AH, THE LEAGUE.
We’d struggle to recall when a league campaign has been so eagerly anticipated. Gaelic football, the Sick Man of the GAA with dwindling crowds and growing apathy, has received a good spray around the undercarriage and a lick of paint with a set of new rules set to spruce the thing up.
And hurling, well, there’s no need to worry about hurling. At the top end, its popularity continues to creep upwards.
It might surprise you to learn that this is the century anniversary of the national leagues.
Prior to that, the programme of games for the All-Ireland championships were fluffed out by various gather ups of competitions, played mainly among neighbouring counties.
The context of the time was the suspicion of Gaelic Games in general from British authorities, and the gatherings of large numbers that offered cover for Republican activities.
With the Free State established and a freer society emerging, there was a thirst for the games and coverage.
The golden age of newspapers in Ireland was propelled by sports coverage. In 1906, the Irish Independent was the biggest-selling daily with 30,000 sales.
By 1931 this had jumped to 132,000 with the addition of comprehensive sports coverage.
By then, the 1920s had ushered in the first examples of full-time GAA correspondents, such as PJ Devlin who went by the nom de plume of ‘Celt’. Paddy Mehigan left his job in the civil service to provide copy for the Cork Examiner and Irish Times, as well as bringing out ‘Carbery’s Annual.’
Such men were there from the ground up when the first-ever national league games were played.
Football got the ball rolling. Each province was carved up. Connacht teams played in the Connacht Railway Cup and Ulster sides competed in two groups for the Dr McKenna Cup. Leinster carved their province with three groups, and Munster played a league.
The very first game was on 7 June, 1925. Roscommon beat Leitrim 1-5 to 0-7 at the Palace Grounds in Strokestown; a venue that had the notoriety of the first residence of a landlord to be assassinated.
Nothing like starting as you mean to carry on, as the game received virtually no mention in the following day’s newspapers. Mind you, it was also staged on the same day as Wexford beat Meath in the Leinster hurling championship.
On the same day in the Ulster Cup, there were two hurling fixtures where Cork beat Tipperary 3-4 to 2-3, and Limerick had a handsome win over Clare, 8-2 to 1-3.
By the Tuesday, the dispatches had reached the pages of the Irish Independent. A brief report under the fold of page 9, under a heading of ‘RAILWAY GAA CUP’ notes; ‘The semi-final match for the cup offered by the MGWR Company was decided at Strokestown on Sunday past. In an exciting contest Roscommon defeated Leitrim by a point – 8 to 7. There was an immense contest.’
Now, try stretching that into an hour-long podcast.
The final of the Connacht section was played on 25 October, Sligo beating Roscommon in the final. Galway didn’t partake.
It wasn’t until 8 November that Ulster got their competition off the ground. Cavan beat Fermanagh 4-3 to 2-3 at Belturbet.
Another Fermanagh game, at home against Tyrone a couple of weeks later brought an amusing remark from the GAA correspondent of the Fermanagh Herald – ‘Caman’ – who noted, ‘Weather conditions were anything but favourable and an early downpour of rain seriously affected the attendance. Nevertheless a good crowd turned out to witness the fixture, Tyrone supplying a good contingent, but I am sorry to say that a big sprinkling of locals preferred a view from the road rather than contribute to the sport. Or was it that they considered it a reproach to mingle with the Gaelic element?’
Onto hurling.
The first division 1 was made up of Cork, Dublin, Laois, Galway, Tipperary, Limerick and Kilkenny.
Division 2 consisted of Clare, Offaly, Kerry, Waterford and Wexford.
The very first games took place on 27 September, Kilkenny beat Tipperary 5-2 to 3-1 in Cashel. Dublin bested Limerick 1-8 to 2-2 in Croke Park and Laois stuck 11 goals past Cork, who hit three of their own, in Portlaoise.
But, try as we might, there is scant detail of these games in the national papers of the time.
By way of illustrating how far down the food chain this particular competition was, there were some dispatches and information from a challenge game played between Dublin and Kerry in Croke Park that weekend, with the Metropolitans hurling victory over Limerick plausibly being a curtain-raiser.
For the record, Cork were the first national hurling league winners. The final was played on 16 May, 1926 and they beat Dublin 3-7 to 1-5. The Rebels captain was Seán Óg Murphy, the diminutive full-back who later served 30 years as the county secretary, and selector on six All-Ireland winning teams.
In football, Laois triumphed over Dublin in the 1925 league final, eventually played on 19 September 1926. Their captain was Dick Miller.
While details for the league were scant enough in the newspapers, the establishment of the Irish Press, launched in time for the All-Ireland hurling final between Cork and Kilkenny in 1931, forced the existing titles to up their game.
The Press were cute bucks. Armed with an army of country correspondents feeding in, they catered for a rural readership and amplified everything as attendances grew.
The leagues weren’t an instant success. Indeed, there was no league staged across the winter of 1926 in either code.
The following year, the national league was given a bit more oomph and took on a more familiar shape, with some cross-pollination of teams across provincial boundaries.
For example, Kildare and Louth had joined the ‘Northern Division,’ while those football-hungry men of Kilkenny joined the fray in the ‘Southern Division.’
It will hardly surprise you to learn that hurling was let get on with it and do their own thing. But from 1928 on, the leagues abounded with press coverage with the ready-made sequence of dramas and the magic formula of increased column inches on sport leading to more sales.
100 years on, and it remains for many, their favourite GAA competition. Despite all that, it is forever neglected by the Association itself, and derided as trivial when the dust settles on the intercounty year.
They should really relax their rules a bit . The likes of a jack Willis or Farrell is a big loss in that setup..surely players getting exposure in different environments and arguably tougher leagues 1. Makes the player better and 2 creates a stronger national side if included…
@Stuart: Still comes down to trying to keep your best players playing domestically. Premiership would be badly diluted if most of their internationals went abroad for more money.
@mcdb06: spot on, you must protect the product that generates the players in the first place.
@mcdb06: so it’s all about the league and not the player. Jack Willis has become a better player playing in France . Like Ronaldo going from man U to Madrid…I get dilution of a league absolutely but surely there’s an argument to make part of the product (the player) the best they can be …not suggestion I have the answer here but surely can’t be one simple view of dilution of the league so shouldn’t select…
@Don alexander: Unless there are too many players, as there are in Ireland. Certainly they could consider a time limit on this rule.