COMING AS IT does at the height of AGM season, with club treasurers fretting and losing sleep over how to keep the lights on, the pitches trimmed and affiliation fees paid, the gift of €1 million to each county board by John Patrick McManus transcends mere generosity.
In stark terms, McManus has alleviated the struggle of dozens of clubs that exist on a financial tightrope.
These clubs then will be able to plan for 2024 safe from the burden of an annual fundraiser, hitting up the same benefactors and businesses, selling tickets to the same people, year in, year out.
That’s the clubs at the bottom of the food chain; the ones struggling to get going in the early years. They may not have huge overheads and depend on renting council-owned grounds, but it still means there are thousands of children that can continue to train and play for these clubs.
That may seem stark, but it is the reality for many.
To others, it may appear small beans.
Two years ago, Cuala’s hurling board chairman Barry O’Halloran told me that to run the adult hurling section of the club, with four teams, it was costing in the region of €90 – 100k a year.
Costs were similarly eye-watering in Corofin.
“In terms of hard cash figures, we would probably spend over the season – with 17 teams between adult teams to underage and to a lesser extent ladies teams – you are probably looking at something like €300,000 a year,” explained club treasurer John Raftery.
“That’s everything: lights, pitch care, repairs, bus hire, catering for teams. Everything comes up to that.”
Still, whatever their share of the pie ends up being, they will be grateful for it.
Earlier on, as I was steepling my fingers and considering what was the best ‘way in’ on the story, I briefly considered the open letter format. You know the type: ‘Dear JP….’
But when they go wrong, they go horribly wrong. However, I was looking to hang it on the pushback from various quarters.
I would have introduced it with a hilarious Fr Ted pastiche, ‘And now we come to begrudgers…’, but that market has long been cornered by other middle-aged GAA-bros.
Begrudgery mainly centres around McManus not being resident in Ireland for tax purposes.
Having said that, think of all the exciting opportunities that JP McManus has missed out on by not being a tax payer:
• The National Children’s Hospital with an overspend of somewhere in the region of €2 billion, years overdue but finally expected to open sometime in late 2025.
• A Dublin Port Tunnel that cost €750 million to build and wasn’t tall enough to accommodate the ‘Supercube’ trucks that are commonplace among European hauliers.
• A Planning Tribunal that cost €160 million.
• The horror show of the HSE.
That’s only what is spent. How about the underspend of the capital budget on housing, to the tune of €1 billion as revealed earlier this year, in the middle of a housing crisis?
It shouldn’t need saying, but there are many other areas of Irish society in which McManus makes a significant contribution. You can find them at jpmcmanusfund.ie.
There may just be a sense among his camp that paying money into the Irish exchequer could be a complete waste of time. Who could blame him?
If €32 million appeared into the coffers, the first item on the agenda would be a pay rise for TDs.
And by sending the money to be distributed through county boards to clubs, it goes directly by those working among the communities. Take for example the way in which some counties were treating the helmet and hurley scheme for further reading.
Those complaining are detached from the realities of coaching children. Of spending time and your own money to encourage children to get outdoors and exercise, taking them to big matches to plant the seeds, nurturing them into a life of sport.
A very small percentage of these children will go on to be superstars or even senior club players. But if it encourages healthy habits, then there’s the obvious public health advantages.
However, there are some complications with the scheme.
Take for example a town like Dungannon in Tyrone. The Gaelic football club is Dungannon Thomas Clarkes. Ladies’ football is Aodh Ruadh. Hurling is Eoghan Ruadh. Camogie is Naomh Treasa. Four different codes, four different clubs all set to get their own lift.
More power to them, but then you have a club like Omagh that might feel slightly miffed that they provide camogie (at underage) along with ladies’ football, football and hurling and will get the standard payment.
Some clubs in smaller counties will get more than others.
Lisbellaw St Patrick’s are the most isolated hurling club in Ireland up until a couple of years ago as the only adult club in Fermanagh.
When we were growing up there, I once broke a hurl in a training session. I asked the manager – the kind of prominent club official that performed half a dozen roles all at the one time – for a replacement and he directed me to the boot of his car.
He had a habit of hanging the hurls in his garage, with a cup hook screwed into the top. When I got to his car boot, the cup hook was still on the hurl. Absently-mindedly, I took it off and flung it over the hedge.
At the end of training, he asked me where I put the cup hook and to my shame, I said I put it back into the boot.
Half an hour later, with all the hurls, the spare wheel, the lining of the boot all out and on the ground, we were still there, looking for a 3p cup hook that I knew was in the next field.
This club now stand to receive somewhere in the region of €40k.
It’s in good hands.