The Dublin Strategic Plan was launched recently amid much fanfare and ontheroad contrasts this development with the fate that befell the Mayo GAA Draft Strategic Action Plan that was produced earlier this year. Resting on my table waiting to be read and devoured is James Laffey’s excellent book “The Road to 51”. Beside it sits a pamphlet called Unleashing the […]
A golden era for Gaelic football in Connacht occurred between 1936 and 1956 and I’m delighted to welcome ontheroad back into the guest slot where he reflects on this success-filled epoch for the West. “I pity the poor immigrant…” sang Bob Dylan many years ago. Sometimes the immigrant didn’t need the pity. He might have been glad of the […]
The 2011 championship is now one for the football historians and ontheroad has included the destination of this year’s title in this statistical analysis of All-Irelands won and lost since 1980. All-Ireland finals and Kerry go hand in hand. They either win them or occasionally lose one. We tend to see them on one side of the ledger and […]
After yesterday’s defeat, we now need to look to the future. Here’s ontheroad with some thoughts on what we achieved in 2010 and where we go from here. Willie Joe will do the forensics and I will loiter at the scene of the crime. Before the Cork game James Horan said he looked forward to that game. It would tell […]
The state of football in Connacht has been the topic of critical comment by many in the media this summer. Ontheroad returns to the guest slot to give his thoughts on the issue. If you say it often enough then you start to believe it. “Connacht football is shit” we hear. “Connacht football is junk bond status” we are told. […]
Sunday’s enormously uplifting win over Cork has, I’m sure, come to mean different things to different people. Here’s ontheroad with his perspective on it. They say that only 126 pairs of corncrakes are left in the country. As a kid my night-time sleep was induced by the corncrake that lived in the bottom of our field. He was as much […]
As he revealed in the comments a little earlier on today, ontheroad is just back from Medjugorje but, man of many talents that he is, he composed this topical piece before he left. His wife walks in and hands him the freshly ironed towel. Folding it he places the towel on top of his little black bag. Finally with a […]
Our championship ambitions for 2011 would seem to stretch no further than a possible provincial title and the need to avoid embarrassment if and when we make it to Croke Park. If this is truly our aim for this year, it’s worth reminding ourselves, as ontheroad does here in his latest appearance on the guest slot, that we weren’t always […]
I’m delighted to welcome back into the guest slot ontheroad who sets out some evocative memories of the first major championship clash he attended – against Galway, who else? – at McHale Park slightly more than a few years ago. Our green Morris Minor nicknamed Lizzy motored towards Castlebar. Lizzy’s registration number was LIZ 249. She had a shiny bottle […]
Back into the guest slot comes ontheroad who casts a critical eye on the baneful influence that the Catholic Church has had down the years on the footballing careers of its own student priests. For men who at times almost single handedly kept the fires of the GAA alive, the bishops had an almost schizophrenic view on its own student […]