Football followers - What could be done to get you interested in Club Hurling

I going to pull a cheeky one and try add a related Gaa topic into the Football forum, as this is where its at. I have a simple proposition for you all. What if anything can or could be done to get you interested, or to follow or even go to club hurling games in Kildare. As a lifelong follower of the small ball I am interested in finding out what stops gaa people in the county from supporting both codes at club level. The Adult Club hurling league finals are on at the weekend over Friday night and Saturday and the Hurling club championship starts next weekend. Do you plan on going to a game ? As a loyal Gaa follower why would you not consider going ? I am interested in hearing peoples views and honest opinions and not causing a row along the way.

Simply prefer football.


Hurling snobbery is a factor too. Hurling people love saying the love promoting the game and the same fellas look down their nose at newcomers/outsiders and johnnycomelatelys.

Maybe that was one bad experience you had rather than a general trend among hurling people? You get arseholes everywhere. Even in hurling.

As a son of a Tipp man living in Kildare I played both football and hurling but had to with 2 different clubs. Back then I often had to choose to play either a hurling or football game. 20 years on nothing has changed. Right from underage up to inter-county I do not think it is possible to play both due to the way fixtures are.

There are very few club teams around the country who have successfully managed to do both and when presented with a choice most players in Kildare will choose football. Standards suffer as a result.

It is a lot easier said than done but if you change fixtures to allow players time to play both the standard of hurling would increase, and possibly football too. If the standard and competition increase people would become more interested and it should have a snowball effect.

Along the same lines, I just not interested in Hurling. I probably watch two matches a year at most. As umpire said, the Hurling fraternity have a superiority complex. There is a definite sense of entitlement.

At the end of the day, Kildare has, is and always will be a football County. That is just the way of it.

Just out of curiousity are you native Kildare.

For the last 10 years Leinster, Munster and Connaught club hurling winners were hurling only clubs with 1 or 2 exception. 2 different field sports cant be played by the same people without a loss of skill.
However I go to some of my club hurling matches but since the introduction of helmets its difficult to recognise players at club level

Rex I cannot agree there. I have never heard this 'entitlement' from hurling people I simply do not understand how people can say that, especially in this county when hurling is the lesser of the two.
I would consider myself an avid follower of both codes, although I played more hurling than football. My family are all kildare people bar one grandparent who was from what we would call a 'hurling county'. My love of hurling certainly would be influenced by this, but tracing the rest of my family they would have had the same stance as myself - support both. One side of my family came from Ardclough which would certainly be a Hurling stronghold, but they too would love football just as much.
Maybe REX you have come across that 'entitlement' view from non-native Kildare settlers but from native kildare people certainly up around here, they would foster a love of both codes. Football of course is the main Kildare game but there are and were great hurling clubs.
Sadly the state of Hurling is in decline, with more and more clubs at juvenile level amalgamating with 3 or 4 clubs to produce single teams!! (bar naas that is)!

First love as a 6/7 year old was hurling. Grandparents from Tipp, uncle was Kildare Hurling chairman and my club Suncroft were county senior champions around '73 with another uncle in goal. But a few years later when I was ready to play the club were no longer playing hurling. Remarkably quick decline. School didn't play either (Patricians). I did go to a few Kildare games as a kid (remember the Leinster semi final when we almost shocked All Ireland finalists Wexford in Athy), but gradually football took over particularly when I started playing it. Rarely attend hurling now particularly as I've lived outside the county all my adult life.

Most people here would gave had their first exposure to GAA with the club and then get brought along to county games. That initial bond is missing with hurling in the county.
Also some clubs are amalgamations and other areas are void of hurling means that the first taste usnt there.
I think the hurling snobbery isnt an issue in the weaker counties but sone think hurling is yhe spirt of yhe gods and dont give enough support to lads in ither counties.
I heard the GAA new hurling man Fogarty from KK say huw easy ot is to be a hurling man where he is from and the real hurling men are the ones in counties playing Lory Meagher amd Christy Ring.

Hurling people in kildare definetly have a chip on the shoulder..a sort of small man syndrome.. even the common use of the term "hurling people" is evidence of this fraternity!!
The only way to generate an interest in it is to go back down to grass roots and into the schools the way celbridge did years ago...in fairness it looks like kildare gaa are trying at that level now..deckie o toole seems to be doing good work promoting it

Rex, Yes I am a native. My love of Hurling comes from my father (Wexford). Have played and been involved with one of the traditional hurling clubs since a child. Both my sons play now for the same club. One of them plays football. My love for Hurling does not cloud my judgement on football. I attend some football games but it does not generate the same degree of passion in me. I find it hard to comprehend in dual clubs why supporters cannot support both codes for their club. Maybe I live in a GAA bubble. I understand where people come from on the Hurling people/Hurling snobbery issue. I think this is driven by a desire to protect the game in the county when it was not always best served by the CB in terms of promotion and funding. It is Kildare GAA after all and not Kildare GFC. With the provision of new coaching resources hopefully the tide has turned. One of the greatest challenges facing hurling in the county is urbanization and rural de-population. Participation rates are falling with the advent of the so-called Super Clubs as eluded to by Lilywhites on tour.

Ogie, perhaps its repeated exposure to the same few arseholes in my case !!

Ogie, Every Club has them and their hard to shake.

Rex, All counties have the responsibility to promote the 4 codes of the GAA and should be held to account if they don't. Simple as that. I would not condone that behavior for one moment. From my experience Hurling in the county is ready to embrace anyone and everyone prepared to get involved as there is plenty of work to go around. Is your club a dual club ? If it was would you actively support the hurling team as well as football ? From my experiencing in talking to people involved with Hurling in football dominated clubs they often feel marginalized, as if they are getting in the way. As a hurling man, I can say without fear of contradiction I would put Kildare winning Sam ahead of winning the Christy Ring cup. No question at all.

umpireonditch wrote:

Ogie, perhaps its repeated exposure to the same few arseholes in my case !!

:-)

Hurlerbehindtheditch wrote:

Rex, All counties  have the responsibility to promote the 4 codes of the GAA and should be held to account if they don't. Simple as that. I would not condone that behavior for one moment. From my experience Hurling in the county is ready to embrace anyone and everyone prepared to get involved as there is plenty of work to go around. Is your club a dual club ? If it was would you actively support the hurling team as well as football ? From my experiencing in talking to people involved with Hurling in football dominated clubs they often feel marginalized, as if they are getting in the way. As a hurling man, I can say without fear of contradiction I would put Kildare winning Sam ahead of winning the Christy Ring cup. No question at all.

It's hard not to feel that if you're from anywhere apart from around eight counties? And let's face it, the national association conveys that message by running off the Christy Ring etc as a blitz and ensures county hurlers from those counties have no hurling in the summer. But that, of course, is for the clubs!! They are some chancers up there.

Furthering Ogie's point about the contempt the GAA generally has for the weaker hurling counties... A few years ago I went to Kildare's Christy Ring final against Kerry, the first hurling game I'd ever been to. I thought it was a brilliant achievement when they won. Then the next day I find out to secure promotion they have to play against Wesmeath a week later!!

Interesting reading Michael Duignan's book - when he was managing the Meath hurlers, he wrote a letter to various people in the county looking to raise funds. Gerry McEntee's cheque came back with a note saying, by the way, there shouldn't be any hurling in Meath. Duignan said the whole experience left him wondering if the GAA might be better consolidating hurling in the traditional bases rather trying to grow it in new counties. This is what you're up against.

If the hurlers played double bills with the footballers during the league, it would do a huge amount to grow the game here. Ditto ladies football. Good luck making any of that happen.

I play / have played both and go to both hurling and football matches regularly. what annoys me is the round of football league matches the day after the hurling league finals and the round originally scheduled for the day after the first hurling championship round. These give the impression that hurling is an afterthought

The reality of it is that with our population, one of the largest in the country, we should we a top 5 side in both football and hurling. Lots of blow ins into this county seem to have more interest in the soccer / rugby. Personally i have no time for either

Gaaman, Unfortunately it is all too easy to come to that conclusion when all the evidence points in that direction. Take this weekend for example. The four Senior Championship preliminary round games took place. Two games in Hawkfield and Two in Conleths. First game at 1:30 and last game at 6:15pm. So if you wanted to see the first game and the last game you had a three and a half hour wait and too different venues to pay into. Four games in Newbridge on the Derby weekend, Two games in Conleths on the same day as the Senior Footballers meet and greet with no parking to be had at the ground. Are the County Board actively trying to discourage people from going to games?