I couldn't care less if they stopped. I have absolutely no interest in GAA or soccer. They are not doing me any favours!If guys and girls stopped training and playing at this level we would lose so much more than we would gain.
If guys and girls stopped training and playing at this level we would lose so much more than we would gain.
Except this hobby drives a major cultural organisation within our country and actually gives back to each and every community, therefore those that sacrifice their time at the highest level shouldn't be begrudged some level of 'perks'.
I couldn't care less if they stopped. I have absolutely no interest in GAA or soccer. They are not doing me any favours!
I dont agree. There are a lot of sports out there other than GAA.
Recent reports for the Government suggest that investing in the GAA gives a poor return. Government would be better investing in other sports where participation rates are rising and where you get more members per € spent. GAA gets a disproportionately high percentage of government funding at present.
GAA players put in the effort, give the entertainment, get the public adulation, get the spin off and rightly so.
I couldn't care less if they stopped. I have absolutely no interest in GAA or soccer. They are not doing me any favours!
Are you anyway interested in me going to the gym three times a week? - should I get perks because of this?
I also like gardening, what advantages should I receive because of this?
eh? I don't see your point.Yes, I suspected as much given your lack of appreciation of the point. Have you ever had anyone cheer on your gym or your gardening?, do people recognise you in the street because of these?
Hang on a minute there - so somehow these players have a more worthwhile life then me? - You're suggesting that they give more to the community than I do? I would strongly disagree.No?, so your hobby isnt doing anything for anyone (apart from doing your bit to keep your neighbourhood maintained).
Contrast this with players who give millions of people great days out, lasting memories, sometimes the best days of their lives. But if there is some natural spin off from this you're upset? Summat not right there.
You must really do your nut if you ever look at a magazine stand, jam packed full of talentless 'celbrities', millionaires because they filmed themselves at it or get out of cars with no knickers on.
GAA players put in the effort, give the entertainment, get the public adulation, get the spin off and rightly so.
Patriotism is a mugs game. No thanks!If your activities add to community spirit, provide an outlet for thousands of kids and adults on a weekly basis and provide a major sense of pride to your county then I'm sure we can find a way of doing you a favour. The first favour I would suggest would be opening your eyes and showing you that a world exists outside of your bubble.
I currently feel indifferent to the GAA. They leave me alone, and I don't worry about them.Nothing worse than begrudgery - if ye ever do anything worthwhile be sure and let us know !!
Well isnt it lucky we were there before ye and will be there after ye. The GAA isnt based on a begging bowl. We get some grants but why wouldnt we - are we not the biggest sporting organisation in the country?
if ye ever do anything worthwhile be sure and let us know !!
According to the ERSI Report Gaelic football is only the 7th most popular participation sport in Ireland behind (in order):
Study gets numbers right but neglects social realities
Team and club games carry benefits that cannot be replicated by individual sports or private recreational activities, writes SEÁN MORAN .
IN THE sunny years of my youth, before the fall of reality's dark shadow, there was a fellow student whose response in moments of confusion was to twitch agitatedly and mutter: "Me head's full of figures, me head's full of figures."
He sprang to mind last week in the swirl of publicity that followed the release of the latest ESRI report on sport, the fifth study in conjunction with the Irish Sports Council, Sporting Lives: An analysis of a lifetime of Irish sport .
From the high of three years ago when a report in the same series had drawn attention to the size of the organisation and its exceptional volunteer base, the GAA had to adapt to more sobering analysis, pointing out how its games were among the slowest-growing in the country.
It hasn't been immediately apparent to the average onlooker, whose head has presumably been filling up with figures, that the data on which the reports base their conclusions is exactly the same, the 2003 Survey of Sport and Physical Exercise.
So the data that on the one hand paints a vibrant sporting organisation with a strong community base, whose participation rate runs soccer a fairly close second at the top of the team sports, is also the data that points to games that are atrophying or, in the words of the authors, "in relative decline".
Naturally, the reaction within the GAA has been a bit testy. The association will take a little time to analyse the findings before issuing a considered response but there's plenty of interesting detail for that consideration.
The fact is that both reports are right. Allowing for the increased popularity of the personal recreations of jogging, gym exercise and the individual sports of golf and swimming, soccer and Gaelic games are by far the most popular team sports - still well ahead of other team sports whose popularity has grown.
One of the GAA's problems is its emphasis on formal competition. The lack of casual, recreational outlets places football and hurling at a disadvantage to soccer, which has a substantial participation rate (five per cent of its global figure) for the popular activity of its five-a-side game.
But according to the data on which the ESRI have based their findings, soccer - male and female adults plus five-a-side - is played by 17 per cent of the population whereas football and hurling/camogie come in at 13 per cent. At present the GAA is working to develop a less formal outlet for participation and it will be interesting to see if whatever emerges can be even remotely as successful as five-a-side soccer in providing that purely recreational activity.
One of the complaints about the report has been that the GAA figures show participation going up. Therefore how could they be in decline? That, however, overlooks the critical qualification - emphasised by the report's authors - that the decline has been relative. It also overlooks the fact the ESRI were surveying everyone, not just GAA members, so it reflects the playing history of the general population, not just those signed up to the GAA. Nonetheless, the association can point to a four per cent increase in adult teams since the ESRI data was compiled, which isn't bad for an organisation already with a high base and requiring a registration fee of €1,000 per team.
By its own allowance, the report isn't concerned with the social aspects of sport, as was its 2005 predecessor, but - and this is perhaps the major quibble, not with the current report's findings but with its recommendations on funding - the social context is critical.
The reason the US writer and sociologist Robert Puttnam called his major work on social capital Bowling Alone was in recognition of the demographic shift in tenpin bowling from team leagues to solitary recreation.
Essentially the latest ESRI report is evidence of the same thing: a switch from participation in organised team sports to individual recreation such as jogging, swimming and visits to the gym.
In terms of the health and lifestyle benefits of exercise, jogging and swimming are as good as team sports and of course children should be free to choose what sports they want to play. But recreational sport is defined in the legislation establishing the Irish Sports Council as having social as well as physical dimensions, as noted by the 2005 report.
Even last week's report observed: "In order to tackle the impact of social disadvantage on participation in sport, policy-makers need to consider the problem for children as young as 5-10 years of age. There is, therefore, a strong case for redirecting greater resources to schools and sports clubs that welcome and attract young children from less well-off backgrounds."
The individual pursuits that have shown such increased participation are by their nature more solitary and accessible to the well off. GAA clubs by virtue of their location in the community, the number of volunteers and the work already being done have great potential if properly resourced to be instruments of such policy.
I was talking to a coach in a Dublin GAA club just last week. He was talking about the difficulties associated with organising schools in deprived areas. For some children, home life is non-existent because of parental alcohol and substance abuse. Not alone is there no getting lifts to and from training in the established manner of parental shuttles but on one occasion kids had to be left behind when a school went off to participate in a blitz. This was because the parents hadn't bothered to send them in, regarding the day out as a day off. When the minibus started dashing around to rescue the situation they found parents weren't there or were unwilling to sign release forms.
There's presumably nothing exceptional about this in many urban areas but running teams in any sport is arduous enough without having to practise additionally the interventions of a social worker.
Clubs, according to this coach, enable disadvantaged children to socialise with more fortunate peers and get glimpses of normality. There is also the back-up of "scholarships" to summer camps and at times the provision of decent food. In other words, there's a world of work to be done before some young people even get to take part
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