'Will there be a Beara team in the Premier Senior Football Championship again? I don’t know...'

FOR the second successive season, Beara will not be competing in the Cork Premier SFC.

The West Cork division with six top-flight County football championship titles to their name and a Munster crown, notified the Cork County Board last week of their decision to pull out once again having also not been able to field in 2023. Beara should be heading to Dunmanway this evening which was the venue for their opening championship game against Muskerry.

News of Beara’s decision to pull out has been a talking point on Leeside over the past week and whatever way you want to look at this, it’s disappointing.

Beara GAA secretary Joseph Blake, former PRO of the Cork County Board and currently one of Cork’s delegates to the Munster Council, explains the timeline that led them to make the decision to pull out of the championship last week.

“Back in November, entries were sought by the Cork County Board, and we then took soundings from clubs as to whether we enter a team or not,” says Blake.

“At Beara’s AGM at the end of last year, there was a positive response by the floor so on the back of that we entered a team for the 2024 championship. The months moved on, and the weather was atrocious for the first few months of this year so there wasn’t an awful lot you could do on the pitch.

“We held a Beara board meeting in April as we weren’t getting positive vibes, and we were told by the delegates to speak to the club managers. We arranged a meeting for the first week of May with the managers and club representatives as not all managers could attend. We had to be realistic as to what was being said. 

The feedback was that we have six clubs in Beara, three of those had no players available.

“Last Tuesday week, I spoke with Imokilly, Avondhu and Muskerry as they were in our group, and then we informed the Cork County Board the following day of our decision."

Blake says the Beara GAA board did everything in their power to put out a team in 2024, but it wasn’t to be.

“Our job is to facilitate the players, it’s up to the players to make a decision as to whether they want to play or not,” the Beara GAA secretary stated.

“In fairness, when we had a team in 2022, the chairman Michael Murphy was outstanding in terms of the sponsorship he got. I know he would have done the same this year, so we had the resources.

“We also had a manager from Killarney in Andrew Fitzgerald, who is highly regarded in Kerry. At the end of the day, you're looking at 20 to 25 players for the three group games, so you're asking for eight players from the three different clubs given the other three clubs had no players available. That wasn’t realistic.

Numbers are dwindling down here in Beara. Times have changed with the split season now but there are some divisions who don’t field in football or hurling and have bigger numbers than Beara. 

"The easiest thing for us to have done was last November to make a decision, we didn’t do that. We took soundings, we got feedback from the clubs, and we had management in place.” 

The split season is a factor, the manpower in Beara isn’t what it used to be and time of the year with lads heading off on holidays and so on are also factors.

“It’s a shame. It’s just a combination of things,” the Adrigole club man says.

“We are the smallest division in Cork and have a small pool of clubs, but our numbers have dropped significantly, the numbers are getting tighter and tighter. We have the history and tradition which is great but that won’t get you 25 footballers to tog out for Beara in 2024.

“It counts for very little when you are looking for players to play championship football on a Thursday evening. These lads are looking at their schedule.” 

FUTURE

The burning question is what is the future for Beara in the Premier SFC? For people of a certain age, seeing Beara captain Ollie Rue O’Sullivan lift the Andy Scannell Cup in 1997 doesn’t feel that long ago.

“It depends on several things. There won’t be a big influx of players, so you're going to be working off the same players. Are the football people of Beara going to put in the effort? Two years ago, we couldn’t get anyone from Beara to manage the football team, so we had to go across the county bounds to get Andrew Fitzgerald, who has been brilliant.

“He tried everything. All he wanted to do was come in before a club training session for 45 minutes and get the players together so the players wouldn’t have to be out an extra night. It didn't happen. Will there be a Beara premier senior football team field again? I don’t know.” Blake concluded.