack of official support for the Over-40s competition.
“For some reason, they would prefer to have [competitions] that are bringing money in rather than things that would provide games for members of the Association, which is something I don’t understand,” he said.
“They say that they wish to keep people in the GAA as long as they possibly can. But they’re contradicting themselves when they don’t support a competition like this ... There’s so many people who still want to play football at as high a level as they possibly can. The lads have kept themselves in good shape and they get a great kick out of it. I can’t understand at all why Croke Park is so against it.”
Fallon is quick to exempt Mayo County Board from criticism. The Over-40s group don’t ask for much, but whenever they’ve requested something, the board ‘have been very helpful’. Paddy Muldoon has, he says, ‘been a great friend’ of the Over-40s, and he also pays tribute to the Mayo Supporters’ Club. It’s not like the grade is costing a fortune. In a year when total expenditure by Mayo County Board ran to over €1.5 million, the Over-40s expenses ran to just €5,610, which was actually €4,000 down on the previous year.Fallon points out without the Over-40s competition, the GAA risks losing people who reach the end of their playing careers – though many of the Mayo squad are still active as club players.
While the Masters is ‘a very social competition’ and ‘very much family-orientated’ in the crowd it attracts, it also serves as an outlet for people who haven’t lost the desire to win just because they’ve entered their fifth decade.
“The great thing about sport is that it keeps your competitive edge,” he explains.
“And if you’re just playing something where there’s nothing to play for, it takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it for guys who are competitive by nature.
They mightn’t [have the] pace and fitness that younger lads would have, but they still can compete in their own right with the level of skill and experience that they have. It’s a very worthwhile competition.”
