SOME OF IT is down to economic circumstance, some of it is just down to that great old GAA expression: cyclical.
Perhaps in one or two cases, standards slipped when the eye was taken off the ball. And in one obvious example it comes down to competition structures.
But you cannot help, as you throw a beady eye across the clubs heading into battle in the provincial intermediate football games, feel there’s a lot of aristocratic names suffering the modern, threadbare fate of the aristocracy. Slumbering in the gutters while still daring to gaze up at the stars.
In their top hat and tails, but thrown out the side door of the exclusive club. Landing among the wheelie bins and skips.
It’s a metaphor we will stretch to the point of snapping, but it is quite something when you see previous winners of the Andy Merrigan All-Ireland Cup for senior clubs in Derry’s Ballinderry Shamrocks (2002), Austin Stacks of Kerry (1977) and Crossmolina of Mayo (2001).
Then you have another club who may not have sealed the deal, but enjoyed success up to senior provincial level such as Garrycastle who won the Leinster crown in 2011 and lost the All-Ireland final to Crossmaglen Rangers a few months later.
Elsewhere there are instantly recognisable clubs operating at this level such as Magheracloone, the club of the Freeman brothers Tommy and Damian, 2004 Monaghan champions, finalists in 2017 and who in recent years had the catastrophe of an underground mine caving in and taking their pitch with it.
And finally, Aherlow. Tipperary senior champions in 2006 and 2010, and the home of ‘Effin’ Eddie’. Their fame goes before them!
For Stacks, who were Kerry champions as recently as 2021, it was as simple as the cut-throat nature of the championship in the Kingdom, with just eight clubs competing, augmented by the divisional sides.
Manager Billy Lee understood his assignment when he was named as senior manager in late 2022. He had already been part of a previous Stacks backroom team in 2016 with a spell in charge of his native Limerick in the meantime.
He achieved it at the second time of asking on 10 November when they beat Laune Rangers in the intermediate final, 1-14 to 0-5, and now they face into Munster club action when they face Kilshannig of Cork this Sunday, away at their venue of Glantane.
“It’s a hugely competitive environment,” he says.
“Players feel if they are in it, they want to win it at any time. I suppose it strikes me that An Ghaeltacht are in the final two years ago and they were beaten by Rathmore.
“And for the past two years since, they haven’t come out of the group stages. I think that sums up the competitive nature of the intermediate championship in Kerry. It is very, very competitive and you underestimate a team at your peril.”
He continues: “I have been with them now for nearly two years and people were trying to adjust to the fact that we weren’t a senior club anymore. And obviously with a club like Stacks and their history, it wasn’t something that sat well with the club.
“There were expectations and pressures to try to get the team back up to senior level. There is no hiding from that. But thankfully we got up there this year.”
They might have gotten back up last year only they fell to Fossa in the 2023 semi-final on penalties. Getting out of intermediate is not simple.
“The thing in Kerry football is you cannot take your eye off the ball. You look at it and Stacks were senior champions in 2021. And Kerins O’Rahillys were the senior champions in 2022 and relegated to intermediate in ’23
“In fact Kerins O’Rahillys were provincial champions, they beat my own club, Newcastle West, in the final.
“So it’s a hugely competitive environment. You cannot take anything for granted. You cannot make assumptions that because of history, you should be at a certain level.”
In the other side of the draw, Aherlow are meeting Wolfe Tones of Clare.
Over in Connacht, Crossmolina, the club of Ciaran McDonald, Stephen Rochford and James Nallen face Roscommon’s Elphin in the final at Dr Hyde Park on Sunday.
Ulster has Magheracloone against Arva on Saturday at the Athletic Grounds, but a real humdinger follows the following day in Newry, as Ballinderry Shamrocks are in the other semi-final against Derrylaughan Kevin Barrys.
It is as close as a derby game gets, although they are split by the Derry-Tyrone border.
Even at that, many of the Ballinderry people reside on the Tyrone side of the Ballinderry bridge, including one of their most famous players, Enda Muldoon.
They sit second on the Derry senior championship leaderboard with 13 titles and won their 2002 All-Ireland in the unusual setting of Semple Stadium – due to the Croke Park redevelopment – beating Nemo Rangers in the decider.
Adrian McGuckin has been watching, playing and coaching Ballinderry teams for 60 years and had a hand in most of those triumphs. At present, Jarlath Bell and the former Tyrone player Davy Harte are the management.
“Our story would be a little bit different from most. They were at the top for so long and we kept mostly the same team for around 15 years,” says McGuckin.
“We just had that particular period where we had the most incredible talent in our club. Players that you couldn’t imagine and they just kept going.
“But in that period, there was hardly a house built in the parish. The school population dropped and at a time, there were only eight pupils coming in each year into the primary school for about ten years or so.
“Our underage teams were all playing at the C grade. I remember our Ronan taking Under 8s to 9-a-side days and not even getting the 9, had to take a couple of really little ones to fill out the teams.”
In Derry, the championship is detached from the leagues. Ballinderry still competed in division one this year and finished fifth overall, one point ahead of the senior championship winners, Newbridge.
Any thoughts of sweeping their way to an intermediate title were soon disabused as they had to claw every inch of the way, eventually winning the decider over Faughanvale on a replay.
And so, into Ulster and the novelty of meeting their neighbours Derrylaughan, just south of them on the shores of Lough Neagh.
“There would be a brilliant relationship between the two clubs. We have always had a liking for each other,” says McGuckin.
“The only time I can remember playing Derrylaughan was in a Bellaghy tournament in the early ‘80s, in a competitive game. And we beat them then! But we are around the Tyrone border. A good lot of us live in Tyrone. Moortown is two miles up the road and Ardboe is three miles up the road. We rarely have ever played them in a competitive game.
“A lot of people might say, ‘Thank God for that!’”
What might surprise some, is how no matter what the level, the work that goes into managing teams – club teams at that – is as high as might be expected of senior teams.
“The effort that everyone puts in now, from players, management teams, it’s full on and there’s no let-up,” says Billy Lee.
“I suppose in Kerry the club scene would start in February with the divisional leagues. The fall of the year you have the divisional championships. So everyone is giving up 10, 11 sometimes 12 months of the year, three days a week, sometimes four.
“And there’s the time having meetings with players and management outside of that. It’s hugely time-consuming. You have to do that if you want to get anything out of it. You can’t take shortcuts.”
Where does it all go?
“The thing here now is ‘How far can we push it? How much more time can we expect people to give this level of commitment?’” asks Lee.
“Whatever is happening at county level filters through to the club, five years on. What will we be doing in five years’ time? You don’t have time for anything else, to be honest with you.”
Got to ask questions re Kerry club championship setup. 8 clubs at senior of which half are amalgamated teams that can’t represent the county but also consigning legitimate senior clubs to intermediate and same then for junior setup. This is why there’s so many kerry club teams in all Ireland’s. It’s lopsided.