Who are the GAA Celebrities?

Celebrity Bainisteoir. To those of you not in the know, its an RTE programme where 8 Irish 'Celebrities' take over an Intermediate football team, generally from their Home County and guide them through from a Quarter Final to an 'All-Ireland' Final. Each is assigned a high profile mentor from the locality and off they go to try and coax and cajole a team to victory. The Celebrities take the form of big Derek Davis, George Hook, little Ray Darcy, the lovely Andrea Roche (bogger accent and all) and a few others who may have won a song contest or a big bingo competition. Its painful stuff, listening to Irish people ask how many players are on a team or how do you score.

My main interest is in Cuala, the Dublin outfit taking part. Our own affable Eoin Sheanon hails from the club and his father is their current trainer. However, he was completely banished from all scenes as Hook dictates proceedings. This is the shows biggest crime I think, ignoring the real characters, of which there are an abundance, who prepare thousands of teams across the country. As a ritual, the teams visit the local primary schools pre-game and the Celebs are gobsmacked at the reaction, nearly unbelieving that the players all have relatives in the local schools.

Clearly they missed out their grounding in all things G.A.A. when they themselves attended primary. Of course, this is where virtually all of us first had a hurley put in our hand or felt the sting on our fore arm when a leather o'neills ball dropped from the sky into our arms. It made me think of Mick Creedon, who oversaw the 'Academy' that was Dunderrow N.S. At times it seemed his was the only conveyor belt which ran into the G.A.A. pitch in Kinsale. Most Kinsale teams for a large chunk of the 90's seemed to only have a sprinking from Summercove or St. Johns, in both Hurling and Football. Impressively, considering reports of any sort of Hurling career have yet to be uncovered, he was unbiased in his production numbers in either code.

I had the 'pleasure' of playing on an U-12 football team under his guidance in 1993. Having just returned from America after a three year hiatus, I was off the mark to say the least. Basketball and Soccer had been the sports of choice stateside and I had been robbed of my formative years of G.A.A. schooling as a result. Also, the brownies and burgers had taken their toll as a chubbier version than left, returned to take up his G.A.A. career. Mick was/is a close friend of the family and it was probably for this reason that the #15 jersey rested on my back. However, in Daniel Hurley, I practically had a dedicated sub to replace me in each game. He was a talented townie and only his younger age kept him off the team. Mick persisted with me throughout witnessing only one real flash of 'brilliance' in a league game down in Carrigaline when i found the top corner.

We contested a South-East final against Valley Rovers that year out in Ballygarvan. When the whistle brought an end to play on a foggy night, the real action started. The referee scored the bout a draw and all hell broke loose. He was escorted from the pitch and had to be locked into the dressing room for an age. The Rovers thought they had edged it, some on our side thought it was a draw and I think I had us down as being beaten. The debate was never resolved and Valleys went ahead and presented medals at their Annual Dinner. This was deemed a forfeit by the South-East board so Kinsale were declared winners and also presented medals. Whilst he would have rather won on the pitch, Mick had little time for our Innishannon neighbours and would have no doubt revelled in them getting their noses out of joint.

I went into exile after this and did not return properly until a league game against Ballygarvan as a Minor. Mick's service record was maintained in the years that followed the controversy. Our paths nearly crossed as I broke onto the adult scene, reinvented as a corner back, but as I arrived he departed. It was not the end of him though and he can now be found guiding the youthful lady footballers of Kinsale to unprecedent success. Service recognition is sparce in the G.A.A., most wouldn't have it any other way, but RTE should maybe consider the entertainment it could provide by unleashing the Mick Creedon's of the world to the living rooms of Ireland. These are the unique characters who make the G.A.A. tick and their unique and unorthodox ways would grab my attention far more often then even Andrea Roche in tight jeans and wellies!