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You are > Home > Supple is GAA’s God-send
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Supple is GAA’s God-send
Awards ceremonies dominate the GAA calendar over the winter months.
Clubs hold their dinner dances. All-Ireland champions are toasted numerous times and star players pick up All-Star and Player of the Year awards.
One young man who won’t feature this year among club or All-Ireland celebrations but who may well do so in the coming years is someone who is relatively unknown in the GAA.
For the past few years, he hasn’t been playing Gaelic games.
The story of 22-year-old Shane Supple, a Dublin native who decided to quit professional soccer, has generated enormous interest.
After all, he had a professional contract.
He was living the dream.
He was making a very good living out of a sport he loved.
But in the world of professional soccer, Supple is a rare breed in the modern game a person of real depth.
As wages have spiralled in the game, so too has the distance between the player and the fan. They think and live in different worlds.
However, Supple is a breath of fresh air.
He thinks like the fan.
Though the admiration for professional soccer players is global, a perception exists of not so much begrudgery, but the perception from the man on the ground that the soccer players’ life exists in a fantasy land only.
We cannot get our heads around the fact that on a Friday evening when a professional soccer player plying his trade in the UK keys in his pin number at the pass machine, a five-digit figure appears. And that’s just one week’s wages.
The rest of us look at a three-figure digit and after all the bills are paid for, it’s a pretty slim one at that.
Supple could have set himself up for life financially in a few years.
He was a championship player with Ipswich Town.
Even if he never made it into the Premiership, he was looking at a weekly wage in the coming years average around £10,000 a week.
But things had been building in his head for some time. He made a statement in an interview recently that confirmed what many of us already thought “some players didn’t even care if we won or not.” In other words, they were in it for the money.
To win was a bonus, but the core principle of sport had been lost as the majority of players got caught up in the fantasyland of professional soccer.
Supple wants to play for Dublin.
He has his eyes set on playing for the Dubs in Croke Park in front of 80,000 people.
He misses Ireland, his friends, the GAA and the friends he has made through the GAA.
In a sense, whether he carves out a successful career or not, Shane Supple has already become the GAA’s lifeline, or better still an ambassador that is beyond valuation.
Before the economy started to fall asunder in this country, there was a growing feeling at grassroots level in the GAA that too many were making too much money from their involvement, many of whom wouldn’t be missed if they retired in the morning.
When times were good, everyone wanted a slice of every cake being passed around.
And rightly or wrongly, though nobody ever begrudges a player any perk for his commitment, things had started to get a bit out of hand.
Quite a few players had personal matters looked after for them an extension to their house paid for, a hefty fine for an assault looked after, that kind of stuff.
One or two benefitted through the form of a site to transfer clubs.
While some will say that at least Supple had a few years of ‘good money’, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the majority of players would not walk away from the game even if they were unhappy.
The man who would say that he would hand in his notice from a £10k a week job, and in doing so take a weekly pay cut in the region of 95 per cent to take up a normal job like the rest of us would be the sort fond of telling fibs.
We can only hope that Shane Supple is playing in next year’s championship.
His presence alone will do much for the association.
The GAA will not need to defend how it has kept the association amateur at a time when it is constantly to be found contradicting themselves. They’ll only have to point to Shane Supple.
Officials at national level no doubt will make reference to Shane Supple again and again. The old clichéd message of the GAA: ‘it’s all about the honour of playing for the county.
Money is not an issue’ could feature on ad campaigns alongside Supple’s image.
Tadhg Kennelly left a professional Australian Rules contract to return to the GAA but the son of the late Tim Kennelly had spent almost a decade playing at the highest level.
The injuries were mounting.
He had a nice few quid earned and his decision to return was based on his desire to win an All-Ireland with Kerry rather than being disillusioned with the game.
If Shane Supple’s name was only Shane O’Supple, we could call him the GAA’s SOS.
He could in a way ensure the GAA’s ship will never sink. He has become the unofficial captain of a vessel that only needs to play and not preach to spread the gospel for the GAA.
For love and town and village, to represent your own people, the sheer thrill of playing an amateur game for all its original pleasures, principles and traditions.
That GAA language was beginning to sound like a broken record. Not anymore.
The GAA has landed a gem.
And what’s even more pleasing for the association, the lure of the GAA was too great for him to ignore even though he was making a great living in another sport.
He probably would have gone on to play a game of soccer in Croke Park.
But he’d be a lot happier to play a game of football there for free.
And finally...
My preferred comedies are Only Fools and Horses and The Royle Family but now and again I like to sample some tabloid nonsense on the internet.
We are now in the early stages of hearing how England are going to win the World Cup.
Of course, a debate has started over whether or not David Beckham should be included in the 23-man squad for the finals in South Africa.
Eight out of ten sportswriters in one newspaper felt Beckham should be picked on the squad.
But the most common sense opinion I came across went as follows: “I’m sick of hearing how it would be great to see Beckham equalling the greats by playing in four World Cups. He has flopped in the three he has played in...so obviously he deserves to play in a fourth.”
If England win the World Cup with David Beckham and David James in the squad, I’ll get onto a bank to request it frees up one of those repossessed helicopters for a day so that I can fly to England to congratulate both players personally.
There’s a better chance of Bertie Ahern endorsing lie detector products than there is of those two players winning a World Cup medal!
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