It might still be a few days yet until the portly lad in the red suit does his rounds but Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring today got in on the act a bit early when he announced that Mayo GAA will get €200,000 from the 2012 Sports Capital Programme. In all, 32 national and regional sports projects were today granted a total of just over €5 million from the Programme and the funding allocated to Mayo GAA is for  improvement work on two training pitches beside McHale Park.

Full details on the funding allocations announced today are available here.