Kelly's lasting legacy

Sean Kelly's term as GAA President will be forever associated with the opening of Croke Park to other sports but the Kerryman will also be remembered for bringing small clubs on to the big stage.

The late Bertie Coleman from Dunmore MacHales was the primary driving force behind the creation of the provincial and All-Ireland club championships in hurling and football back in the early 1970s. Those competitions have grown into a major fixture in the GAA calendar.

What Kelly did was extend these competitions from senior to intermediate and junior.

As a result, at the weekend you had Moycullen winning a Connacht intermediate football crown and will now go on to contest the All-Ireland series after Christmas.

St Colman's from Gort, a hurling stronghold, picked up the Connacht junior football title while Sylane, nestled in north Galway football territory, won the Connacht junior hurling crown.

The boost these provincial crowns ? not to mention if they reach the All-Ireland finals which will be played at Croke Park ? must give to these clubs is immeasurable.

Kelly ? currently not flavour of the month with the GAA hierarchy as they reckon he is revealing too much in books and newspapers ? did not just open up Croke Park to other sports, he opened it up to the small clubs of the GAA.

The only time a hurler from Sylane or a footballer from Gort would get into Croke Park before Kelly's time was if they paid at the turnstile.

Now they can win their way there. That's a fair legacy.

A Story Worth Telling

It might not make the burgeoning Christmas book market but one worth watching out for in the coming months will be a biography of former Galway footballer Sean Og de Paor.

It will be published, in the Irish language, by Cló Iar-Chonnachta in Inverin and will be the first real insight into the All-Ireland wins of 1998 and 2001.

The Carraroe clubman, who first burst on the scene with St Jarlath's College, Tuam, is one of the most talented footballers Galway has produced.

When you think about it, given the number of sports books now coming off the conveyor belt, it is a wonder that the story of how Galway came from nowhere to win the '98 All-Ireland has not been told before by the guys involved.

That looks set to be rectified with the publication of Sean Og's story, which will be eagerly awaited by all sports fans and not just the GAA.

Idle Pitches, Idle Minds

The arrival of some bad weather has taken its toll on pitches in all codes but it would seem that it is some old-fashioned bureaucracy with our State bodies which is resulting in a shortage of rugby pitches for young people in the city.