Keiap wrote:This is not an issue about birr vs tullamore, it is an issue about the demise of hurling in South Offaly..I think it's laughable that both bord ma Mona man and lone shark are so evidently against rejuvenating interest in the hurling population of South Offaly,there is nobody asking for Offaly championship games to be played in birr as tullamore is a top class facility capable of holding huge numbers but the argument of "giving up" home advantage by playing league games in birr is crazy..tullamore has been hosting county finals/league games since 07 so anybody involved in a county set up has been playing in o'connor park consistently for the past 8years so I don't think that if they played 1 or 2 league games in birr the surroundings of o'connor park would be alien to them come Leinster championship. In fact the opposite is true when you consider "home advantage" is playing in front of 750-1000 people in a stadium that can probably hold 15,000 and that is virtually empty, why do limerick,Waterford and Wexford frequently play their league games is smaller county venues only to maximise their levels of support and give their players psychological lift.i have played for Offaly in both grounds and running out on to o'connor park in front of your home crowd with attendances of 700/800 people can be demoralising for players. Birr gaa club have got their affairs in order and the grounds are a credit to their work but all they are doing is providing a facility which we the people of South Offaly need as a hurling population going forward.if something is broken you would try to fix it and that is certainly true in the case of Offaly hurling so I can't understand how genuine Offaly people will not row in and lend their support to effect a change and hopefully turn things around instead of using their influence in the media to spread negative views that only creates a divide in the hurling population. Offaly's epitaph will read "could of done more" so why aren't we exhausting every possible avenue Available to us.if it doesn't work bringing thd games back to birr fair enough at least we tried!
I won't lie, I find that post hugely hypocritical - witness the parts in bold. Nothing has made me more frustrated than this idea that there is a subset of people within Offaly that constitute the hurling community, and that there are others who are just outsiders looking in, with no entitlement to an equal voice. The only divide in Offaly is the one that some people perceive to exist around the Blue Ball, and it sure as hell is not something that I would ever, or have ever, perpetuated.
If there is a case to be made for the fact that Offaly teams might get better results in Birr, then make it - and the point about the crowds is a legitimate one. All I've ever looked to do on that issue is get clear numbers on the actual number of people who will go to games in Birr, because based on the club's historical returns, it's nothing like I read on here.
However this idea that "South Offaly" needs, or wants, or deserves anything is a load of horseschyte. Why do the kids of Birr, Clareen and Kinnitty deserve big hurling games on their doorstep, but the kids of Tullamore, Mucklagh and Ballinamere don't? If anything you could say that the Birr area had a 100 year head start, and the rest is only catching up now. I am certainly not against the idea of "rejuvenating interest in the hurling population of South Offaly", I just can see the futility in arguing about which part of Offaly deserves extra advantages.
As far as I'm concerned, it's as simple as this - when it comes to Offaly GAA, there is no South Offaly, or North Offaly, or West Offaly. There is only Offaly, and if something has a chance of serving the greater good, then by all means lets have it. But leave the parish pump stuff at home.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.