The GAA continues to live up to its reputation that the initials ‘GAA’ actually stand for ‘Grab All Association’, if events at a recent AIB Leinster Clubs Championship hurling match in County Meath are anything to go by, An Fear Rua writes ….

A couple of Sundays ago, the GAA in County Meath pocketed three quid a head from hundreds people who turned up to see an AIB Championship game between Meath champions, Kilmessan, and a team representing County Longford but never made a refund when the match was cancelled at the last minute.

One of AFR’s correspondents in the Royal County says that, when challenged about the money, a GAA official replied that it would be given to the Saint Vincent de Paul Society ! And if you believe that, you’ll believe that the late Des Traynor was running some sort of a benevolent tiddly winks society from the corporate headquarters of CRH for many years, instead of an unlicensed bank for his golden circle of friends. If any other organisation tried to rook fans on the same scale there’d be calls for an enquiry or another tribunal, thinks An Fear Rua.

That the circumstances in Trim bordered on high farce is no defence to the GAA’s contemptible action. This year’s Meath GAA champions, a fine team of hurlers from the parish of Kilmessan, were drawn against Longford Wolfe Tones in the first round of the Leinster Clubs Championship. Two nights before the game, the Tones rang Meath to say they were unable to field a team, and the bould Longford Slashers were nominated to take their place. On the Sunday of the game, hundred of fans turned up to see what should have been an entertaining, well-matched game, with the likelihood that Kilmessan would go through.

As Kilmessan took the field in their traditional blue-and-white strip, there was no sign at all of the ‘Slashers’. It transpired that only about twelve or thirteen of them had made the journey from Longford and they were therefore unable to field a team. Despite enquiries from spectators, the man with the leather bag was nowhere to be seen and requests for refunds were airily dismissed. In the end, Kilmessan picked two scratch teams from among their panel and, not surprisingly, played a rather desultory game of hurling. Of course, if they’d used the head, they could have loaned the Slashers a few players and made up a proper challenge game. But that was not to be.

One of the most frustrated men in the Trim GAA grounds must have been Jimmy McGuinness the Kilmessan/Dunsany dual star, who opted out of the Eircell trip to Boston that weekend with the Meath All Ireland team so he could help his parish get through to the next round. Unfortunately, thinks An Fear Rua there is not enough of the McGuinness spirit around these days among either players or officials. Too many of them seem to believe that winning an All Ireland or a National League means they are automatically entitled to some kind of foreign trip. McGuinness’s sense of priorities, his loyalty to his parish – ‘the basic unit of the GAA’ as we hear so often from ‘ofeeshal’ Association windbags – is in stark contrast to the cynicism of the Longford and Trim GAA officials.

The failure of County Longford to field not one, but two, teams in a premier competition shows how little they care about the games or the fans or even the sponsors, who in all fairness, have done an excellent job in promoting this popular competition. As that well-known frequenter of GAA dressing rooms in the last century, Oscar Wilde, might have remarked, to lose one team seems like a tragedy, to lose two seems like carelessness. Despite all the windbag rhetoric from Croke Park in recent years, this episode shows just how shallow the roots of hurling are still in some parts of the country.

Lookit, in ainm Dé, in the end this is nothing to do with the three quid at all. As they used to say years ago, you’d give it to a young lad or lassie nowadays for going on a message for ya. What’s at stake here are a few basic principles. One is that when the GAA advertises two teams to play in a particular championship on a certain date and time that should happen. Simple. No ifs, buts, or excuses, good bad or indifferent as that great Longford ‘Slasher’ himself, Albert Reynolds, was fond of saying. Secondly, if people pay money in good faith, and the game is not provided, the GAA should immediately refund the money with no quibbles, or else give a voucher for free entry to the next game.

What happened in Trim, of course, was also unfair to the Kilmessan lads. The organisational shambles meant they were deprived of a chance to make a name for themselves in a competitive game against the champions of another county. It also deprived the Meath team of a chance for a competitive tune up before last Sunday’s ignominious thrashing in the next round, at the hands of the Wexford champions, Saint Martins.

This year’s AIB championships are shaping up well. Munster sees an interesting tussle between the dark horses, Ballygunner of Waterford and the Clare old reliables, Saint Josephs-Doora Bearefield. However, if the reports reaching An Fear Rua’s ears are correct, there’s a bunch of lads below in Birr, in the County Offaly, who will not only go through Leinster like General Sheridan went through Georgia (the State, not the lady, ya eejit), but who will go all the way to winning the final on next Saint Patrick’s Day.

At least if Birr get through, we can expect them to show up on the day...