Armagh LGFA chair Sinead Reel has warned that the proposed amalgamation of Gaelic games’ governing bodies will not solve all the problems facing ladies football.
The LGFA, Camogie Association and GAA have all voted overwhelmingly in favour of forming one single governing body.
However speaking on this week’s GAA Social, Reel says that although the integration could indeed benefit all parties, there is also the potential for ladies football to “get lost among the bigger picture”.
“The most important people are the players, but will they still be looked after or are we going to dilute our own sport to accommodate the other three?” Reel asked.
“I don’t think it’s going to solve all the problems. It’ll not solve the problem in Armagh because there aren’t enough pitches.
“If you can’t get a county team training on a club pitch at the minute, are we suddenly just going to build pitches all over the place to solve integration?”
Reel spearheaded the £120,000 pitch renovation at McKeever Park in Killean that saw Armagh become the first, and only, ladies inter-county side to have their own facility.
Speaking on the BBC podcast alongside Armagh Ladies captain Kelly Mallon, Reel explained how a need to be effectively self-sufficient with regards to funding has driven the county’s set up.
The county received a £10,000 grant from the Ulster Ladies Council, but according to Reel received a “point blank no” when they asked the GAA for help towards the pitch.
“For the work that we did on the pitch we had to get a sporting loan,” Reel said.
“The field was actually built on the bog road so it was a bog and we completely lifted the whole field. We had to make that decision, we’re weren’t going to wait to fundraise that money, we weren’t going to wait for financial help from governing bodies because it wasn’t there, so that’s why we got a sporting loan.
“There is money out there but ladies Gaelic football is not recognised by certain governing bodies whereas GAA, hurling and camogie is.
“That’s a massive chip on my shoulder and I really want to open that door, not just for Armagh, I want to open that door for any other county that may want to go down that road.”
Those in favour of the merging of the three bodies argue that managing all codes in common will allow each to operate to its best effect.
For Armagh skipper Mallon, a dual-code star, the benefits of having her two sports scheduled by the same centralised body are clear.
“As a dual-player, we had a lot of issues in the club championship, this isn’t even going into inter-county, it’s almost like the Camogie Association and the LGFA don’t like each other,” she said.
“There’s an inability to work together on fixtures, on pitches, whatever it may be. There has been so many clashes of fixtures at inter-county and club level.
“I know they’re starting to work together a lot better now and not have any inter-county clashes. In that regard it has improved massively.”
‘You were training on pitches with car headlights’
Armagh are out to defend their Ulster title when they meet Donegal in Clones in a repeat of the 2021 final, in which Armagh emerged victorious by a solitary point at Healy Park to clinch the provincial crown after an epic battle.
Now training at their own facility, many within the Orchard County set-up are old enough to remember a time when having any pitch, let alone their own, to train on was far from a guarantee.
“You had girls based in Cavan, Galway, Dublin or wherever they were coming from, training could have been changed maybe 45 minutes before so you were going from maybe one side of the county to the other,” reflected Reel, whose own inter-county playing career ended in 2004.
“Sometimes training had to be cancelled completely because we couldn’t get a pitch. You were training on pitches with car headlights because you just couldn’t get anywhere.
“We have come a long, long way… but the facilities still aren’t there. So that’s why we had to push forward, I believe, to get what we need to bring the girls to the next level.”
While hugely thankful for the facilities at Killean, Mallon pointed out that the disparity between the resources made available to the county’s men’s and women’s side remains stark and an indicator of the journey that remains.
“At Killean we have two huts and another hut where the physios come in, masseuses come in and we kind of have a mini-kitchen going on,” Mallon explained.
“After training if we want to have a team meeting, a video session or grab a bite to eat we can do that. It just feels like a luxury to me after so many years of not knowing where we would be.
“I’m buzzing about having Killean and that seems ridiculous but it is really just the huts.”
