You are supposed to start each season with hope renewed.
This will be your year. You will gain promotion,win the Championship, avoid relegation, field a team… every club and every team have their own specific goals. Those goals should be what drives you back to training on these dark, cold winter nights, your hopes should be your fuel.
Unfortunately, for the vast majority of GAA players in this country, they are returning this month with a latent frustration bubbling just below the surface.
“Maybe we will gain promotion, but it will take 10 months.”
“Maybe we will win the championship, but nothing we do between January and September will impact on that.”
“Maybe we will avoid relegation, but it would be easier if our county players ever lined out with us.”
‘Maybe we will field a team, but it would help if we knew when we would be playing our next game.”
“There used to be a time when you could play hard, leave it on the field, and carry on with your life…” https://t.co/SzqkBLkNdB
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 6, 2017
The frustrations of the club player are well-documented at this stage but, a topic that tends to make headlines in the silly season before Christmas before being replaced by issues of player burnout and Allianz League action, may actually gain some traction this year.
The Club Players Association will be launched this Monday, January 9th, in Ballyboden. It aims to give a voice to the vast majority of playing members who do not feel they are being heard by the powers that be.
The brainchild of former Monaghan selector Declan Brennan, the CPA will campaign to have some structure put on the calendar and speak out for the majority of the 230,000 playing members.
However since Aaron Kernan revealed the apathy in Crossmaglen to the new organisation on the GAA Hour, there has been a concerted effort to promote the CPA.
There latest #IAmTheMan campaign should strike a chord with hundreds of thousands of players across the country.
Call to action: Register now with the CPA at https://t.co/Do729XHVye We need your help! Please Retweet #FixTheFixtures #IAmTheMan #CPA pic.twitter.com/FSFhdSOteR
— ClubPlayersAssoc (@ClubPlayerAssoc) January 6, 2017
It should strike a chord with anyone who is told they are “the lifeblood of the association” but who feel more often “like the whipping boy”.
It should strike a chord with anyone who cannot tell their employers when they can take their summer holidays.
It should strike a chord with anyone who cannot arrange a weekend away with his wife or partner.
It should strike a chord with anyone who trains through a freezing winter only to sit idle for vast swathes of the summer.
It should strike a chord with anyone who is in someway relieved when his county goes out of the All-Ireland championship because it means he will get to play.
In other words, it should strike a chord with 99% of the GAA’s playing population.
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