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The staggering cost of funding county football teams is revealed in the Galway football board accounts which will be presented to delegates next Monday night at Loughgeorge.

I spent some time with a number of my former Mayo playing colleagues from 1985 last weekend. The Connacht winning side were guests of the Connacht Council last Sunday at the Connacht final. There were some giants of men on that team. TJ Kilgallon, Willie Joe, Padraig Brogan, Sean Lowry, Sean Maher, Noel Durcan, and Big Tom Byrne to name but a few. Anthony ‘Fat Larry’ Finnerty and Frank Noone were both around so laughter was guaranteed. The reunion afforded us an opportunity to reminisce and it got me thinking about the seriousness of modern football and in particular the kind of a lifestyle required from a current inter-county footballer. Thankfully we played in a different era when football was taken seriously but it did not completely dominate your life.

The Connacht Senior Ladies Football Championship final due to take place on Sunday between Galway and Sligo has been called off.

Mayo would still be allowed compete in this year’s Connacht senior football championship, if a solution to the impasse between the county board and the players can be resolved in time, the Mayo Advertiser has learned this week. “We received an email this week on Monday morning from the Mayo County Board informing us that they would be withdrawing from this year’s championship,” Ita Hannon, secretary of the Connacht Ladies’ Council, told the Mayo Advertiser. When asked if Mayo would be readmitted into the championship, she confirmed that the Connacht Council would let them back in if they asked. “Of course we would let them back in. We’d never stop anyone from playing football.”

Both the Mayo and Roscommon county boards could be facing fines from the Connacht Council following an incident that happened at half time in the under 21 Connacht semi-final between the sides on St Patrick’s Day. Secretary of the Connacht Council, John Prenty told the Mayo Advertiser, “I can’t confirm what fines have or will be issued to both counties in relation to the incident, but there have been fines proposed for them. Both counties have up until Friday (March 26) to seek a hearing in relation to the proposals.”

Davitt College, Castlebar, lost out to Cookstown last weekend in the All Ireland Vocational Schools u16A final when they were comprehensively beaten by Cookstown from Tyrone by 1-17 to 0-3. However it emerged that at the beginning of March Crossmolina had played a number of over age players in their Connacht final win over St Tiernan’s. When they found out about this they had no avenue to appeal as they had not made an appeal in time.

Mark Ronaldson has had his appeal against his four week suspension imposed by the CCC turned down. The Shrule Glencorrib club man had a hearing on Wednesday night against his retrospective red card from the Tyrone game. While there are further avenues for appeal open to Ronaldson, there was no decision made at the time this paper went to press. As it stands Ronaldson will miss the game against Dublin on Sunday and next Saturday night’s game away to Derry as his ban will only expire at midnight that night.

The worries over McHale Park being ready for the Connacht semi-final show between Mayo and Roscommon on Saturday June 20 is still up in the air, but it is looking likely that the game will go ahead at the Castlebar venue. Speaking to the Mayo Advertiser yesterday Mayo County board chairman James Waldron was confident that the go ahead will be given.

The freezing conditions that have beset the country have seen the cancellation of the first round of games in the Connacht FBD League this weekend. The Connacht council announced the decision on Wednesday saying: “Due to hazardous driving conditions and having checked the weather forecast for the weekend Connacht GAA Council has postponed the start of the FBD Insurance League until Sunday January 17.” Mayo were scheduled to open their FBD League campaign with a tie in Garrymore against the students from NUIG on Sunday, but all the ties have now been put back a week due to the snow and ice. Mayo will now start their campaign on Sunday week, and follow it up with a game at home to Sligo IT on Sunday January 24 in Charlestown, and wrap up the league stages on Sunday January 31 in Ballinlough against Roscommon. The home final for the league has been pencilled in for either Saturday February 20 or Sunday February 28, and the final against New York on Sunday October 10.

Isn’t it a long season for our inter-county footballers when you consider they had their first match of the year last Sunday week, and some or most of them will be involved at either club or county level for another nine or 10 months. I know that the footballers who take their preparation seriously rarely take a week off, and during those two months of so called inactivity at the end of the year will undertake a maintenance programme so as to not lose their superior levels of fitness. It is very easy to pick these guys out if you attend early season matches as they are normally the players that catch the eye. Pat Kelly, Austin O’Malley, Alan Dillon, and Peadar Gardiner are players that spring to mind immediately when I think of players that live as close to a monastic lifestyle as is possible for young men these days. That is one of the primary reasons why they are right up there when it comes to selecting man of the match performances in the FBD league and early rounds of the National Football league.