An Irish mum has told of her three children’s heartbreak over how competitive GAA games have become.
The mum told RSVP LIve that she put her son and two daughters into hurling and camogie when they were young children but over the past four years has realised that to some coaches of underage teams, winning is the most important thing to them.
Her three children are more often than not left on the sidelines and only get to play five minutes a match.
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While the mum understands that sport is competitive, she believes that all children should be given equal opportunities on the pitch because at the end of the day, exercise and socialising with their friends is more important than winning.
She said: “My eldest daughter is now 15 and started camogie when she was five and she loved it.
“She wouldn’t have been the best on the team but that didn’t bother me, I just wanted her to have fun in a team sport.
“I noticed when she was on the U10 team exactly how competitive it was becoming.
“All sport is competitive, I get that, but I could see how important winning was for the coaches. Everyone likes to win but it shouldn’t be at the forefront of it all.”
A few years later when Covid hit, the now teenager couldn’t wait to get back training with her friends after lockdown, especially because she started first year in school and had been spending a lot of time at home.
“Camogie started again when things started opening up a little bit. She was really excited to go back and see her friends, because for her it was about the social aspect, not so much the competitive element.
“But I started noticing at matches that she and some of the other girls weren’t getting the chance to play.
“In one instance, coaches pulled three girls up from the U12 team to play even though they had multiple girls from the U14 just waiting to play on the sidelines.
“She ended up giving up camogie because she just wasn’t happy with how things were going. This meant she was no longer friends with the girls she was in primary school with. I feel she has really missed out.”
The mum’s middle child is now 13 and loves hurling, and while he gets on the pitch for matches every now and again, she says “it’s never equal”.
“He’s always thrown on for the last five minutes, he is always a sub. His coaches go on as if these kids are playing for senior teams.
“After lockdown he wasn’t getting to play games, but they said it was all to do with age, that they play the older players first. But surely, it’s not a kid's fault if they are younger or older than their teammates.
“I spoke to the trainers about it and was told he’s not strong enough. I told them he is a kid and he won’t get stronger if they won’t give him and other kids a chance to play games.
“It got really heated - one trainer shouted and roared in my face and told me my son won’t be playing this year.”
The mum is now finding that history is repeating itself with her younger daughter, who plays camogie on an U12s team.
“There are only 16 girls on her team and they have been, up to now, treated fairly.
“But I have started to see a similar pattern. They got to a semi-final and she came home crying her eyes out. She was a sub again and got on for five minutes.
“Now she is starting to feel like my eldest daughter did. I texted the coach and told him she was really upset.
“There were only two subs that day, why couldn’t they rotate them? I know it can be hard obviously when you have 10 or 12 subs, but there were only two. I never heard back from him.”
The mum has elevated the issue to coaches in her local club, as well as officials working for the GAA in Croke Park after learning that children being left on the sideline isn’t a situation unique to her parish.
She has also set up an Instagram account where parents can anonymously share their stories as she has seen how this behaviour can knock a child’s confidence.
She says: “I have spoken to so many parents over the past four years. I’m not talking about a handful, I mean lots.
“They are all afraid to stand up over it because GAA is so big in rural Ireland.
“It’s a hard thing to do. But kids should be playing a sport they love and there should be space for everybody.
“A lot of coaches' hearts are in the right place. They give up a lot of the time to dedicate to sport and I totally and genuinely appreciate that.
“It’s not all of them, but some of them seem to be getting their own way.
“I’m not looking for my kids to get any special treatment, I’m just looking for equal opportunities for all children.
“If you have 23 kids, you can’t play them all, I totally get that, but they have to make every child feel a part of the team.
“My two girls play hockey now. Every single kid gets the same amount of play, down to the second. They have apps for it. They put in how many children are playing and how long for and the phone buzzes when it’s time to rotate. Why can’t the GAA do that?
“This isn’t just happening in our club, it’s a cultural thing and I alone can’t change it. Something has to be put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen anymore.”
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