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Sunny side up for the GAA majority

There was a great Fast Show sketch satirising one of the Johnny Come Lately English soccer supporters who battened on to the game when it became socially acceptable in the aftermath of Euro '96. Trying to bond with a couple of proletarians in a pub, our hero informed them that he was an Arsenal fan. "I used to be a Spurs fan," he revealed, "but they didn't win enough so I switched to Arsenal instead."

It is an article of faith that no such followers inhabit the GAA. We are assured ad nauseam that your average follower of Gaelic football and hurling is a uniquely fanatical individual, one whose love for his county has been inherited from the generations which came before him and will never die.

Unfortunately, there's evidence that this isn't exactly true. In fact, the GAA's crowds, impressive though they are, seem to contain a huge amount of sunshine supporters. In his report to Congress, the Association's financial director Tom Ryan pointed out that 23 per cent of receipts from the 2007 championships came from just six games played in August and September. Given that there were 91 matches played in the championships, this indicates that many fans only tog out on the very biggest occasions.

The huge crowds at the business end of the season make overall championship attendances look very impressive indeed. The average championship crowd of 19,274 in 2007 would place the competition tenth among sports leagues worldwide, just ahead of the Japanese soccer league and just behind French soccer's Ligue 1. It's an astoundingly impressive statistic.

And also an essentially false one. Here's the rub. Factor in national league attendances and the overall picture would be much less impressive. And, to be fair, you would have to factor in national league attendances if you were to get a true picture of the devotion of GAA fans.

There is, after all, no sporting association in the world which would regard as true fans those who attend, at most, four or five games a season. Those Japanese and French soccer supporters are turning out most weeks of the year.

There have been some pitiful attendances this year in the championships. (Fermanagh's 14,500 gate against Monaghan bucked the trend but then the Lakelanders are rivalled only by Leitrim for loyalty).

The 1,700 who went to the Limerick-Tipperary football match in Fermoy last week equates to about eight people per club in those counties. Just 2,196 souls troubled themselves with the Waterford-Clare game in Ennis but perhaps worst of all was the 3,900 crowd at the Dublin-Westmeath, Offaly-Laois double-header in O'Moore Park.

After all, if you were a 30-year-old Offaly fan, you'd have seen the hurlers win three All-Irelands and reach another three finals. Croke Park would have been packed on those days with spectators swearing eternal loyalty to the Faithful County, the streets clogged on homecoming nights. Yet, only eight years after their last All-Ireland final appearance, Offaly can't muster more than a handful of those followers.

Pointing out that Offaly are currently in decline or that Tipperary footballers were never great anyway merely allies you with our friend from the Fast Show.

You'd wonder if all the hyped up match-day behaviour of the jester's hat-wearing, Bulmers-swigging, flag-waving hordes who attend the big championship matches has its roots in a suspicion of their own phoniness. Because going to four matches a year is not the stuff of fanatical supporters.

Even Cork's famous hurling fans don't make it to all the games. There might have been 36,252 spectators at the Munster semi-final against Waterford last year but Cork and Tipp between them mustered 12,833 for an important qualifier, also in Thurles. Not a bad crowd but more evidence that the fans who make all of the matches are outnumbered by those who pick and choose.

The core GAA audience is pretty much what it always has been. Onto the bandwagon have come people for whom an All-Ireland semi-final or final is just another day out, another version of Witnness or Slane Castle.

Last week Sunshine Boy was a Manchester United fan. This week it's Munster rugby. In the summer, he'll be a GAA man. But not until then.

The National League? The qualifiers? Never heard of them.

Excellent post BNM. This has being sticking in my craw for a number of years now. I know every County has the infamous sunshine supporters but I can only talk about our own. Next Saturday every Tom, Dick and Harry will be in Tullamore shouting for the faithful wearing their silly hats and mouthing off and slagging the players if they make a mistake of any sort. When we go out of the championship this year, in both football and hurling they will crawl back for the winter and spring watching the premiership on a Sunday afternoon when our senior hurlers and footballers are ploughing through muck and shite trying to get a couple of points with just the usual few diehards there behind them all the way. Im not going to drone on about this but to 98 per cent of our support next Saturday night, where the hell were ye when our hurlers played Down last January in Darver and Antrim in early February in Belfast in a monsoon in the Walsh cup final or our footballers on a similar night in Belfast on March 1st plus the last game of the league in Ennis against Clare. I rest my case. Bottom line, there are only a handful of true supporters who stick by our teams through thick and thin and most of us know each other by name and sight no problem now. I bet next Saturday night if we were to go down to the dreaded neighbours the 98per cent won't be spotted until at least the first round of the championship next year, providing of course its not too far from the likes of tullamore or Portlaoise.

There's two sides to this - there are supporters who weren't at all those games because they ae day out merchants, and there's nothing you can do about that except to say that when the good days come they won't get nearly the joy out of it that the rest of us will, and then there are those that miss all those days because they are either playing or working with their own club, which is more than fair enough too.

Complaining about bandwagon fans is like complaining about sleeveen Irish politicians or rain showers in May. There's nothing you can do about it and it will always be thus. The small size of our hardcore is another matter. It is kind of ridiculous at this stage that you know exactly who's likely to be at each game, but that's the way it is all too often.

A fella landed in the seat beside me five minutes before the start and announced he was from Edenderry.

He didn’t have a programme, he had one of the referendum canvas cards with both starting XV’s listed.

Anyways, three quarter ways through he asked me who was number 15. “Dolan” sez I, presuming he knew who Niall Mac was, and he from a neighbouring parish. Only he didn’t, and it was Offaly’s number 15 he was asking about! I kid ye not!

Now I wouldn’t mind him not knowing a fella from the west of the county, or a newcomer, but the team’s best forward!! Ah here!! At least we won’t be seeing him for another twelve months!

black and red exile wrote:Excellent post BNM. This has being sticking in my craw for a number of years now. I know every County has the infamous sunshine supporters but I can only talk about our own. Next Saturday every Tom, Dick and Harry will be in Tullamore shouting for the faithful wearing their silly hats and mouthing off and slagging the players if they make a mistake of any sort. When we go out of the championship this year, in both football and hurling they will crawl back for the winter and spring watching the premiership on a Sunday afternoon when our senior hurlers and footballers are ploughing through muck and shite trying to get a couple of points with just the usual few diehards there behind them all the way. Im not going to drone on about this but to 98 per cent of our support next Saturday night, where the hell were ye when our hurlers played Down last January in Darver and Antrim in early February in Belfast in a monsoon in the Walsh cup final or our footballers on a similar night in Belfast on March 1st plus the last game of the league in Ennis against Clare. I rest my case. Bottom line, there are only a handful of true supporters who stick by our teams through thick and thin and most of us know each other by name and sight no problem now. I bet next Saturday night if we were to go down to the dreaded neighbours the 98per cent won't be spotted until at least the first round of the championship next year, providing of course its not too far from the likes of tullamore or Portlaoise.

black and red exile wrote:Excellent post BNM.

That was in the Sindo a couple of weeks ago.
I forgot to put up the link.

Jaysus POTH I have to admire your'e patience. With three quarters of the game gone most of us would have been up to boiling point and to have an idiot like that summertimer asking stupid questions would have turned me over the edge. Again I say, you are blessed with great patience.

Well I suppose that makes me a sunshine supporter then. I may as well not bother my arse turning up in Portlaoise next Sunday as my presence will offend the hard core wind and rain in February in Casement Park crowd. Maybe the sunshine boys have their reasons for not going to every game. I know I have mine, but I don't intend to air them here. Hopefully there will come a day when you see that there are more important and enjoyable things to do at the weekend than drive half the length of the country to follow your county.

I repsect your dedication to your county, and I did it myself for a while, but more serious commitments have overtaken that particular dedication. Anyway, don't assume that we are all like the Edenderry guy that doesn't recognise Niall Mac. Some of us feel the same pain that you guys do and as soon as circumstances allow we will follow our county to the ends of this country (and maybe the odd trip to Ruislip, depending on our league status).

I agree. The reward for being so dedicated is you enjoy and appreciate it more when the good times finally do come. It is not being able to look down your noses at people. We should be encouraging these people. His €20 will pay for a childs hurl in Lusmagh or something!!

As long as they aren't going over the top on the abuse they give to players and management (even though they could be!) then everyone should be welcomed and encouraged.

On the subject of sunshine supporters.....we were outnumbered and outshouted by westmeath supporters from when the teams came out..

lovelyhurling wrote:On the subject of sunshine supporters.....we were outnumbered and outshouted by westmeath supporters from when the teams came out..

Exactly.
Most of us would like to able to go to more matches, but other commitments are bound to get in the way.
But Jaysus if fellas are staying at home scratching themselves for a local derby against Westmeath, there is something wrong.

It's not as if people is Westmeath have more spare time than Offaly folk have!
The populations are roughly the same and they had to travel.
They had far more supporters than we had.
Fair play to the Offaly folk present for at least doing their best to even up the balance!

Just human nature lads.
People are drawn to attractive things.
Good looking women (or men), beautiful scenery, art, whatever.

Westmeath won promotion to Div 1, winning Div 2 and beating the Dubs in the process.

We stuttered out of Div 4.

Just human nature. The die hards are actually the abnormal ones,

there was great talk on this board last week about taking over the middle of the terrace and make some noise. I was in the middle of the terrace and surrounded by westmeath. When offaly came out onto the field last saturday, i was talkin to someone and wasnt looking up...i only realised they were out on the field when westmeath supporters gave a few boos. I know there was an announcement jus b4 offaly came out but there was only really polite applause frm the crowd

I got to my seat about 45 minutes before throw in and at that stage it was full of Westmeath. The Offaly support in general seeemd to pour in late and were frantically searching for seats and this ended up in loads of people that came in together splitting up and taking just what seats were available. This definitely dilluted the (Offaly) atmosphere in the stand..

I'll hold my hand up here and admitthat we weren't as quick off the ball as we should have been. I thought I'd be in loads of time leaving Ferbane at 5, but between a momentary lapse of concentration that meant I forgot to go through the town of Clara and thus avoid the junction at the bridge and the huge crowds parkign way out we weren't in the ground until 6. I genuinely wasn't prepared for so many people being in early. I'd say a lot of people were caught this way as well.

I'm not stupid, I realise people have far more commitments than GAA in their lives and yes it can be quite difficult to get to matches during the year because of one thing or the other but isn't it amazing how all these people who are working or otherwise engaged during the winter or spring are suddenly able to appear on big championship days in the summer and you can bet your bottom dollar most of them won't be seen again until next year's championship once our footballers and hurlers are knocked out. Believe me, I'm not trying to cause a row here but I bet most of you would agree with me.