There are none so blind as those who don't want to see

Con Houlihan, after one of the epic Dublin/Kerry encounters of the 1970s, began his summation of the event thus: "House private, no flowers please'. Now read on...

The strange opening was a nod to Con's "Friend Girl" Harriet Duffin who was a Dub. On the said occasion, his would be the happy half of their Portabello home.

Similar sentiments probably abounded in the capital when Dave Whelan parked up the iPhone for the final time after driving the DubMatchTracker account on Twitter for more than a decade.

If ever a product or service did "exactly what it said on the tin" it was the Tracker.

Delivering blow by blow accounts of every game any Dublin team were partaking in. Regardless of age group, gender, grade, venue or anything else, the Tracker was always there.

From an 'outside' perspective, as somebody who, for a time at least, didn't get to half as many matches as would've been desired, the Tracker became an invaluable companion for Meath-Dublin encounters. Even more so as a means of keeping up with goings on in club matches in the capital.

Now, I'm not sure at what stage RTE began broadcasting GAA highlights on Sunday nights but at the time I was first becoming loosely attuned to it all - circa 1987/'88 - the only matches shown live on television were the All Ireland semi finals and finals (Minor and Senior) in both hurling and football.

It was, of course, the fourth game between Meath and Dublin during the summer of '91 that broke a whole new mould by way of being the first match other than those in the All Ireland series to be shown live on TV. On a Saturday too!

What is known is that it was 1995 when matches being shown live became a full time arrangement. Louth's defeat of Kildare in Newbridge and Galway's expulsion of then defending Connacht champions Leitrim being the first two shown in the new era.

Incidentally, both those encounters had the unusual throw in time of 7pm on a Sunday evening. Surprisingly, that initiative fizzled out without much of a whimper. Pity. Something worth revisiting.

Anyway, whether by accident or design, it was around that time that we first got a video recorder. Thus began a thankfully ongoing routine of recording nearly every GAA match which happened to pop up on TV.

Mind you, the greatest boon from having the machine now considered outdated has been the ability to acquire compilations like Decade Of The Dubs - a chronicle of all those exceptional matches from the perspective of the blue corner.

Someday Kerry's Golden Years will be added to what is a fairly vast archive of material and memorabilia at this stage. If only for research purposes.

After all, how do current or future generations learn of the deeds of those who went before only through the documentation of others. Whether that be written or audio or visual. However, that’s all very well with regard to learning of happenings of the past.

If Covid-19 taught us anything, it’s that there are a sizable cohort of people who cannot get to matches for a multiplicity of reasons. Thus, services like social media updates and - most pertinently in this case - live streaming of matches became not only helpful but essential.

Yes, this was absolutely true from a personal perspective. Circumstances decreed that there was a period of circa seven seasons when attendance at anywhere near the amount of matches as would have been desired - particularly inter county contests - simply wasn't possible.

Thereby becoming reliant on social media to keep up to speed with what was going on in the various matches one dearly longed to be at.

For that, I will be eternally grateful to Meath Co Board, local media and local clubs for utilising social media to keep those of us unable to attend games right up to speed with what's going on therein.

So impactful was it, in fact, that at some point along the way, I started retweeting the tweets from my own page, so that even more people could avail of the same lifeline as had I.

During Covid though, those who could went even further by live streaming matches. In other words, making them available for people with access to a computer to actually watch matches live. Even better, if you're tech savvy enough, you can send it to your television.

All very well if you (a) have access to a computer and (b) know your way around it enough to be able to even get the stream to work. Without even thinking about sending it to the TV.

The biggest problem with being heavily reliant on an online service is that there is a great probability it cuts a high percentage of the GAA's core demographic - those who have dedicated large swathes of their lives to the Association - out of the chance of seeing games.

The above has been proven to be fact far too much in recent years. Between a combination of BSkyB getting the broadcast rights for a few years and - in their stead - GAAGo.

The latter being the exact same as giving the rights to Sky Sports - only in patriotic packaging. Mind you, with waters surrounding that whole concept currently as muddy as a slurry lagoon, you wouldn't know what the future holds there.

If the following applied solely to Dublin, the time honoured tales about money and resources and professionalism would be rolled out. But the fact is that many counties have, for example, "ClareGAATV" so, without wanting to be disparaging about the Banner County or anybody else, if they can do it, such avenues should at least be explored close to home.

With numerous GAA apps and/or podcasts available for free or at a very nominal fee, there should be no reason why, for example, downloading the county GAA app couldn't entitle fans - or more pointedly clubs - to watch club and/or county matches.

Yes, I can almost hear you saying 'what you're describing is the same as what has been derided up above'. To a point, yes. However, where it differs is in the following, with both Sky and GAAGo (as we now know) the subscription fees were destined for the pockets of entities that absolutely didn't need them.

A County Board enabling a streaming service, though, even if there was a small fee to pay for patrons, would reap a lot more than it would take to plant the seed of such a service.

On a broader scale, there's an opportunity to do something unique if the will existed to develop it. How does GAA TV sound? Surely if such innovation can be brought to fruition in the guise of TG4 and Oireachtas TV, why not try something similar from a GAA perspective? But often, there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.