Mother claims GAA ‘bullying’ her child

[DAF]

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/moth ... 57236.html

Mother claims GAA ‘bullying’ her child

Friday, January 31, 2014

The Offaly mother of a 15-year-old hurler prevented from lining out for his first club has claimed the GAA are bullying her child.
By John Fogarty
GAA Correspondent
Conor Smith had been a juvenile member of Birr for four years before being informed in 2012 that he was ineligible as he was living in the Crinkill club’s catchment area in the Birr parish and, as his father had not represented Birr at senior level, could not play for them.

Smith’s late grandfather is Tom Ryan, an honorary president of the Birr club, but Crinkill queried the legitimacy of him playing for Birr in an U14 game between the neighbouring sides in August 2012.

An investigation was launched by Offaly’s Competitions Control Committee which, in September of that year, proposed sanctions against him and Birr’s chairman and secretary.

Smith has missed 33 days of school with stress as a result of his situation, which culminated in him bringing his case in front of the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) last September.

However, it wasn’t heard as it was deemed to be in effect a parish rule case, which the DRA had already passed judgment on in 2009. However, the independent legal body had later agreed there were grounds for Birr to come before the tribunal again.

Smith scored the winning goal for Birr in the 2011 Offaly Feile final against Coolderry. He is now a promising handballer, winning two Leinster titles and reaching the quarter-finals of the world pairs.

However, his mother Trish is uncertain whether he will ever play hurling again. The ordeal had a deep impact on him and his doctor initially believed he was being bullied at school. After the first county hearing, he vomited through anxiety.

“As far as I’m concerned, the GAA have bullied my child and stopping him from doing something he loved. He hurled for Birr for four years and nobody said a thing.

“I feel our child has been penalised. We didn’t break any rules. I wouldn’t subject any child to what Conor has gone through. He was 14 at the time of the first hearing and 15 by the end.

“I’ve another young lad coming on and I swear he won’t go through it, but he’s been red and green since he was a child and watching DVDs of games with his grandfather. He’ll be devastated when he’s stopped hurling, but I will not let him go to any hearing.

“I remember after one hearing Conor pleaded with me not to send him to school the next day. The only way I can describe what happened is like a death. It was their grandfather’s wish to see them playing for Birr.”

Birr have long maintained the parish rule should be implemented and anyone born within the parish of Birr should be entitled to play for any of its three clubs — Birr, Crinkill or Carrig-Riverstown (Crinkill and Carrig-Riverstown form CRC Gaels at underage level).

The parish rule is enforced via the Offaly bye-laws for all grades except where there are no underage teams in a parish and a player can line out for an independent team which does not bear the name of an adult club within the county.

However, the Offaly County Board maintained Smith was an illegal Birr player as per a boundary agreement, which Birr claim is superseded by the parish rule.

An Offaly hearings committee document presented to the Leinster Hearings Committee read: “It would be easy to treat this as simply a case of a young [player] wishing to play hurling and let sentiment cloud your judgement. But as there is an agreement in place we must honour and enforce the terms of that agreement”.

Trish Smith was particularly incensed that Colm’s name was mentioned on signposts for the tribunal around the hotel where the DRA meeting was held last year. “I was highly disgusted by it. ‘Conor Smith versus the DRA’ everywhere. A juvenile’s name.”

On the advice of his parents, Smith also wrote to the DRA asking them to refrain from emailing him directly as he was a juvenile.

At one of the hearings, Smith himself asked why he wasn’t allowed to choose which club he wanted to play for in his parish.

“That’s what he can’t understand,” said his mother. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

[townman]

A Disgrace the way this kid has been treated,

[ryot]

What club does he play his handball with ?

[townman]

Crinkle..............

[ryot]

All I need to know !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[joe bloggs]

This dispute is going on longer than the kid is alive.

I wouldn't expect him to understand the origins of the problem, but mammy running to the papers won't solve it for him to play with birr. I would say she probably knew the situation before he started playing with regard to the boundary, but it seems they chose to ignore it.

[Lone Shark]

This dispute is going on longer than the kid is alive.

I wouldn't expect him to understand the origins of the problem, but mammy running to the papers won't solve it for him to play with birr. I would say she probably knew the situation before he started playing with regard to the boundary, but it seems they chose to ignore it.

There's a serious flaw somewhere here that hasn't been stated. Either the parents of the child knew that he should be hurling with Crinkill and lied to Birr about their address, or else Birr club turned a blind eye, despite knowing the seriousness of the situation, a pretty poor act considering the grief that was gone through to finally come to a resolution on all this. Admittedly Crinkill should be doing a better job of knowing who's in their catchment area or not as well, but for me either the mother or Birr club knowingly broke the rules here. I don't see how both sides can have come this far without at least one of the two being aware of the boundary issue and it's relevance here.

It's sad for the child that it's come this far, but I'm also a little thrown by the "missed 33 days with stress" aspect. Kids have often had to move home and leave all their friends for good and while it's traumatic, a reaction like this would still be uncommon. This child still lives as close to his friends as he ever did, he's just hurling with a different group for a couple of hours a week. I'm not saying he's not upset - teenagers aren't well known for their sense of perspective - but something's not right with that aspect.

[first_touch]

I think you are missing something here LS. The article says sanctions were proposed against the lad. It doesn't say whether these sanctions were imposed but, regardless, he is bound to feel hurt as he felt he was doing nothing wrong and, as he sees it, is being penalised for playing a game he loves. That is his perspective and it's a bit dismissive to say 'teenagers aren't known for their sense of perspective'. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case it is sad to see a young lad feeling upset and stressed for ending up in a situation of which he was not the author.

[townman]

i think this is all bullshit, let the lad hurl in Birr, he has hurl underage with them, look at Ken Casey going about 25 minutes drive down the road to westmeath and play with ST.Lomas, same the time John Kenny went to tullamore from Daingean fair enough it was to play senior . the way it is the lad will be playing nothing which is a shame.

[OffalySorry]

Why dont we just let every good hurler from the parish, be he from crinkill, carrig or birr, hurl for birr. Let the two smaller clubs have all the players who cant make the birr team and have birr win everything. Seems fair alright!

Fair enough its hard on the young lad, but the boundary is the boundary and the GAA isnt soccer. You play for the team where you live, where you grew up and this whole idea of playing for any club you want is nonsense. The GAA needs to, rather unfortunately for the young lad, use this case to lay down a permanent marker over and draw a permanent line under the boundary argument within the parish of St.Brendans..

[Lone Shark]

I think you are missing something here LS. The article says sanctions were proposed against the lad. It doesn't say whether these sanctions were imposed but, regardless, he is bound to feel hurt as he felt he was doing nothing wrong and, as he sees it, is being penalised for playing a game he loves. That is his perspective and it's a bit dismissive to say 'teenagers aren't known for their sense of perspective'. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case it is sad to see a young lad feeling upset and stressed for ending up in a situation of which he was not the author.

I'm not blaming the child at all. I'm saying that either the child's parents, or Birr club, are to blame. Either the parents deliberately misled Birr into thinking that the child was eligible to hurl for them, or the club knew he wasn't and let him hurl anyway when they should have directed him to Crinkill. There is no possible scenario that I can imagine where one of these two things hasn't happened.

It is sad to see a young player upset and I am completely cognisant of the fact that a teenager may be turned off the sport as a consequence of this. However you can't get rid of rules and regulations just to spare feelings, the whole association would come crumbling down if we started to act by that ethos.

[Plain of the Herbs]

What am I missing here?

The Crinkill club reformed in 1981 and they and Birr came to an agreement over the border between the two clubs. There already is agreement with Carrig & Riverstown over the border between Birr and C&R (the Little Brosna River) with C&R considered a separate parish.

All goes well for many years – Crinkill don’t have numbers, were Junior ‘C’ until 1992 and Junior until 2001. The often didn’t have enough numbers for underage teams and the few teenagers who played hurling did so legally with Birr under county bye-law.

By degrees there is a population shift from Birr Town out to Crinkill as many who grew up in Birr settled in the Village. There is a renewed interest in hurling in the Village and a pitch and dressing rooms are developed. Crinkill win the Junior ‘A’ and go on to spend a decade in Intermediate grade.

As the underage scene developed, Crinkill enter an arrangement with C&R to form CRC Gaels. Birr cry foul, claiming CRC Gaels is illegally constituted as C&R is, by agreement, another parish (see above).

After a drawn out process, Birr and Crinkill reach agreement that a hurler resident in Crinkill could play with Birr if his father played with Birr. Cynics argue that this means those with a hurling pedigree could play successfully with Birr while the dregs could stay out of the way in Crinkill.

So what of the future? CRC Gaels are putting alot of good work into their underage. Last year’s Minor ‘B’ Final was a real quality game, CRC beating Lusmagh by a single point. In doing so CRC succeeded Birr as Minor ‘B’ champions. CRC’s U14s also reached a Final last year, beaten by Shamrocks by a single point. They look set to grow and develop.

Currently Birr are restricted to the built-up area of theTown. There are no houses out either the Banagher or Kilcormac roads (where the Drumcullen border comes quite close to the town). Neither are there houses out the Kinnitty or Clareen roads beyond Syngfield Cross, while the Roscrea Road is Crinkill’s under the 1981 agreement, and Riverstown is considered another parish under agreement.

Yesterday's 'Daily Cork', in another article by John Fogarty, reported Birr had spent €20,000 on their legal bill on foot of the issue. That's alot of cash, alot of hurls, balls and the like.

Now, there are several clubs who struggle with a shortage of numbers. Drumcullen often have been unable to field underage teams in recent years and have joined with Clareen when necessary. Ballyskenagh-Killavilla haven’t featured at underage for some time. There is currently a class in Lusmagh NS which consists entirely of girls – there are no boys in that particular year. That’s life in Ireland in the times we live in, and we deal with it as best we can.

There was an interesting quote from Peter Dooley in this week’s Tribune. Discussing why he chose rugby over hurling he said “The hurling annoyed me sometimes. You go down to training sometimes and there would be five or six there, then more would come 10 minutes late and I would just be thinking, no, this isn’t for me.”

Have Birr entered into an agreement which could threaten their existence? Can the offspring of the golden era continue to support Birr hurling? Shorn of numbers, will Birr eventually have to join with CRC? Or with Crinkill?

[kinnittyman]

1. St Brendan's Park
2. Border issue with Crinkle
3. Hurling
4. Football.

Birr's priorities are pretty mixed up at the moment.

[joe bloggs]

One big loophole waiting to be exploited here.

Let the young lads father tog out for birr this year. Throw him on for the last minute of the game and hey presto he is now qualified as the son of a birr player

[puzzled]

A Disgrace the way this kid has been treated,

Agree completely with you Townman this Kid has been treated terribly and for me the ones who have treated him worse than anyone is the Birr GAA club.
Birr know very well who is legal to play with their teams and who is not.
As far as I can see this player has been used as a guinea pig by Birr to see if they could get away with playing one illegal player and therefore open the flood gates to take whoever they wanted from the crinkle catchment area.
The rules are there for every club and its not good enough that Birr seem to think that they are above the rules.