GAA MUMS:Mothers of GAA football players are no longer confining their support to providing taxi services, making sandwiches and laundering kit. Now they're hitting the pitch, and playing the game themselves. AINE KERRmeets some of the women taking part in Gaelic4Mothers
MUMS, IN THEIR TAXI-driver role, used to roll up at the local GAA pitstop, offload excited kids clad head-to-toe in football paraphernalia, before taking to the side-lines in quiet encouragement. Often, they provided flasks of tea and customary ham sandwiches for road-side picnics. Regularly, they volunteered to surrender their clothes line to 20-odd small jerseys.
But everything isn’t as it was. Mum’s taxi still rolls up to the local GAA pitstop, but the on-demand driver is often kitted out in training attire and brimming with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation before the sound of the first whistle. Often, the mothers are being offered end of match tea and biscuits. Regularly, they are surrendering their clothes line to 20-odd ladies’ jerseys.
These mothers are part of a countrywide movement in which more than 6,000 women are participating in Gaelic4Mothers teams developed by the Ladies’ Gaelic Football Association (LGFA). And tomorrow four of the teams will partake in exhibition games at half-time in the All-Ireland Ladies’ Football Final in Croke Park.
THE EXPERT COACH
A massive charm offensive and some relentless promotion drew 15 women, among them a 57-year-old first timer, to the initial Monday night training session of the Four Roads club in Ballyforan, Ballinasloe, Co Roscommon with local PE teacher Mary Grehan (40) last May. Some of the women arrived in gear borrowed from husbands and children. Posters in shop windows, mentions in local newsletters, and letters sent home in children’s homework copy books stirred support. Within two weeks, 40 mothers were turning out for the training sessions, each driven by a shared desire to play GAA for the first time. The impressive number of participants became a source of envy as county and local clubs trained in smaller numbers nearby.
The coach promises tea and biscuits at the end of every hour-long training session. “Our youngest players are in their early twenties and our oldest player is 57. She cycles to training, five miles, every Monday,” Grehan says. Another two women travel more than 70km from Dromod, Co Leitrim to Roscommon and then back again every week. Their effort is typical of the dynamic and can-do spirit of the new club of mothers.
Among the early recruits was mother of five Orla Cummins. Four of her children are enthusiastic members of under-11 club sides. Cummins, who is originally from Dublin, says she was regarded as a “blow-in” before football helped build local allegiances. “A lot of us would have known each other to see from driving past or meeting at matches, but I didn’t really know who they were . . . I know an awful lot more of them now,” she says.
As is required under the official Gaelic4Mothers programme, the women first followed a six-week training schedule covering the basics skills and fitness drills, while focusing on the concept of fun, rather than competitiveness.
Grehan, a former camogie and football player whose brothers Tommy and Francie are Roscommon county players, ruled herself out of a dual player-trainer role. She blames her competitive streak. “On the first night, I explained to the girls it was my dream to coach them and take them to Croke Park. They laughed and said ‘ah now Mary’,” she says. “I’m a PE teacher; I’ve coached under-21s, local teams and school teams. I’ve been coaching since I was 21, but taking a group to Croke Park as coach is special.”
THE MEN AMONGST WOMEN
The responsibility for training the mothers in Erin’s Own, Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny falls to Andrew Korff and Keith Normoyle. Their wives are among the 65 women who tog out every week. Josephine Holland, Kay Brennan and Georgina Smyth break into collective laughter when asked about the husbands training the wives. “There’s a lot of slagging and good banter, but Andy and Keith are very fair. They give them the same treatment,” says mother of two Holland.
Korff doesn’t mind the jibes and digs, but he remains ever serious about the job at hand. As a former Australian Rules player who coached Sydney’s Irish Australians Ladies Gaelic Football Team and set up a similar team in Adelaide, he can claim to know and understand ladies’ football. And he knows what it’s like to coach his wife Bernie since their time in Australia. Multiple competitive matches every Sunday was the norm for the coach and player.
That hasn’t transferred to this county, which isn’t exactly famous for its footballing prowess. “Obviously, in Adelaide and Sydney, it’s taken more seriously. Here, the guidelines for Gaelic4Mothers are to keep it fun, concentrate on fitness, and to make it social. That’s still the ethos,” he says.
At training, where there has been an “incredible improvement” in skill levels, the women often fall into two groups: those that want to get fit and play games and those who want to concentrate on learning the skills.
THE DIE-HARD
But there are die-hards in the ranks of Gaelic4Mothers, intent on maintaining regular and intensive training sessions, regardless of an impending date with Croke Park.
Tallaght-based club Thomas Davis trains three times a week. One session takes in the major fitness booster and calorie burner that is spinning. Mother of three Paula McGuigan, like most others, had never soloed a ball, never fist-passed, and never made a bee-line for the goalmouth until 2009. But for three nights every week, she is a proud GAA mother.
In an effort to put her newly-acquired skills and player instincts to the test, after only six weeks kicking a ball, McGuigan was one of 20 mothers who agreed to a charity match against a local rival club. Their success in raising €1,500 for charity, and ultimately emerging victorious, buoyed the new team.
“Two years later, we’ve only ever lost one match,” McGuigan says. “But even still, there was one girl who scored her first goal a few weeks back and that was a massive deal, a great moment.”
Through summer holidays and wintery September nights, they’ve continued to train, with Croke Park and a national blitz in sight. Only in the aftermath of these ventures will McGuigan start thinking about a luxury spa break that the mothers have treated themselves to – as a team-building exercise, of course.
THE FAST LEARNER
Mother of two Siobhan MacMahon can empathise with the competitive tendencies and bursting enthusiasm of mothers who have been newly introduced to Gaelic football. While many of the women are perfectly content to remain within the ranks of Gaelic4Mothers, MacMahon has progressed to first team competitive football with Scoil Uí Chonaill in Clontarf, Dublin 3.
She holds her place as corner-back in league, cup and championship matches, having only started playing football for the first time three years ago at the age of 40. At the time of her GAA debut, she was helping to coach under-sevens, under-eights and under-nines boys’ teams.
“Six or seven mothers thought it would make sense to start playing. We were down at the club anyway . . . and when we started out, it was hilarious, such good fun. The likes of soloing was a joke, but everything was just very easy and very relaxed,” MacMahon says. “It was my time, an outlet. I used to dance out the door going to training.”
New babies, increased work commitments and people moving home meant the number of mothers attending trainings trailed off after a year. Today, MacMahon is the sole survivor from the original team of mothers among Scoil Uí Chonaill’s B Team. “In the beginning, I was conscious that I was that bit older. I definitely had to adjust. A lot of them were young girls, but that wasn’t going to stop me,” she says.
THE CO-ORDINATORS
Organisation of weekly training sessions and match transport takes place in playgrounds, at school gates, via text messages and on Facebook. Overseeing that precision planning with Tír na nÓg in Randalstown, Co Antrim is Helen McCormack, who holds the dual responsibilities of team co-ordinator and player. Her organisation abilities are tested before every training session when three of her four children pile into the car, alongside the footballs, bibs, cones, jerseys and water bottles. Mother and children then make their way to their individual training sessions.
“Before, like the other mothers, it was the usual thing of making sandwiches and bringing kids to matches. That was the total input of a lot of mothers who were involved, but not playing,” McCormack says. “Our training always lasts longer than the children’s. It’s such fun, we play on and then we might be standing around and having a chat afterwards.”
The story plays out the same in Erin’s Own in Castlecomer, where the mothers make buns and cakes for their post-match think-ins. The high-spirited team has also been known to gather in a local pub.
Kay Brennan, who claims people laughed when they heard she was involved because she was “never sporty”, makes it clear she’s only in it for the social life. Tomorrow, she will take up position in Croke Park, albeit in a seat in the stadium where she can watch her fellow players run around for 20 minutes.
“I’ll also be part of the homecoming team,” she laughs. “I’ll be the one wearing the crazy hat and holding a big flag and I’ll be egging them on. I’m just not competitive. I like the partying and the fun, but I’ll be as proud as any woman when they walk out on to Croke Park. I’ll have the children revved up for them.”
For McCormack, this weekend she’ll be leaving the bibs, cones, water bottles, jerseys and first-aid kits behind in Antrim. She need only worry about organising a bus for the travelling supporters. “We’ve been told to just bring our boots. Everything else is being supplied,” she says, with nervous laughter.
All the while, the relatives have mixed emotions. Many will be accompanying the women to Croke Park this weekend, in part awe and part excitement. Some of the men are seasoned GAA players, having blazed their way through the junior, intermediate and senior ranks, but have never played on the Croke Park field of dreams. “A lot of the men can’t get over us going to Croke Park, after training for only weeks,” jokes Mary Grehan. “There’s great rivalry with the husbands. They’re all giving out.”
While Croke Park became a short-term goal and training focus for some, there has always been a greater driving passion and long-term venture for everyone concerned. They’ve written team songs together, taken turns washing jerseys, progressed to running marathons together, and persuaded each other to keep going when they thought they had no more to give.
And they’ve been there for each other in times of celebrations and commiserations. “I’ve made friends for life out of this. We have good friendships. It’s not that we’re in each other ears all the time, but when anyone needs help, we’re there,” says Josephine Holland. “There’s a great network of women in the club. We celebrate, we commiserate together. We’re there for each other.”
“The sense of comradeship is infectious,” says Georgina Smyth, from the time the mothers get on a bus to a match until they wave their last goodbyes.
Building that sense of team and community spirit has been the aim of the GAA initiative. Helen O’Rourke, head of the LGFA, says the Gaelic4Mothers structure means that a girl can start playing football now at four or five years of age, in the knowledge she can play for as long as she wants. For Kay Brennan, there has been one clear definitive outcome: “The roles have been reversed. People used to say that behind every good man is a good woman. Now it’s behind every good woman, there’s a good man because they’re all having to make the Sunday dinners when we’re off playing.”
