God be with the days when the boys and girls of Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds togged off beside the maythorn bushes at the back of the local GAA pitch, writes An Fear Rua...

There was no talk of fancy dressing rooms, hot and cold showers or physio rub downs in those days. No indeed. Cold Easterly gales, in from the Devil's Bit Mountain, swirled around the nether regions of each club stalwart, rendering them numb, with ne'er a word of complaint. Rolls of blue and white, goose-pimpled flesh - not unlike prime whale's blubber - shivered and shimmered in the pelting rain, with mounds of muscles bursting from tattered jerseys - and those were only the girls!

Of course, they did not tog off together. Not at all. The Parish Priest, the Reverend Canon Edward Guiry, PP, VG, had seen to that. The Canon was well-known for his nocturnal patrols of the maythorn bushes at the back of the GAA pitch, armed with his trusty blackthorn stick, that some local wag had nicknamed 'An Bod Dubh'. Many's the upcoming hurling star or camogie starlet were sent on their way from the bushes by a touch of 'An Bod Dubh' in the right place. Maybe tis' a bit more of the same stick the younger generation of today could do with at times, thinks An Fear Rua..

In any event, it is one of the many signs of progress in the GAA in recent years that so many clubs, county boards and provincial councils boast magnificent playing, training and social facilities. For the first time ever, the Central Council proposes to go over IR£50 million into debt to complete the current re-vamp of headquarters, Páirc an Chrócaigh. In all, this project will cost almost IR£120 million, putting Charlie MacCreevy's IR£20 million grant in better perspective. The average racecourse in Ireland gets a higher percentage grant from the government, An Fear Rua understands from some racing folks in the know. And we never hear a word about that money from anyone, least of all the Colonels, Majors and double-barrelled names who still seem to hold so much sway in the aptly-named 'Sport of Kings'.

It's no wonder, then, that the lads in the Ceannárus in Croker were advertising a few big 'management' jobs recently in the newspapers, and using the executive search and selection end of PriceWaterhouseCoopers to find them. (No harm in that either, says An Fear Rua. There's more than a few former Inspectors of Taxes, who turned out in the green and gold of Kerry, gainfully employed by that same PriceWaterhouse crowd. Why not give the bit of work to our own?).

One of the jobs advertised was for a 'Director of Corporate and Financial Affairs'. This man or woman would be 'a qualified finance professional who is also a superior business administrator' and would have 'a key role on the management team encompassing strategic financial planning and advisory services'. Be the hokey, is it a sports organisation or a computer factory we're running, An Fear Rua would like to know?. He hopes the lads in the Ceannárus are not losing the run of themselves completely.

It's a far cry from the time the only 'strategic financial planning' Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds had to worry about was how to raise the funds to pay for the supply of 'hang sangwidges' and scaldy hot tea provided by Ma Molloy in her licensed premises after a Winter nights' training...