Jimmy Geoghegan: Clubs like Kilmainham are what the GAA is about

We're there now. That point in the year when most hurling and football championships, with the exception of some of the underage competitions, have concluded and we know where the destination of much sought-after, coveted trophies such as the Jubilee and Keegan cups will rest for another year.

Like last year this has been a good championship season, plenty of quality games played. Since its introduction the split season has proved a success in many ways.

Clubs have their best players training with them - and that drives others on. The club players know how when games can be played. They can plan holidays, build their lives around schedules. That's important for families. So the split season is a boon for many – but how long will it last?

Already there is considerable disquiet in the GAA world about the fact that from the end of July onwards to the end of September, the media landscape in Ireland (once dominated by Gaelic games) is now conceded to other sports, particularly Premier League soccer. It makes many Gaels uncomfortable.

Recently Pat Spillane became the unofficial spokesman for those who hanker back to the pre-pandemic days. To the days when the spotlight for the entire summer was almost exclusively focused on the money-spinning inter-county game - the clubs were left well down the pecking order; left there to make and mend as best they could. Spillane says the GAA is losing out big time and maybe he's right - but is it the right thing to return to the old ways? I think not.

One of the most memorable aspects of this year's Meath football championships was the fact that games were played in venues that heretofore were not utilised much for fixtures - if at all.

Take Rathmolyon for example. It was chosen as the venue for a Longwood v Dunderry intermediate football tie. According to one very reliable source this was the first EVER football championship game played at the noted hurling stronghold.

Blackhall Gaels was another club to get a championship game - and they don't get many. They have done tremendous work on their ground at Kilcloon in recent years.

Clonard too. They have fine facilities that will be enhanced further when they get their dressingrooms completed. However, Clonard's fortunes this summer underlined the fact that having fine facilities doesn't necessary mean a club is thriving - they couldn't field a team in the Junior B FC for two games. As a result they had to forfeit their place in that championship. For a club to have to do that is a last, desperate resort and indicates a crisis that should worry the powers-that-be.

Kilmainham was another club who have fine facilities and they hosted Dunsany v Moylagh in the quarter-final of the JFC. In so many ways Kilmainham is a club that represents the essence of what the GAA is all about.

They are a small club with a relatively tiny pool of players to pick from yet they are an intermediate club and were in that grade this year – and they also won the A FL Div 2B title.

The reaction to that victory from their PRO Eimear Clarke was a powerful statement of what the GAA club represents to a local community – or should mean. How it can overcome near impossible odds once everyone is pulling together.

“We may only be a small club on a two-mile stretch of road just south of Kells, no shops, no schools, no drinking wells. But what we do have is heart, pride and a desire to perform every time that a Kilmainham jersey is pulled on,” Eimear wrote in the report she sent into the Meath Chronicle about the game.

It's stirring stuff and indicates one of the reason why Kilmainham, despite the limitations they clearly face and their ultimate relegation back to junior football, have thrived. They clearly have people behind the scenes fiercely committed to the cause.

Yet there is a harsh reality there too. By all accounts there are very few youngsters from the Kilmainham area emerging to take over from the current generation of players. It's a tale you hear quite a bit from from certain clubs - particularly in north Meath.

The lack of young players is of real concern to those who have helped to build football clubs like Kilmainham into what they are now. Clubs that carry the hopes and dreams of small communities.

Clubs that are run by people who know a thing or two about battling constantly against the odds. As that TV about GAA clubs goes: "We all need somewhere that belongs to us all." Indeed.